Showing posts with label SEO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SEO. Show all posts

Google's personalised search changes SEO

Google is rolling out its customised search function to all of the search engine's users, affecting anyone involved in SEO.

Previously only Google users who had signed-in and had enabled their web history on their account have found their search results customised. Now all users will find that if they favour a certain site Google will feature it higher in its search results.

Google says the aim of the move is to provide better search results to its customers. It will also be able to target ads more precisely by building a profile of its users web activity.

As search results will vary from user to user it will make it harder for SEO specialists and marketers to convince Google's algorithms to push a site higher up its search ranking.

A website's position in a Google results page will also be harder to analyse as it will vary from user to user.

Users can turn the personalisation off it remains an opt-out rather than an opt-in service, alarming privacy campaigners.


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The role and effectivness of e-marketing within the Visitor Attraction industry.

Ewom Marketing has just completed a one hundred page plus report entitled: The role and effectiveness of e-marketing within the Visitor Attraction industry.

The report provides an overview of the attraction market specifically looking more closely at wildlife attractions, investigating the impact of the e-marketing, establishing core market factors, strengths and weaknesses, consumer dynamics and attraction trends. The main themes of the report are:

  • How the growth of e-marketing has impacted the visitor attraction industry?
  • What are the key e-marketing channels available for visitor attractions to use in their marketing strategies?
  • What impact is e-marketing having on the visitor numbers?
  • What future marketing opportunities are available for visitor attractions?
  • What are the key target groups for attractions, what sources of information do they use?
  • What does it take to get listed at the top of search engines?
  • Plus find out what REAL Visitor Attraction marketing managers are doing, through the use of 2 case studies!

In addition the report includes guides on the following:

  • Effective PR
  • Tips for an Effective and Efficient Google AdWords Campaign
  • How to Increase YouTube Video Viewing figures & Drive Traffic from YouTube to your website.
  • Guide to making your blog successful
  • Improving your Banner Click-Through Rate!
  • and much more...

The increased usage of the Internet for both social and business purposes has revolutionised the marketing channels available to companies. These channels allow marketers to attract audiences using a pull strategy rather than a push strategy, utilising a more personalised approach. The developments within the world of e-marketing and web 2.0 technologies have also provided companies with platforms upon which they can interact with consumers.

Whilst much literature is available regarding the use of e-marketing within product based industries, there is little research into its usage amongst service businesses, such as visitor attractions. This study identifies how e-marketing is used within the visitor attraction industry, and explores the implications of the tools for visitor attractions. In order to gain a specific insight into the visitor attractions industry a case study of the Bournemouth Oceanarium is used.

To allow for an in-depth analysis of the role and effectiveness of e-marketing within the industry a combination of qualitative based interviews with marketing employees, and a quantitative questionnaire of Oceanarium visitors was used. The results of the interviews highlighted that visitor attractions are adopting e-marketing tools within their marketing mixes’, however the range of tools they are utilising is limited. The questionnaire results confirmed the increased usage of web 2.0 tools such as social networking and blogs amongst visitors, and also highlighted areas where current e-marketing activities needed to be improved upon, particularly with regard to two way communication between the attraction and their visitors.

For information on how you can get a copy of the report please contact Simon via email ewom@ymail.com

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Quick facts about Google Chrome!

For those interested in internet marketing and advertising, anything that Google does catches our attention. Also having a great interest in online marketing, internet broswers is something that I always keep an eye on as I everyday without fail I use one. In recent years, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox browser are the 2 most popular web browser use by internet surfers.However over summer Google came out with a new internet browser which is set to compete with Microsoft Internet Explorer. When Google announced its new open source browser, everyone sat up and took notice.

The new Google browser is called “Google Chrome“. Here are some of the features of Google Chrome:

1) New Tab page
2) Application shortcuts
3) Dynamic tabs
4) Crash control
5) Incognito mode
6) Safe browsing
7) Instant bookmarks
8) Importing settings
9) Simpler downloads
Google Chrome was released in beta for Windows-based systems (a Mac version is planned but isnt scheduled for luanch for awhile yet).
In their press release Google said the following:

In the early days of the Internet, web pages were frequently little more than text. But today the web has evolved into a powerful platform that enables users to collaborate with friends and colleagues through email and other web applications, edit documents, watch videos, listen to music, manage finances and much more. Google Chrome was built for today’s web and for the applications of tomorrow.

