Sarah G's Online Rambles

Blog Update July 2011

2011-07-19T00:21:00.000-07:00

Quick post, I haven't blogged in a while, over here. But I have been very busy over at the Rocktime Social Blog talking about Channel Optimisation, Local Targeted Campaigns and Social Commerce.

We have had an influx of new Search Marketing wins and are growing the Flashlight Search Marketing team at Rocktime, if you would like to work with me, find out more at the link below. Good luck ;)

Fab digital marketing vacancy Search Marketing Assistant @rocktimesocial in Poole http://t.co/0NPyAjcCloses 25th July.

Rocktime Blogs in March 2011

2011-03-24T02:19:00.000-07:00

As I manage the Rocktime Blog, sharing the blogs I wrote this month. Interestingly the goal posts changed on the blog post plan; alot Twitter posts this month. What I really wanted to blog about was the Google Panda update, if I get round to blogging that this month, will edit this post. Simples...

Next month is all going to be about local targeting, local search campaigns. Already have the material, just finalising some research on local deal sites that the team at Rocktime use.

Fiona is also writing a blog about "How easy it is to get a mobile site" - as this seems to be the question on all our clients lips at the moment, so she is talking to Tech and putting pen to paper and emailing the steps out.

On a personal side of things, I am relaunching a cookery blog which hasn't had any activity for a year. Also on this blog, will be heading down blockbusters at the weekend, to try out one of the Games I haven't played yet, that were nominated at the Game Baftas last week, so will post up a game review. Think I might go for Alan Wake, as I love a thriller.

My March Rocktime Blogs

Twitter Security Feature
Very short post mentioning about the HTTPS Only feature in security settings that recently popped up.

Why you should mobilise your website
Following a meeting with the sales team, this post discusses the latest UK Statistics relating to mobile that we believe will help our clients and propects make the move to mobile website development.

Twitter Promotions explained
Following a conversation with a client on increasing social media reach. Wrote a blog about Twitter promotions, outlining the pros and the cons.

TwitRelief campaign: Bid for a celebrity follower
We got tweeted by Suzi Perry from the Gadget Show, and receive a Direct Message with a Kiss too, so had to blog about it, and also help support a good cause.

Feel free to comment ;)

Rocktime Blogs in Feb 2011

2011-02-28T01:16:00.000-08:00

As I manage the Rocktime Social Blog: Sharing with you each month a selection of posts I was involved in this month. Any questions on the below or if you feel that you can expand on points raised, feel free to leave a comment on the relevant Rocktime post.

Update to Google Social Search: Short blog where I introduce the latest Google Video on Social Search, sharing my love of the fact that Google are increasingly sharing realtime data with their customers.

Adwords UK Trademark Policy: Quite a comprehensive blog where I highlight what you need to know about Adwords UK policy and bidding on trademark names.

eBay Fashion and Augmented Reality App: I invited Alice at Rocktime to review the latest Augmented Reality app from Ebay. We are still finding AR very exciting, I am sure in the future it will be more common place. You can expect more AR blogs on the Rocktime blog, as we watch this area develop.

Facebook Deals Launches in the UK: Co Author on the Facebook Deals post, I have a feeling that Facebook deals is going to move pretty fast, this post gives an overview of what it is all about, how it compares to FourSquare and advice on how deals will work for businesses.

Tangled UK Campaign on Stardoll

2011-02-27T12:57:00.000-08:00

Stardoll members went crazy sending out buzz of the news of the Disney Tangled film Stardoll promotion to receive a free Tangled cape and chameleon character to arrive in their virtual Stardoll Suites. I spent some time this evening visiting some of the popular Stardoll insider blogs, where UK members have let other Stardoll fans know about the spoilers and how to obtain the free (virtual) gifts via going through a UK proxy server and pasting in relevant "/en/" Stardoll links.

Their passion for getting the free 'virtual' gifts in their Stardoll suites is pretty amazing, especially as the demographics are teenagers. This gives indication that Stardoll members are very tech savvy indeed: I would like to think that I would have been in their techy clan when I was a teenager (alas when I was younger the Internet didn't exist and I was in the back bedroom, trying to hack Ceefax on an Acorn Electron. Hence above image!!)

