Archive for February, 2012

SEO and Keywords – Part 2

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

In SEO and Keywords – Part 1 we introduced the elements of Search Engine Marketing that are useful if you’re trying to define your keywords and work out where to go with your campaigns.

In this blog, we’re going to be looking a little bit more at keyword research and why you should consider your Search Engine Marketing activities as a series of building blocks that you will need to continue to cement over the coming months.  It’s a big area after all and there’s a lot to take in.

I’m a national business and want EVERYONE to find me

While we all want to get as much business as possible online, so does everyone else and you have to be realistic about what can be achieved.

Even with websites, businesses constantly ruin them by trying to put too much on a landing page, thinking that by putting out a thousand messages that somehow that’s going to make people buy.  This is not the case.  You have to really think about the end user who has a much more specific plan on what they’re looking for than you could ever hope to second guess.

Search Engine Marketing is no different so while a business may want to go national, there’s a benefit in keeping things smaller and building upon each success, in a kind of ‘ground work’ approach to results.

Getting ranked on easier keywords will have some impact on the more demanding and difficult keywords, so it’s all valid.

If you want quicker results, then localised keywords will be easier to achieve in terms of rankings.  However, never assume that’s the end of your work.  In fact, we’ve written blogs that are all about companies who charge you a fortune for what is actually a much easier exercise.

If you’re looking at national coverage and want the big keywords, then you will need a budget for it and simply won’t achieve this with little work.  It can be done, we’ve done it many times, but you have to be absolutely dedicated to getting it and have the insight to understand that it will take months of SEO work to get there.

However, getting ranked locally will at least give you some presence to start off with and will help moving forward, so consider advice from your Search Engine Marketing provider on how best to approach it.

Of course you don’t need to be too tiny.  There’s probably not much point getting ranked for ‘gifts for her Barnet’, but it may be worth looking at ‘gifts for her London’ because it has a much bigger catchment area and will make a difference to your traffic and sales.

More keywords will surely help

Obviously the more keywords you are ranked for will help you attract more visitors to your website, but if you’re doing this from day one, then it’s just not realistic.

To reiterate the business that feels putting everything on the front page is the right thing to do, Search Engine Marketing success is about being specific and focusing on defined keywords.

If you start an SEO campaign with two or three keywords and then suddenly forget about them, opting for something else all together, you’ve got yourself on to a treadmill with no end point.

Therefore, instead of chopping and changing define your keywords and stick to them!  That way as you gain better rankings you’ll be able to see the progress you’ve made.

In our earlier blog we likened Search Engine Marketing to spinning plates.  Imagine the early keywords are your first four plates and they’re now spinning nicely with no risk of falling for now.  You can then begin adding more plates.  Whereas if you try and get fifty plates started at the same time you’ll end up with a lot of broken crockery.

Great Expectations

Try not to dream about page one rankings as you’ll inevitably get very disappointed.  Instead think of it like the hare and the snail race.  The snail is slow but consistent while the hare goes off at 100 miles per hour.  We all know the moral of the story so try to think of that with your own SEO.

Treat your Search Engine Marketing as a long-term strategy and begin spinning those plates one at a time and you will get the benefits of a healthy, high ranking site that gets lots of visitors.

Paul

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Use Of A Swastika On A Website! What Next?

Friday, February 17th, 2012

Recently while searching Google, I happened upon a rather bizarre and offensive site.  People who read my blog will know that I do try and share information on what I find – some of it SEO based – some of it as a way to offer up new insights in to the online sector.  But for this blog, I am digressing slightly, but most certainly with good reason.

While there has been a lot said recently about the lack of policing on the Internet and how it seems anyone can create a website with content that can offend or is indeed even illegal, it begs belief that in this society a website that looks like the official Her Majesty’s Court Service website, evidently feels that a Swastika is perfectly acceptable as a way to imply that the UK legal system is run by ‘Fascists’

I am not going to go in to whether the legal system in the UK is indeed run by Fascists or controlled by a totalitarian government – but that’s not the point. What I find more offensive is that the Swastika in its Nazi roots can be used in this way, like it has any bearing on something that is so far removed from what happened in Europe and beyond during the Second World War.