“We think of the browser as the window to the web - it’s a tool for users to interact with the web sites and applications they care about, and it’s important that we don’t get in the way of that experience,” said Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management, Google Inc. “Just like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome has a simple user interface with a sophisticated core to enable the modern web.”
The first thing that will strike you about Chrome is its soft, yet elegant interface. Unlike other browsers, it doesn’t have a lot of unnessecary clutter. Its clear from using Google Chrome personally that it was designed to make it easy for users to search and navigate the web for the content they’re looking for.

Speed is the key feature for me and Chrome is built for that. While Chrome beats Microsoft's Internet Explorer on speed, it doesn't do the same when compared with Firefox or Safari on such frequent tasks as launching Web pages. The big question is whether as they will add more and more to it as remember this release was only the beta, will this mean that performance will take second stage to features.

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Questions, Questions, Questions - Back to Basics!

This week on multiple occasions I have spoken to people who were very new to E-Marketing and was asked two very common questions:

1) Why isn't my website the top result in Google?
2) How do we get to be the top result?

Therefore below I attempt address these question with a answer that even people who are new E-Marketing will understand:

To answer these questions you must understand Search Engine Marketing (SEM). These are the strategies used to be the top search result on Google, Yahoo or any other search engine.

Gaining a top search result is critical to most companies this is because almost all customers will begin their investigation on the web.

There are two ways to get onto the Google pages: "organic" and "pay". Basically the organic listing is free and is based on Google's search algorithm that finds the best page based on your search criteria. It is in the main section of the Google page (see orange box on graphic below). The challenge is how to get on the top organic listing. The Google algorithm is a trade secret and the company does not tell anyone how they decide on the top reach results. It is widely assumed that the organic listing is influenced by two things:

1) How often your page is referenced by other sites
2) The popularity of your page.

The key is to be listed within the top 20 searched, which is commonly referred to as "Being on Page 1". 80% of users never go to Page 2. (Personally, I don’t even look beyond the top 5 search listings)

The purple and green boxes denote where companies pay for placement. This is commonly known as Pay for Position, or P4P. It is basically a bidding contest. Every company decides which words they want to "buy" and then decide how much to pay. The company paying the most gets the top position.





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It's Cool To Use Cuil - But Does It Work?

Former Google employees have launched a new search engine in an attempt to rival Google. Cuil claims to index three times as many web pages as any other search engine.

Cuil, pronounced cool, uses about 120 billion web pages to create its index of information. What's with the name Cuil? Well Cuil is Gaelic word meaning knowledge! The site's founders claim that this is more than Google uses, however, Google has stopped reporting how many it indexes.

Cuil's uses search technology which ranks results by the content on each webpage, not by its popularity. It then carefully organizes similar search results into groups and sorts them by category. The results are displayed in a magazine style format, rather than a list. The site looks very boring and lacks colour, It appears that they are trying to stick clear of looking anything like Google as the site is almost the polar opposite of Google, using a black background with grey and blue colours.

Cuil's technology was developed by a team led by Tom Costello and Anna Patterson. between the two of them they have developed search engines at Stanford University and IBM, and worked for Google. Russell Power, Patterson’s former colleague from Google is also involved and is a co founder of Cuil.

Costello stated the follow when Cuil was launched: "The web continues to grow at a fantastic rate and other search engines are unable to keep up with it. Our significant breakthroughs in search technology have enabled us to index much more of the internet, placing nearly the entire web at the fingertips of every user." Unlike Google, Cuil does not keep any personally identifiable information on users or their search histories. Due to the site's search method, personal data collection is unnecessary.

I gave it a try and will not be using it again anytime soon. It brings up loads of results, but unfortunately they're mostly irrelevant and useless. I really like the format, but who cares what it looks like if it doesn't work well! It seemed to have a major problem when I searched for more than one word. In some cases it couldn't even find any sites! whole Google showed 830 sites for the same keyword I searched......and they were relevant.

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Google Knol launched.......