Along with the tech savvy drive of the Stardoll members, I was equally impressed with the campaign and the "Stardoll to Facebook back to Stardoll integration", a few screen shots of the journey below. The journey included a link from Stardoll to a fab Facebook game/app where you have to identify Disney characters hair do’s, then back to Stardoll. A little bit of effort and fun for a free gift, and I was encouraged to Facebook 'like' the page too, so got to know more about the latest movie (which looks great by the way). Fantastic campaign nice work Disney and Stardoll ;)

Competitive Intelligence Tools

2011-02-21T23:51:00.001-08:00

One of my friends has asked me this morning about what resources I use in my reporting to clients. Sharing what I dispatched below, interesting that majority are Google products.

I use Wordtracker for keyword research, and have done now for a number of years. I never just presume a phrase to be correct for a client with their Search Marketing plans and seek to uncover the competitiveness of that phrase and the popularity. This helps me brief expectations and meet them. Otherwise your SEM campaign is based on "just a finger in the wind" ie: not accurate or linked to strategy.

Although only approximate figures, Google Trends is a useful tool to enable you to compare search volume patterns of websites across regions, countries. I also like the fact that when viewing data on the site it will let you know, people who visited this site "also visited" and "also searched for". Trends is pretty addictive so set a good amount of time to really dig into the data and set yourself up with a cup of coffee and a couple of biscuits.

Googles Insights for Search is pretty cool tool and like the rest, once you delve in you can be in there for hours (trust me). The tool is similar to Google Trends, but more focused on words over sites. You can review a keyword trend over time, start with your main keywords (that bring in the most traffic) and then view your performance (against) your competition. The data you find will help raise questions and potentially help you get sign off for search marketing campaign budgets. It is useful to throw a few brand names into Google Insights and see which one performs best and check keyword trends in a number of regions too to highlight interest, which could assist with International expansion. Basically Google Insights can provide you with a whole heap of new opportunities. I saw this post a couple of days ago in the New Scientist: Can Google searches predict Oscar Winners, go check it out.

For paid search keyword reporting, you can get an idea of the volume, cost per clicks of keywords using Google's Adwords Keyword Tool. In all honestly I have never really found this to be very accurate and that the numbers are often inflated. However it does give you some indication of budget that needs to be set to targeted campaign. I rarely use it.

Another place in which you can use a whole heap of time (you have been forewarned!!) is the DoubleClick AdPlanner, similar to Google trends this little portal is pretty addictive and can help you refine your online advertising. It is useful to obtain demographic and psychographic analysis (age, gender, income, education) of a sites audience. I have used this to find new advertising portals and to capture information on bloggers reach to convince clients to run competitions with them, as unfortunately with large businesses, the top table generally what to know about the potential reach numbers. Another handy thing about the Adplanner is that it will let you know "people who visited this website also visited this", which is a really handy feature and can lead you to find a whole heap of new advertising opportunities for your clients.

There is also Hitwise too, which is expensive, but invaluble if you have the resource to make the most of the data, I highly recommend it, very easy to use and the information that you receive on competitors, market share (online) can lead to one thing, progression - which is what we all need.

Before Google existed we had "Brad", these guys are still around and their website states that they provide: "Effective planning with in-depth media intellegence at your fingertips", so if you have the budget you know who to call.

And finally for a bit of fun to compare the results of two competing keywords, opt for Google Fight where an animation helps decide the winner.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

My January in images

2011-02-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

On January the 1st 2011 I started my quest of taking an image a day. I have been uploading the photos to Twitter and as my Twitter links to my Delicious bookmarking account I have a quick way to source them all. The above shows the full collection of my iPhone images for January 2011.

The reason I have embarked on this project, is not because I am interested in photography, neither is the quest to remember what I did (although finding that a benefit). The goal is simple: "to get me to get away from my work desk more and seek out the new and the interesting". This month it seems it has mainly been about shopping, food, wine and gaming. What will next month bring, time will tell.

Although it is often difficult to find a picture to reflect your day, I am really enjoying this project and think it may even help me reflect a bit more on what is important to me (in life).

Sarah ;)

Geek Hoodie Love

2011-02-01T03:39:00.000-08:00

As I like to talk about 'Geek product finds' on my blog, thought to give a shout out to this ladies hoodie, hope to get this for my Birthday in March ("because I'm worth it").

I spotted this hoodie last week over at Hydr8board Sports website (a local shop to me Lilliput, Sandbanks and a work client). The hoodie is uber geeky as it features machine washable headphones built right into the fabric, designed so that there are no visable wires and the plug to hook up your mp3 player is cleverly hidden in the pocket. Genius.