It is not remotely funny or clever to utilise a symbol that was part of a regime that imposed genocide on millions of people.  It is completely offensive to use a symbol that stood for a regime that tortured and abused millions of people.  And above all, it is not acceptable to use a symbol that stood for a world where hatred and condemnation of millions of people was allowed to happen, just because of their religion, sexual orientation and race.  It is not clever or justified to use it as a way to degrade the legal system, because the connotations of a Nazi Swastika are fundamentally more serious.

Millions of people died during the Holocaust and in my mind, you do not need to be Jewish to appreciate why it is offensive and how inappropriate it is to use it in a way that completely degrades those that suffered even further. It is not too dissimilar to seeing a certain Royal Family member or Conservative MP parading around a fancy dress party dressed as a member of the Nazi party. If used right, it can be effective satire a la Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, if used wrong it can become grossly offensive.

It’s important to remember that the Swastika and all that can be tied to a time in Europe where the Nazis allowed horrific things to happen to innocent people was actually not really that long ago.  In fact, it was only seventy three years ago that the war started. That’s still within a lifetime for some people who lived through and survived it.

What really annoys me is the fact that upon calling HM Court Centre in Watford to complain about it and to ask if it could be removed completely I was promptly told; “We can’t promise anything. We’ll see what we can do. Someone will call you back right away”.  And guess what? Two weeks later I’m still waiting for that call and the offensive site is still ‘live’.

If someone was to stand on a street corner today, holding up a Swastika citing hatred to certain people in society they would be arrested and certainly wouldn’t be ignored.  There are in fact countries where this behaviour is a criminal offence.  So the fact that it has been used so thoughtlessly on the Internet seems to mean it’s okay and therefore because there appears to be no way to control it, it does not matter.

It’s frankly worrying that a site that also looks like an official HM Courts Service website is even allowed to operate on this basis, particularly when you consider that even pretending to be a Police officer in the UK is a criminal offence.

What is the idiot (Gerry Coulter of Hitchin, Hertfordshire) who is running this site trying to achieve exactly?  Does he have no consideration or respect for a history that saw some of the most awful atrocities ever seen in a lifetime?

So, if it’s so hard to get sites taken down, it’s interesting to consider that anyone who has uploaded content to You Tube of the recent Grammys has had it promptly taken down because of copyright infringement.  Therefore, if You Tube can remove a video of Adele singing so easily, then why is it so hard to do something about a Swastika on a site that is obviously playing on its similarity to HM Court Service, with no thought as to the real impact the Swastika may have to users.

If people want to express their hatred and dislike for our legal system – that’s up to them – but when they show no respect for people who have genuinely had generations of issues because of a regime that had no regard for people it is fundamentally wrong. Let’s not forget, the Nazis under their Swastika flags murdered women, children, men, elderly people, jews, gay people and gypsies during their reign of terror – something that should never be forgotten or abused for the wrong reasons.

The truth is that a Swastika is a symbol for hatred. That hatred became political and was used as the driving force for the murder of millions, and it’s not that long ago that world witnessed this level and degree of intolerance and genocide. Now the legal system in the UK may be riddled with many flaws and even potential ‘illegalities’ in how it operates, and while the justification for a website that highlights these things is not without merit, it’s all in the presentation of that information. They should drop the Swastika and the sensationalist approach if they ever want their message to be taken seriously at all.

Paul

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Facebook And The New Timeline

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

Facebook’s new timeline means that the social media channel is going to be evolving and moving into a new iteration of its life. At first glance, the concept sounds like something from a science fiction film: ‘rebooting the timeline’. The reality is that Facebook is evolving to incorporate new and exciting features, as well as improving current features that have grown stagnant or too static. As its social competitors started to grow in strength, Facebook put a plan in motion to shake-up its foundations and start down a new path in the growing expanse of social media.

I have a huge passion for all things related to search engine marketing and social media, so here’s my breakdown of the key elements of Facebook: The Next Generation.

 

More media, more apps, more customisation

One of the most exciting aspects of Facebook’s timeline unveiling was the customisation that Facebook would now cater for in a big way. Facebook’s developer modules have been popular because they allow the users – especially brands looking to market themselves via social media – to customise their pages in ways that other social platforms cannot.

