Online Marketing Nottingham

Despite my apparent slacking off in writing a few posts on all things online marketing recently, this does not mean that there has been nothing to write about. There have been numerous mutterings and musings around the web discussing the latest trends of viral marketing, search engine updates and good old fashioned SEO practices. Therefore, rather than pick one in particular, I decided to give a very brief run down of three of the important trends that have got me thinking.

Firstly, good old Google decided to release yet another beta test of their ubiquitous search algorithm this time in the form of the oddly titled 'Caffine'. With the web developing more and more towards UGC and social media, the latest offering from Google was an attempt to harness the more social, 'real time news' aspects of search and provide better search results. It caused quite a stir and has certainly got the online marketing community motivated around the way websites are promoted. Read more about Google Caffine here.

Following on from the Google Caffine update is the power of Twitter from a business perspective. Twitter has grown and grown in popularity recently and is now a far cry from being the playground of Online Marketing professionals that it used to be. It has developed from a concept of taking the basic feature of FaceShite (you know I hate using that word) and turning it into a world influencing power. With people ranging from the Prime Minister to the Gov'ner of California telling us what they had for breakfast, the most influential aspect of it is the speed of which breaking news can be transmitted all over the world. Take the Iran election demonstrations or the death of a celebrity being broadcast before it is seen on national news. Twitter is big business. One of the latest developments is how businesses can use Twitter in a more direct marketing way to really interact with their customers. Watch this latest video about Twitter's plunge into the Business Services world with its Business Product.

Finally, an article that I've taken great interest in is regarding the most basic but prevalent of SEO principles - links. Also following on from the above trends, Google Caffine pays a good deal of attention to links from media sites, especially news websites (BBC, The Guardian etc). Therefore more people have been looking to get links from articles written on certain topics. Thus causing a new medium of advertisers taking money on news sites to place links and paid advertising. This of course going against the principles of Google of paid links. Quite a conundrum for the industry and something I will be watching with great interest. Read more about SEO links here.

Enjoy this and more to follow soon...

As I have now become fully engrossed in international online marketing, I always pay close attention to the deatils of international websites. Some of the questions I ask myself are, how international does this company look - one country or several countries, how are they appealing to the different countries, do they have a separate website for the different countries, have the English pages been translated, are they using a Top Level Domain, Sub Domain or Sub Directory?

All of these questions are important for how the website appeals to a different country and culture. Design for example, can be subtly different for each country. Take the colour red for example, in some countries this is seen as danger or anger, but in China this would be a colour of prosperity. Similarly, some words cannot translate well into different languages. So in English 'GoKu Ltd' might sound fine but in Russian this might tranlate to 'toilet paper' for example. That might sound a bit far fetched but brands and product launches have been known to fail dramatically by failure to do this research.

Next are domain names. I have mentioned before about the importance of using the correct domain names for international websites in this post. If you want to have local presence in a given country, you need to have the right domain name that will prioritise your domain above other international domains. For example, your company GoKu Ltd is expanding into Germany so you have had your website translated into German. Thinking you need an international Domain, you set up www.goku.com. After searching for your company or keywords in Google.de you wonder why you are not appearing in the top search positions. If you notice they will more than likely all be .de domains, i.e. German companies. Therefore, by registering your company on a German top level domain, you can see your website being listed high on Google.de as www.goku.de.

The second part of this equation is equally, if not more, important. You must actually be local. How do you do this?

Hosting is important. If you have the international top level domain, then you should be hosted in that country. Google sees this as very important as it shows to the Googlebot that your goku.de belongs in the Google.de results as a German website. This is important for producing the important 'Local' search results and relevancy. So what about Google? Today I installed a new ad-on to Firefox that is very simple yet very useful. Called Flagfox it simply shows a flag of the country that the website is hosted in. So what? I loaded up Google.co.uk and here's what I found:

Google Germany:

Google France

Google Korea

Notice anything about the flag? Strange that all the 'local' versions are all hosted in the US and it would appear so are the servers. Not a very local position that Google preaches about being international. Something to follow...or not to follow?

A flash of brilliance came into my inbox the other day. I have spoken many times about conversions - so much so that I'm sure everyone is more than aware of its importance. Probably the most frustrating part of managing an eCommerce site can be finding that winning formulae. Quite often, just a simple change can make a difference of 100% improvement in turnover: a banner image, change the position of the checkout, amend the page header - any of which can make a difference. So where do you start?

A simple answer is just to test. You also need to become good friends with your web analytics and keep a sharp eye out for emerging trends. It is a constant process of change and testing to make sure people go where they (and you) want them to go - the checkout.

Now, back to my inbox. A really good video that was sent to me highlighted some of the things that people either miss completely or need to think about in the shopping process. Have a look at this video on making your eCommerce site convert.

The key area under discussion in the interview is improving the checkout process. There are some significant areas that can prove a barrier to conversions that can include:

• forcing people to register or fill out forms before they buy
• not making the shopping cart clear enough
• the hidden costs that appear later in the process
• including more secruity seals.
  

Have you really looked at your conversion funnel? Look again, is there something missing?