The hoodie is from the Rusty Wired Series and the technology is from the new InSoundTM brand from HB3 Technology who are paving the way on embedding audio functionality into clothes and garments, do go and check them out.

It's listed as £49.99 on the Hydr8board Sport website, pretty reasonable for a styled hoodie. I hope this product takes off by March, as otherwise people will know me around Bournemouth as the girl who puts her hoodie draw cords in her ears!!

My win with @OlivesEtAl

2011-01-15T09:09:00.000-08:00

After winning a Twitter competition last week with @OlivesEtAl I received a lovely Kilner jar of Sunshine Olives. I let them know via Twitter that I would be attempting one of their recipes (featuring Sunshine Olives) featured on their website and that I would send them a pic of the finished dish. Will share this with you below.

I seem to keep bumping into Olive Et Al at local Deli's, local food fairs, I love love their distinctive packaging and have been a fan of their story for some time now. There is a fab 5 minute video over at Jamie Olivers website, which interviews one of the founders: Giles Henschel, where he explains how the business began, his passion on using traditional methods in preparing the Olives (dating back 6000 yrs) , the best thing he likes about his job etc. If you are passionate about local produce & like to hear business success stories: go view the video here.

The recipe I stole & adapted slightly (no Thyme) from Olives Et Al, wasn't particularly adventurous, however I did make my own fresh tagliatelle (new Pasta Making machine for Xmas).

So for lunch we both had: Roast Veg Pasta with Sunshine Olives and it was delicious.

Rather than fresh Thyme, I stirred in Jamie Olivers Pesto to the Roasted Veg, the olives & pine nuts finished the dish off lovely. So many thanks sent to Olives Et Al, for allowing us to have a very posh lunch on a Saturday.

My short 2011 wishlist

2011-01-11T13:49:00.000-08:00

1. To reach for the SKY rather than the MOON. Write short resolution lists. Chillax & roll with it

2. Follow the "Tooth Brush Principle"

3. Plan early (& save) for trips to see mates & relatives

4. Get a North Face Jacket (as I am mid 30's) so no excuses not to go for a walk on the beach

5. Send Thank you cards often

6. Find a niche for my blog

7. Start freelancing for money, rather than fun (Have a wedding to pay for)

8. Review my issue of keeping hold of unnecessary paperwork at home and work

9. Find a place that inspires me

10. Share my experiences via social media

The Digital Story of the Nativity

2010-12-21T04:49:00.000-08:00

Love love this so had to share, the video from the clever http://www.excentric.pt tells the story of the Nativity through social media, the web and mobile. The integrated approach is something I have been talking about all year, so it really suits my mindset.

Happy Christmas

Blog Log: November 2010

2010-12-06T23:44:00.000-08:00

What I blogged about in November over at the Rocktime Blog, feel free to click through on the header for more info:

Social Media Meets Commerce:

A blog introducing the Ebay Group Gift Service (launched in the US) and the fact that the UK aren't ready for it yet.

Facebook Pages Building the Real Community:

I really like this blog post. I am banging on that great content is key on Facebook Pages and along with talking about building a community, I share some lessons in engagement, sharing these below:

Lessons in Engagement

Give your fans a reason to visit
Get them to love your page so they can recommend you to others
Provide interesting insights of value (to the fan)
Share news
Competitions
Deliver informative information which indicates that you know your industry and don't constantly promote your products or service
Give people a reason to talk about the page
Introduce people to the reasons as to why they should be visiting or liking the page
Be chatty & human to encourage conversation and ensure ongoing interaction
When delivering Facebook Ads, keep the target audience in mind, deliver an ad that will resonate with your fan rather than shouting about how great you are
Advertise on the Facebook page to encourage further interaction on your site
Make a note of all your customer touch points (Newsletters, Lost password, Page 404 not found) and how you can advertise your networks of interaction there to encourage Facebook Page fan growth
Finally, keep it real (think topical stories and conversations)

Amazon Black Friday Hits the UK:

I also introduced Amazon Black Friday. News is I didn't manage to get any of the deals, went for the Flip Cam and Xbox Offer. However I did have a giggle over at the Facebook Amazon UK page, when an Amazon Friday winner bragged about all products he managed to get, to then be shamed by the Amazon UK Facebook Page Fans, with "we will find you on Ebay comments". Pretty funny.

P P Pick up a #sHamleys Penguin Story

2010-12-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

If only Hamleys had a social media strategy, this would never have happened.