Every day, there are more brands wising up to using these elements in order to create a richer, more dynamic social experience for the users. Apps add further interaction between the brand and the user within social media, which can help to strengthen engagement with the brand and encourage them onto your website. Utilising these new Facebook elements effectively with a search engine marketing and content strategy could potentially be very effective in driving good traffic to your site.

 

Data

The apps updates segue into the new data features that Facebook will be implementing. Using new analytical software, developers can now learn more about the successes and failings of their integrated apps. They can look at more in-depth usage data to better inform their application development. Open Graph analytics are going to help to show the more engaging content to the users and improve on future applications to maximise user-engagement within social media.

Privacy

As with every update to Facebook, privacy remains the chief concern for users. The new timeline immediately set alarm bells ringing for users, who demanded to know exactly what information would now be available for everybody to see.

To prepare for the implementation, it’s advisable to go and review your privacy settings via Facebook. You are able now to limit the audience for all of your past posts. Although this option is tucked away at the bottom of your privacy settings page, selecting it will mean that people can’t trawl through your past posts if there’s content on there that you may not want them to see. This isn’t an airtight method; anyone tagged can still see the older content and their friends may be able to, too.

If you don’t review your privacy settings and amend them accordingly in time for the timeline introduction, then private information might suddenly become available to anyone searching for it. This might be a particular problem if you have used Facebook as a medium to rant about someone or as a channel to hop onto your soapbox about something that was aggravating you at work.

Facebook’s new timeline should revitalise an already powerful and popular social media channel and take it into a new, exciting era, but it isn’t without its potential problems. Innovation like the timeline is exactly what Facebook needs to differentiate itself from Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

Paul

 

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Integrating Shopping Functions Into Facebook

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

As Facebook continues to expand and develop the reach of social media across the world, the development team is making it easier and easier to customise a business’ Facebook page tailored to its specific offerings. The development apps in Facebook now allow a greater freedom for your business to develop its ecommerce strategy and digital marketing offering, with even more interactive features than ever before. A business Facebook page no longer needs to remain static with usual social updates. Businesses can now make social media their own, but some businesses are too afraid to make the leap from social media to social revolution. Outside of a strong search engine marketing strategy, this could be a huge and untapped resource for any brand wanting to solidify conversions and drive more intelligent traffic to the website.

Social shopping 

Facebook development is seeing a growth boom at the moment and improvements are being made all the time.  Integrating these innovative features into a business page allows you to create richer content within the social sphere and open up their offers or deals to active users within the Facebook page. Adding content like this – unique content is preferable – gives the active users a more comprehensive experience in using the Facebook page. Facebook pages are social communities where fans or customers can interact and discuss your brand. They are also a community where you can interact and engage with your customers on a regular basis. Businesses who integrate their offers and products into their pages are on a strong footing for encouraging more traffic to the website and encouraging purchases through an immediate and time-restricted offer.

Using these social elements is becoming quite popular within the fashion and cosmetics industries, as brands are trying new ways to engage with their customer base and target them with offers.

The Uniqlo clothing brand has several apps within its Uniqlo UK page on Facebook and each one is targeted in a different way. The first app is a digital marketing (e-newsletter) sign-up app – not as grabby as you might think, though. Although it’s encouraging people to add themselves to the database for direct digital marketing, it also incentivises the sign-up by offering a £5 discount voucher for opting to receive the e-shots. This £5 discount voucher could mean that your delivery is free of charge; whichever way you look at it, you’re getting money off for giving them your email. That’s a pretty good deal.

Uniqlo UK has also created a competition app that asks you to create a Uniqlo Christmas wish-list. Each week, the brand chooses a winner and sends them their entire wish-list. This seasonal offering has great sharing potential, encourages participation and encourages them to look through the products on the website to choose their wish-list. Great interaction and it is a great ‘surprise and delight’ for customers at Christmas.

Facebook apps are a great leap forward for ecommerce and targeted offerings. Having them directly integrated into the Facebook page gets a higher level of interaction as users participate in a comfortable environment. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens as a result of the forthcoming timeline feature. There could be bright blue days ahead for social media shopping and I’ll be keeping an excited eye out for the future.

Paul

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