As any SEO professional or website owner will know, getting results from SEO can be both a joy and a real frustrating nightmare...figuratively speaking of course. I prefer to see it as a challenge but that's just me.

Whilst working intensively on one of my client's websites, I did reach the stage of frustration where I found myself shouting at my screen "Why is this site not ranking!?" Might I add that this was after hours and days making sure that the details were in place. As most people who do a lot of SEO or subscribe to one of the numerous Mailshots will know, there are countless parts to check to make sure the engine is in tip top condition. I'm talking on and off site mechanics of content, code, links, meta info, sitemaps, robots txt, internal linking structure and of course the wider online strategy for the site. The latter being essential.

I've already stated my own formulae for success a successful website:
SEM (SEO + PPC) + SERPs = ROI seen in this post.

The more you read about what SEO strategy you should be employing, you'll find that the emphasis is always on carrying out procedure. Or that there is always something to work on. It was interesting to find from a professional point of view, to discuss SEO strategies with other people on forums. Why I like to do this is to gauge other people's opinions on what is important and what is not. I'd like to share my opinion on this matter here. Where we (SEO people) all work around the same ethics and techniques, there is always an open opinion as to what is more important and what is not.

Take asking for directions for example. In the UK, if you were in a pub and you asked for direction to somewhere you would quickly find that everyone has a different opinion as to the best way to get there..."no, you don't want the A452 at this hour, you need the B746 and then pick us the A1 south of etc etc etc". The same with SEO. Asking the question of why a site is not ranking I will guarantee you will receive about 50 plus posts on different techniques. What is also fun is that you just might see an argument brewing between two people who have replied.

I am not mocking nor claiming the importance of forums as there are always new ideas to be sought. The point I'm making is that when there are so many options available, which one should or could you take? For a novice this can overwhelming and not easy for a professional sometimes as well.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try a new approach. Quite simply do nothing. Not as radical as it might sound. Let me explain. Working on a client's website with some new page content that they wanted to be found for, I made sure everything was correct and the boxes were ticked. Not a great deal happened and the rankings didn't progress. This was for a site with an established online reputation and domain history. There was not a great deal of competition for the keywords and this didn't matter. So I tried a new tactic...I let it be for a while.

Confident that everything was in place I just let the Search Engines take their course and naturally progress the rankings. What actually happened was that it did actually work. I then try to experiment with other sites and halt work for a week or to. This also had a similar effect and didn't even produce any negative results.

My conclusion was that perhaps there is such a thing as too much SEO? If you are making too many changes perhaps the Google et al will struggle to make up its mind. If you had a site development where the client was constantly requesting changes on a weekly basis, will it ever go live? Taking time for things to settle down makes it easier for the site to be properly indexed. How much time to leave things is dependant on the market that you're site is in of course, as overly competitive market would require regular attention.

The overall point to be made here is that perhaps too much of something can be a bad thing. If you are confident that things have been done right, have a little patience. Therefore, I shall add that to my formulae for online success where P is for Patience:

SEM (SEO + P + PPC) + SERPs = ROI

Strategy + Content + Code + Links + Patience

Now that we're in a new year, it is easy to see what the buzz was for 2008 in the online media world - Social Media.

As the presence of SEO has built over the years and now e Businesses are fully aware that in order to succeed they need to invest in SEO, there has been a lot of attention put onto the next stage of web development. Everyone should now be aware of what exactly Web 2.0 is and how the blogging world has made such an impact. What has been a much welcomed development in SEO has been the take off of blogs. This has given a whole new platform for which people can add to their online marketing strategy and one that has meant that anyone and everyone has a voice of opinion and can talk about what they want to. I have written before about the importance of businesses to have blogs and the value of communicating with your target audience and/or customers. This has developed in 2008 to Social Media.

Most people should now be aware of the networking behemoth that is Facebook - and if you're not where have you been hiding? Before Facecrap - Faceshite - Facebook (sorry), there was the creative MySpace, for the younger audience BeeBo and the much forgotten about MSN Live Spaces, all designed to bring people together and share content. They are now attracting more users than ever and a recent post about the rise of the networking sites really strikes home just how large it is. With over 55,000,000 visitors in December 2008 alone, you can see why social networking is dominating the online world.

Businesses that have observed this increase have already made a move to use Social Networking as part of their marketing mix. A sports coaching gap year company has used its target audience on Facebook ads to drive traffic as well as promoting their Facebook group with great effect. A company promoting quad biking in Nottingham have developed a YouTube channel to show off their activities. All this allows a business to showcase their brands where people can experience and share whats on offer.

The emphasis here is on the word 'share'. Sharing photos, sharing messages and events and more popular than ever now, sharing status updates. Also in the Mashable.com (ref. above) is the rise of microblogging. Twitter has seen a huge increase in popularity, 664% to be exact. For those who don't know what Twitter is check out my 'Tweets' on the right of this blog. Here you can update people with what you are doing any time of the day or night - even from your mobile phone. So once you have shared your status or interesting find on the web, what do you do? This brought about the next phase in social media - Social Bookmarking sites.