I found out about the story last night on Twitter, it really wound me up, that Hamleys weren't responding via Twitter and I was more wound up by the morning to see they were still keeping silent.

For someone passionate about social media like me, this was a hard pill to swallow.

This morning I saw the events unfold, as the media got hold of the story and more bloggers started to blog about: what Hamleys are planning to do.

It would have been so simple to fix, @Jamesmb (from: http://www.socialholic.co.uk) tweeted last night, that one tweet could have fixed this and I agree with him.

Along with "if only they had a social media strategy", the other "ifs" include:

If only they educated earlier about the penguins welfare, provided positive information for people to share !

If only they spoke to the people who had concerns promptly.

If only they understood the point of Twitter!!

My recommendation for #shamleys was to ditch n slide the live penguins and to put up a big screen on the Ground Floor to show Penguin Webcam at Edinburgh Zoo > http://bit.ly/eIIwDN which was (incedently) an Internet Hit on Monday. Have they got back to me. No they haven't, this isn't social media !!

As the above image of the Penguin Pile Up image shows "Some will stand firm, some will wobble and some will tumble down" - the same rings true for those entering social media without a strategy.

Thought to share a collection of a few blogs, news stories, forum posts and tweets that cut n pasted over a Greggs Pastie at lunch time.

Power to the People ;) Will check the links out later - as busy at work now...

Tweets

@Wildlifephotog - We'll update the blog on #sHamleys as and when thing happen today http://bit.ly/d5BqaI

Via @achrisevans Final call for should real penguins go to hamleys for a spot of Xmas fun. First fruitcake poll. #fruitcake YES #fruitcake NO. about 7 hours ago via ÜberTwitter Retweeted by WildlifePhotog and 4 others

Blogs

Please keep telling Hamleys this is wrong – Wildlife & travel ...
30 Nov 2010 ... Please keep telling Hamleys this is wrong. by Darren. Well, it's been a busy 24 hours since last night I tweeted about Hamleys outrageous ...
www.wildlifephotography.tv/please-keep-telling-hamleys-this-is-wrong/

Born Free Blog
Please e-mail Hamleys at customerservices@hamleys.co.uk or contact the store via their Facebook page ...
www.bornfree.org.uk/blog/

Hamleys' penguin and reindeer show angers animal welfare supporters
ParentDish UK - Kelly Rose Bradford - ‎3 hours ago‎
Hamleys on London's Regent Street had advertised an in-store event featuring live penguin and reindeer as a Christmas treat for youngsters. ...

Hamleys – the world's most appalling toy store #sHamleys at ...
1 day ago by Socialholic
Take a look at this website – yes, it's Hamleys and, yes, you too can go to a central London store, possibly one of the busiest London stores that exists (especially at this time of year), full of excited and loud ...
http://www.socialholic.co.uk/

Naughty Hamleys, Penguins and Reindeer Are Not Toys
1 day ago by Mat
Not only are Hamleys having a week long “Reindeer Park”, where for two hours per day you can “pat and feed our beautiful mummy and baby reindeer!“, but for four hours on Monday 6th December, you can “see the penguins swim, interact with ...
http://matstace.me.uk/blog/

Hamleys Toy Store Of London, A PR Disaster For Christmas?
1 day ago by admin
Hamleys are having live Reindeer and Penguins in store at what must be one of the busiest times of the year and the Animal Welfare groups are not happy. People are creating enough negative noise via social media about Hamleys Christmas ...
http://blog.pauldaviddrabble.co.uk/

News

Outrage Over Hamleys' Live Penguin Display
Sky News - Pete Norman - ‎1 hour ago‎
Hamleys toy store in London has sparked outrage for its plans to bring real penguins and reindeer into the shop as part of a Christmas promotion. ...

Hamleys defies animal rights outrage at live penguin show
This is London - ‎2 hours ago‎
Hamleys today declared it was pressing ahead with plans to have live penguins in the Regent Street toy store despite protests from animal welfare groups. ...
(NB: Image taken from this site)

Fury over Hamleys' live penguin show
The Sun - Virginia Wheeler - ‎12 hours ago‎
HAMLEYS sparked fury from wildlife groups and animal lovers yesterday - over plans to have LIVE penguins and reindeer in the toy store ...