Google has launched a new online information service called Knol to rival internet encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The website allows people to write about their areas of expertise under their bylines in a twist on encyclopaedia Wikipedia, which allows those posting to remain anonymous.

The site has been tested over the past few months, and will offer a set of community tools that offers different forms of interaction between readers and authors, including allowing people to submit comments, rate or write a review of a Knol, with Google ranking entries by popularity.

Other points of difference to Wikipedia include Knol encouraging writers to reduce their contributions on a topic to a single page, which will not be chronologically updated, along with it not allowing visitors to be able to contribute or edit a Knol unless they have the author's permission. Knol has publishing tools similar to single blog pages.

Google wants to rank entries by popularity, decided by user ratings, reviews and how often people refer to the specific pages, to encourage competition.
In another point of difference from Wikipedia, the new offering does not edit or endorse the information and visitors will not be able to edit or contribute to a Knol unless they have the author's permission. Readers will also be able to notify Google if they find any content objectionable.

The website was first announced at the beginning of December 2007 when Google began limited testing on the site. Additionally, if an author includes ads, Google says it will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of the ad placements.

Knol focusing on individual authors or groups of authors in marked contrast to Wikipedia's subject entries. The problem with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit information and stay anonymous, so there is always a stigma as it is unknown if the information is correct and from a reliable source. But if well known knowledgeable people start using Knol, This will enable Google to have a more credible online encyclopedia! Which will wipe the floor with Wikipedia.

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Read All About It! Tips On Making Press Releases Effective!

One of the key tasks I played a major role in over the past year is putting together and issuing press releases. Along the way I have picked up some methods and handy tips so I thought I would share them with readers.

I would recommend to try and issue at least 5 to 10 press releases every year. Sending out a press release once every 2 months will keep your company in the press. Even if you feel that your target audience is small remember that a well written press release will only help build your image and strengthen your current customer base, therefore it really is worth putting a good deal of time into press releases.

The press releases that I usually issued were launching of products, but other good topics for press releases could charity work, or reaching a specific target. This may sound silly but remember the content of a press release needs to be interesting, don’t just use press releases to sell products, the more you capture the reader’s attention the article the greater chance it will be used and even forwarded by readers. You could use a good headline and strong first leading paragraph to do this.

Keep in mind who your target market is. For example if your target market is engineers, then keep to topics they would be interested in, don't focus greatly on sale reports or marketing information.

Remember in this new marketing era, press release can feature on websites, blogs, forums, not just print. I have also heard people say that you have a greater chance of your press release being used by editors if you fax rather than email, but I cannot say that I have experienced this.

Press release are also a great way to build up some contacts in the press. By thanking reporters who used your press release will establish a good relationship between your company which will result in a better chance of future press release being used.

Don't forget also that online press release will increase year Google ranking due to the back linking!

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Flash Google- SEO & Flash!

Great news for everyone who has Flash built website's and Flash content on your websites. On 1st July 2008 Google took its first steps to start to include Flash in its website search.

Although Flash content always looks so smart and simple to use, businesses are always slightly resistant from using it, due to Google not including Flash content in search results.

However Adobe have now developed a special tool for Google & Yahoo to expose the text content within a Flash file to their crawlers. Adobe is providing optimized Adobe Flash Player technology to Google and Yahoo to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines.

Google has already begun to incorporated Flash into its search engine. With Adobe’s help, Google can now better read the content on sites that use Adobe Flash technology, helping users find more relevant information when conducting searches. As a result, millions of pre-existing RIAs and dynamic Web experiences that utilize Adobe Flash technology, including content that loads at runtime, are immediately searchable without the need for companies and developers to alter them. Yahoo is expected to follow shortly.
Those who have use Flash remember that this does not mean Flash content is automatically going to show up in the top of search results. You will still have to battle for the top spot like any other site, and due to Flash content typically not having a lot of text content embedded this could become a difficuilt task.

I have created a webpage for the company I work for, which contains 90% Flash content, the problem is I will now have to do some further work as when I create it I didnt consider making it search engine crawler friendly!

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Google and Yahoo together at last!

Early Today I posted a blog stating that Google and Yahoo were about to sign a deal. Well I have great pleasure to tell you that this deal have been confirmed by a number of news sites. As a Yahoo shareholder this is great news.