With the emphasis on sharing content between users, Social Bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious or Stumble Upon have soared in popularity and have found themselves attached to the footer of all blogs (just check the footer of this post for the bookmarking tools!). You can come across these even on the BBC news website, on YouTube or on a recipie website, all urging you to tell everyone you know about what you're reading/seeing.

This begs the question, in the future what is the role of the search engine going to be? In a separate post about the ways social media will change in 2009, this article mentions that social media is evolving to meet not only the needs of people but also to cross the different platforms. With mobile technology developing we are now increasing able to take our stumbles, status updates or blogs where ever we go.

So a change is on the horizon for SEO. This will definitely not see the end of SEO at all but more like an evolutionary step. Remember that search engines still need to make sense of the information out there. As Eric Schmidt famously quoted recently that the internet is a "Cesspool" where false information thrives, there still needs to be order out of chaos. That which needs to be indexed properly will still need to be optimised to make it appear. With the increased activity of businesses making use of social to promote their products or brands, there still remains a need for this to be structured.

This does mean that the overall nature of SEO will change but definitely for the good. The web is an evolving sphere of information and in order for people to embrace this, we all need to develop our strategies. I for one consider Social Media as already part of SEO.

This is something that I like to emphasise to all people when they start SEO or planning their online marketing campaign. Research is vital. Strategy is vital. Preparing your strategy you must first effectively map out your strategy based upon keyword research. Most people know about keyword research and perhaps even using the Google Adwords tool. When clients come to us they usually have a set of keywords that they assume are the top targets and they ones that they need to optimise for. Quite often I have to be the bearer of bad news...

I as mentioned above, getting the strategy right is crucial to your success in the search engines. You have to be able to clearly and concisely inform both visitors and the search engines what your site is about and where it should be indexed. At the centre of this is effective keyword research as the Search Engine Optimisation is formed around which keywords you select.


If your site is new, or has little domain history, you need to give your site the best chance of succeeding. Vital to this is getting the best 'sporting chance' to succeed. What I mean by this is not by tackling the big targets head on. If you are unfortunate to be a start up online business in the world of 'mortgage advice' for example, then are you really going to achieve stonking success when taking on much larger online brands that have more money and more online presence then you? This is where we analyse the short and long tail keywords.

To those who aren't aware (and it shall be a very small number in the online world) short tail keywords refer to the very general, non specific keywords that have a huge number of search volumes. Not good for your short term strategy really. Long Tail keywords on the other hand are more suited for your strategy. They are focused, target your exact business model and can get you the right visitors. An example of this would be 'mortgage advice in Nottingham'.

While it is good to find the right balance between search volume and high competition, going the opposite direction towards the extreme long tail can be equally as disastrous. A perfect example of this is a site that I came across this morning. Advertising itself as a directory of things to do in Nottinghamshire, there was a page that caught my attention. It was concerned with becoming a partner with them and to highlight their position on the web they listed several keywords where they appeared number 1. I was delighted to see this keyword:

'things to do around nottinghamshire on bank holiday monday 5th may 2008'

Interestingly, they did appear number 1 but I decided to look at the search volume for this keyword. Zero, nothing, zilch. My question would then be: why target, optimise or even report this as a success? You will more than likely reach your number one position but when you might attract around one click per year for it...what is the point?

This is a good example of a lack of proper research. To develop your overall online strategy requires a lot of research into the current search market, your competition and where you want your site to be found. Without effective keyword research, your strategy is lost.

Keeping up with the constant changes in the Google Algorithm is like keeping up with a certain footballer's change in hair style. In fact they may both have a lot in common...lots of money, domination over their market and one small change can make headlines all over the world. So, what was the change this time?

If some of you have not researched or even read countless articles on the mythical algorithm, you may or may not have come to the conclusion that it ends up as searching for the golden fleece. However, with articles like this you have to start listening and maybe even listening to the advice. Not only was the article a good read for the astounding 450 updates that the beloved algorithm (I shall hence forth refer to it as the Alg) had last year, but the answers from Mr Matt Cutts from Google. I like the short translations most of all, i.e. 'Yes' or 'No'.

What is important about this post was that it drove me to take a look at one of my sites in a more detailed look. I was also recently at a advanced Google Adwords seminar where one point came out that caused a real stir amongst the participants. To increase the quality score of your campaigns it is imperative that you have a landing page that is directly relevant to the campaign or ad group keywords. I.e. relevancy and content is most important. I then read a few blog posts to confirm that Google has now taken a liking to content not that it didn't before, but more so now. Content for SEO is king again.

Interested by this I took a look at one of my websites from a content point of view. Looking at some of the keywords, we had them all grouped so they were targeted towards one page in particular. Hmm, this would not do. What we needed was each keyword to have its dedicated page that was full of quality content for both the user and the search engines.



Take for example the keyword for wheelchairs. Instead of having the keywords all directing towards one page, I separated them to have a landing page, for example Lightweight Wheelchairs, Folding Wheelchairs and Travel Wheelchairs. The result? Improved keyword presence for the site, improved visibility of the products and not to mention the user experience wtih the information provided. Content is back and time for us to be focused on the user expeirence!