Forums

Live penguins in Hamleys Central London toy store? - Pet Forums ...
14 hours ago by shibby
Has anyone heard this story yet? Live Penguin Show at Hamleys Criticised by Bloggers, Tweeters Londonist Hamleys – the world's most.
http://www.petforums.co.uk/general-chat/134932-live-penguins-hamleys-central-london-toy-store.html

Live Penguins + Reindeer in Hamleys - Wild About Britain
1 day ago by Ukwildlifeo
Sorry not sure where to put this, but Hamleys toy store London are currently advertising a display of real reindeer and penguins in their shop.
http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/general-wildlife/79003-live-penguins-reindeer-hamleys.html

Is it a table is it a frame - Amazing!

2010-11-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

A new addition to my blog, is going to be about 'Storage Solutions'. I am constantly on the look out, on how to create more space in the house/flat. Going to share any storage solutions findings here to help inspire me (and others) on my 'Place for everything' mission (and an end to the Monica cupboard).

My friend at work sent me a link to this table / picture frame piece of furniture. The designer can be found here. How cool is it !! Thinking of challenging @the_burb to make one for the kitchen. Can't be too difficult, just 4 pieces of wood, pane of glass and some clippy things..;) Simple !!

Actually ditch the glass, could be health and safety issue, and just paint with Magic Chalk Board paint instead. Ikea if you are listening, I would pay £35 for this & with the addition of chalk board paint £45. I thank you.

BAFTA Kids Vote 2010 - Big Kids Vote for Stardoll

2010-11-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

As a big ambassador and self confessed fan of Stardoll, I've just been checking out the BAFTA Kids Vote 2010 tonight (whilst trying to watch 'The Event'!, totally lost now) to check out this year's web nominations. Stardoll are nominated and I've done something really naughty and voted, and should be aged 7 - 14yrs, sshhh, don't tell anyone!!

Voting for the BAFTA Kids Vote 2010 opened end of October 2010 and closes 26th November 2010, so if you know any teenagers and nearly teenagers let them know about it.

Along with Stardoll the other nominations for the Best Web Site this year include:

I didn't just visit my blog tonight to tell you about my voting confession, thought to pop by to say how much I love the BAFTA Kids Vote interactive site / Barney's Bafta Boulevard. I have been playing on it for half the night!!

It was designed by 'Complete Control' a web design agency & online game developers, that I can't believe I haven't heard about before.

It's always nice to find an agency that have developed on a niche area & won big time, they have only been around for just over 10 years and boast a really impressive client list including: CBBC, Nickelodeon, Charlie and Lola, Dr Who, Topsy and Tim, Mr Bean, Penguin and a number of high profile charities such as Comic Relief, NSPCC, Oxfam, Unicef.

Well done guys!! Lots of jobs very well done.

Check them out here and prepare to be amazed by their quirky style & talent.

IMO: Best Pub Restaurant in the UK

2010-10-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

I was so impressed, decided to blog my excitement over this place as I will be recommending it to friends: Introducing the Lord Poulett Arms in Hinton St George, Somerset. My parents took me and The Burb there a couple of weeks ago for Sunday Lunch. Everything was excellent, the ambience, the food, the interior design, the patrons, the staff, the loos (the boys reported their loos were interesting too). The food is really really fantastic, great presentation & great taste. If you are planning a holiday near Somerset, then you must book your table early and visit this place. You will not be disappointed.

I think I may enquire about getting married there, it just felt so right, only 100 guests though, hmm who could I cut of my list. Check out their website here:

Campaign for Fun 404 pages

2010-10-21T23:39:00.000-07:00

We've all seen them, 404 pages. On websites that are served by Windows servers it is a plain white page that has this text:

Error 404 - The page cannot be found

The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Please try the following:

If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.

Open the www.mysite.com home page, and then look for links to the information you want.

Click the Back button to try another link.

This screams BORING and I have decided this year and into 2011, I will be campaigning (via Rocktime) to make our clients 404 pages more friendly, attractive and useful to visitors.

Anyone reading this can have a more attractive 'page not found page' on their site, you just need to ask your website host to set it up so you can use your own custom made 404 page, which makes it clear to users that they have indeed found the right website and have simply landed on the wrong page.

For usability I suggest you link your 404 page back to your home page or maybe provide a Sitemap too (that would be handy) or direct them to the inbuilt search engine built on your site.

Mashable recently shared 35 Entertaining 404 pages check them out here:

Hopefully our designer can pull something very special out of the bag, and we will appear on the Mashable list in the new year.