According to a statement by Yahoo they expect to earn additional cash flow of $250 million to $450 million within a year of implementing Google's ads on its pages. Yahoo state that this deal will deliver financial value to stockholders and will help them to invest in broader strategy to transform display advertising and advance our starting point objectives with users.

Under the agreement, Yahoo will carry ads purchased by Google advertisers on terms and results pages of its choosing. It may also carry Google ads on non-search pages. The agreement lasts for up to four years, and consists of an initial four-year term followed by options for two three-year renewals.

Some have speculated a Google-Yahoo tie-up on search advertising could create a virtual monopoly for Google. But to me I think Google already have a monopoly, Google already controls nearly 70% of the online search advertising market.

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Yahoo and Google almost tie the knot!


In my last blog I spoke about how Google was dominating the internet search industry, and how Yahoo was struggling to keep up! Well rumors have it that Google and Yahoo are now in the final stages of signing a deal that will combine both their search advertising programs. The partnership will enable Yahoo to show adverts that are supplied by Google alongside its own search results and on some of its other websites.

With Microsoft keep trying to get its hands on Yahoo, with offer after offer, which led to share holders putting pressure on Yahoo executives and Yahoo turning down Microsoft time after time. If Yahoo’s deal with Google does go through, is it purely to get revenge at Microsoft? Well Microsoft, have both claimed that Yahoo! was pursuing a partnership with Google as a "poison pill" to block Microsoft's advances, with many in the internet industry also sharing this opinion. As a Yahoo share holder, I would much rather see Yahoo have a partnership with Google then Microsoft, just look at Google stock compared to Microsoft!

Microsoft’s latest offer was to pay more than $7bn (£3.6bn) for a 16% stake in Yahoo as well as taking over its search business. Yahoo turned this offer down due to wanting to retain its search business, which they considers important to its strategic direction.

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Google UK Search Domination

According to new statistics released today (11th June) by marketing group Hitwise over 87% of all UK searches during May went through Google.

Google sites accounted for 87.30% of all searches throughout the month of May. Yahoo was of course second, but was considerably behind Google with only 4.09% of searches. MSN was the third most popular search website during May according to Hitwise, as it accounted for around 3.70% of UK searches. It was followed by Ask which accounted for just over 3% of searches.
It shocked me that the amount of searches made through Microsoft and Ask were so close to those made through Yahoo. What also surprised me was the difference between the UK and US.
In the US, Google accounted for 68.29% of searches made in May. Yahoo was second again receiving 19.95%, while MSN Search received 5.89% while Ask came fourth again with 4.23%.

These stats clearly show the UK search market is dominated by Google. Although in the US the story looks similar to the UK, the battle doesn't look over yet. We will have to wait and see what happens to Yahoo should Bill Gates gets his greedy little hands on them.
But those with Yahoo shares shouldn't worry too much yet as according to Alexa.com, Yahoo is still the most visited website on a globally scale as a Yahoo's domination of the Asian market.

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YouTube Insights

This week I discovered a wonderful thing….YouTube Insights! I have a channel on YouTube and have uploaded 10 -15 videos for my company, trying to reach our target customers. These are everything from How to guides, getting started videos, demos, presentations, etc.

Although I can tell how many people view the video, I always wondered who exactly was watching them, and were they attracting audience we wanted. Now thanks to YouTube Insights I can find out just that!

YouTube Insights is a free video metrics and analytics service. In March YouTube introduced YouTube Insights, which it aims to extend further in the future. It gives you the demographic breakdown of the viewers of your videos a chance to see who, where, how, when your video was viewed.

The details are collected from YouTube users whenever they watch a video, there sex, age, location and the list goes on. Video-by-video basis the demographics of viewers are broken down.

A bar chart represents the percentage of your audience in different age groups, and a pie chart showing the breakdown of gender. You can then filter that data by country or for a specific time frame.

To access this features, go to the “My Videos” section and simply click on the “Insight” link for any video where you’d like to see the stats.

Insights also shows referrals so you can see what links and methods are effective in driving traffic to your videos or channel on YouTube. As it links to Google they also provide which keywords users found your videos by when searching on Google as well as while searching on YouTube.