Loved this: Impulse ‘Shopping Spree App’

2010-10-06T04:19:00.001-07:00

I really liked this on pack promotion from Impulse (Unilever), which drives the savvy customer straight to the "Impulse Diaries" Facebook fan page, and invites them via a 'Shopping Spree' Facebook App to key in the on pack code.

Really straight forward and easy process. I am sure it will have a very positive outcome amongst their target audience.

A couple of days ago, I read on Mashable about a recent study of more than 1,600 people aged 18 to 60 (by DDB Worldwide and Opinionway Research), found that 75% of those who liked a brand on Facebook did so because of an ad or another form of direct outreach. Invitations from friends was the impetus for 59% of likes, while personal research accounted for just 49% of them.

So sounds like I am not the only one who is compelled to follow these ads through to the Facebook page. Interesting....

Shame I had nothing to do with this campaign..> find out more about 'Bilington Cartmell' the agency that created this integrated marketing campaign here and view their fabulous graphics.

A job well done.

Sarah x

Game Review: Heavy Rain PlayStation3

2010-09-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

Format: PS3
Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Released: 24 February 2010

Score: 9/10

Summary: Heavy Rain - asks you to make some tough decisions in a video game.

Four characters are hunting for the Origami Killer in what I am classing as an “Interactive Thrilling Drama”. The animation, music (recorded @ Abbey Road Studios) and attention to detail in every shot are excellent, engaging the player from the start - in summary, it all just feels so very real.

The game is great for two players (passing over game controller), as you can talk about the decisions you make (quickly!!).

It begins in one of the main characters family home, Ethan and his wife are preparing for one of their kids birthday parties. It is a domestic scene in an idealistic family home, during this gameplay you really get a sense of the sensitivity of the controllers. For example: Ethans wife invites Ethan to put the plates out for dinner, you need to be very sensitive in the placement of the plates otherwise your wife will shout at you!

All actions are in context, in this early part of the game I was telling @the_burb to go over to the sink and let Ethan give his stressed out wife a “sink cuddle”, and you could do that!

There are streaming character thoughts that you can access via the controller to determine the characters next step. We identified quite early in the game that if you choose the wrong way to set up a sentence, then it can have negative consequences, for example in another scene @the_burb made a lady of the night cry, I grabbed controller off him and gave her a tissue to clear up the problem.

Although not designed for two player, it does work as a great game you can play with others. We even put the game on when we had friends round for dinner (is that wrong!!) and there were then four of us, deciding what to do next. The experience really sits with the one with the game controller, thanks to the well timed Playstation controller vibrations, letting you know... “it is going to kick off in a minute”.

David Cage the director is amazing, I am in awe of him and advise you to watch the above interview to understand more about the premise behind ‘Heavy Rain’. I especially like the point he makes about how he wished to make a game that will trigger real emotions. Mr Cage it worked for me, I was terrified in some scenes and really sad in others.

What I really like about the game, is that even the character prompts (to make a decision) move in context with what is on the screen. Even the controller actions scatter around the screen in moments of high stress. Brilliant !! While all that is going on you have to really have to keep a close eye on the game at all times of and look for clues of next steps.

Some of the controller actions are a little complicated from X, R1, L2 and Triangle, but then this fits in context with the scene. At one point I was in a tricky life threatening situation, which included a tricky controller move, this put me in a state of panic which was a similar state to what the character was feeling at the time. I saved a character but left another behind to face the inevitable consequences. So at this point, I guess I changed the game play. Would need to play again
to change the destinies of those characters. I was pretty disappointed about my decision of loosing one character to save another, they didn’t deserve it, plus I had recently just killed off another character in an earlier scene. Began to feel remorseful. A game that takes you to that place, of feeling disappointed in your actions and worried about the future, is amazing and why this game gets a 9/10

The game is not only ambitious, it is brave and shows a tale of how real people may react in certain environments, you really do see the characters crumble and at the same time due to the script you are in a constant need to keep the game play moving.

The four main characters in the game include; Ethan, FB1 agent Norman Jayden, Private Investigator Scott Shelby and Journalist Madison Page.

Norman Jayden was my favourite character, as he collated the killer profile, had a heavy virtual reality addiction and there was the good cop bad cop thing going on too (like it).

Those that know me, are aware of my very vidid imagination. To share my thoughts: a way that this game could have been more shocking, would be to close the mirrored bathroom cabinet, then have a face in the mirror !! Arrrh scared just writing that.