Although this data is extremely interesting, its key to remember and not get carried away, try to keep in mind that the data only shows information for viewers who are registered with YouTube. It would be interesting to see the number percentage of registered users compared to those who are not.

After looking at the data provided it from the videos I have created for my business, the data shown in YouTube Insights matches that of what our target customer is. Therefore the data is useful to me as it confirms that our videos are reaching our targeted consumer based

I am surprised that YouTube doesn’t charge for this service. In the future i think they will introduce an “upgraded version” of insights that YouTube users will have to upgrade to a higher level membership. Maybe they already offer a more detailed version to businesses that currently pay for adverts through YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/


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Increase your YouTube Video Viewing figures & Drive Traffic from YouTube to your website!

One of my favorite websites is YouTube. As well as using YouTube to watch videos I have created and uploaded my own. For work purposes I also created a channel on our products, which contained videos such as how to guides and demos. The Channel proved very popular and was a first within the company. YouTube also roved to drove traffic to our websites as well as help ranking in the search engines. Therefore it is very important that when you submit a video to YouTube that you make is Search engine spider friendly. Everything from the title to the thumbnail are very important! Below I have put some information to help you make your YouTube videos help both the viewer and YOU!

Step 1: The perfect title

Make sure that you do not use generic terms and non-specific titles, if you use specific titles, this will be more appealing.

You Can also include capital letters, for example “You HAVE to watch this video!” will be more attractive then “you have to watch this video!” BUT of course don’t over use them.

Step 2: The Video Description

YouTube doesn’t show your whole description unless the user chooses to request more information. Therefore the first thing in your description should be the URL.

Follow this with a short description of your video. Try and stick to a short paragraph this should include all your keywords relating to your video.

If you drastically want to improve your ranking in search results and in YouTube you can even just add a list of keywords after your short paragraph.

Step 3: The Tags

Take advantage of the Tags section and write as many tags as you can until you reach the limit. These tags are mainly used for when users of YouTube search for videos.

Step 4: The Thumbnails

YouTube allows the users to select a thumbnail from a choice of 3 to 4. I discovered that video clips that featured real people received a lot more views then those that contained screenshots and power point presentations.

Extra tips:
Add a watermark to all your videos that contains the URL you want to the viewer to go or display your URL in the last part of the video.

You could show only part of the video on YouTube, and then tell the viewer that they can see the other half of the video on your website! BUT this could have a negative side effect and annoy the viewer and they will not visit your site and will not watch any of your videos in the future!

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Facebook your Product!

While exploring social networks further I discovered a good tool on Facebook for companies who don't have the budget to pay for adverts. Facebook now enables products and brands to have their own special Facebook pages free of cost!

If you go to the homepage of Facebook, at the bottom of the page is some small links, click on the one called Advertisers. Although this takes you to a homepage to buy ads. You will be able see a free opportunity to post a Facebook page for your product or company even if you don't use the Facebook advertise program.

You get to name the page, add images, videos, links, forums, news, and more. Very similar to the group application on Facebook.

I imagine this works stronger for B2C than B2B businesses or strong and well known brands as they have built-in enthusiast and fan bases. Not sure of the impact it has on Search engine ranking yet. I’ll keep you updated!

www.facebook.com

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Improve your Banner Click-Through Rate!

In my opinion banners no longer work well and are pretty useless! Banners usually achieve high click-through rates for the first couple of weeks, but after that they sink pretty quick. There are few ways to increase your click-through rates if you still use banners though, here's a few tricks.......

Use “Action” Words - Use words which ask web users to react for example: “Click Here” Banners with “Click Here” teasers, and similar action phrases will improve click-through rates.

Short and to the Point - using short and to the Point sentences on banners will make a big difference.

What’s the Benefit? - Use statements that offer benefits to the user and offer solutions to solve customers’ problems

Animated Banners vs. Static Banners - Animated banners usually receive more click- through rates then static banners. Users of the Internet are more likely to notice banners that are animated. Further more use a combination of both text and images.

Change your Banners Frequently - After the user has seen your banner for the 3rd time, they will probably ignore the banners in the future. You should track your click-through rate closely and if you notice it falling it is time to change the banner!

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