Go play / experience Heavy Rain, I am sure you won’t be disappointed.

Make sure you check out the extras too, for the making off, casting calls and for the collection of graphics.

Have fun and for full effect make sure you play it in the dark.. Enjoy ;)

Marathon Mad! - 105 Marathons in 105 Days around Britain

2010-09-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

My friends mate is doing something quite extraordinary, he is on a quest to run 105 marathons in 105 days around Britain.

As a non runner I don’t quite understand it...the aching; sweating; twitching muscles; injuries; being delirious and not forgetting the overall pain.

My bloke @the_burb has run the London marathon, I asked him why he did it, the answer was “because I wanted to do it”.   So there you have it, you either want to run a marathon or you don’t.

But to want to run 105!!   

Anyway as this is such a BIG quest, thought to expand his ‘social graph’ and blog about it and ask you to support Neil who from 10th Sept to 23rd Dec 2010, is running the 105 marathons in 105 days around Britain for Cancer Research UK.

He stated on his Marathon Mad Facebook support page here: which he has linked to his Just Giving page: http://www.justgiving.com/neil-o-maonaigh-lennon

 “Keep the donations coming as even a couple of quid will make a big difference”

On day two he raised £2,210 for Cancer Research UK and 22% towards his target of £10,000. Well done him.
 
Please do share this blog, re-blog it and RT to spread the word further, as 105 marathons in 105 days seems like a pretty awesome deed to do to raise money.

I wish he was on Twitter as I would be interested to hear the progress in real time and see the photos on route too.

To find out more about raising money online and on using Twitter for Fundraising then go visit Mashable who have listed 10 ways to start a fund for social good online and they have also discussed 10 tips for successful Twitter Fundraising.

Good luck Neil and your Facebook page says it all - you must simply be "Marathon Mad"

Beth is our New Marketing Manager for Social Media - Brilliant !! Thanks Dilbert

2010-09-14T02:35:00.000-07:00

The influence over numbers argument

2010-09-14T01:40:00.000-07:00

The above table from http://www.emarketer.com/, which is backed up by an ExactTarget study, reproduced by eMarketer, assists with the "influence over numbers argument" on Twitter, as it shows that US Twitter users in April 2010 were far more interactive online, than general internet users. The results table indicates that US Twitter user’s were more likely than general internet users to post to forums, to write their own blog, comment on blogs and post ratings and reviews.

I have written what this means for brands and companies over at the Rocktime Blog.

View the Influence over numbers arguement post here

Stardoll Review: 100% Engagement

2010-08-27T00:11:00.001-07:00

About Stardoll

Stardoll is the worlds largest virtual entertainment and social gaming site for teenagers that provides a fun approach to those interested in fame, fashion and making friends.

A browser-based community site, designed specifically for girls (although boys are welcomed), with a strong focus on self expression through fantasy & fashion play. Upon registering (for free) you receive a virtual home ('the suite'), which you can decorate at your leisure. Depending on your Stardoll status (you can upgrade at cost to Stardoll SuperStar) and budget (Stardollars / Virtual points) there is a wide range of clothes, makeup accessories, interior design features and dolls to choose from.

When members move through the site you are made aware of the benefits of becoming a paid for member. Some clothes and interactive features are for 'Superstar' members only, and these premium members can then further customize their own fashions and sell them for virtual currency. I have found that without 'Superstar status' you can still have a great onsite experience, as you receive a reasonable amount of Stardollars on sign up, you can also earn currency through game play. With 'Play & Earn' you can receive up to 5 Stardollars per day and 70 Stardollars per month.

Stardoll is not over pushy about upgrades, as you play on Stardoll learn more about navigating the site then membership to SuperStar status is a motivational progression rather than something that is obligatory.

Stardoll = Interactivity, Design, Community and Brand Engagement

Stardolls can interact with their own virtual Stardoll and dress up their Stardoll in the designed suites (designed by members) filled with virtual brand attire. Members can try lots of different looks and styles on there dolls and celeb dolls allowing for personal expression & creativity. There is even the opportunity to create your own fashions, using a very interactive design room feature complete with sewing machine ('I love this feature").

Talking to the Commercial Director at Stardoll, at one point Stardoll was "delivering more traffic to DKNY than Google" ! pretty impressive stat. We (Rocktime) have seen equally impressive stats after introducing Stardoll to Simple last year. All really positive and well worth the investment.

The design of the site is really colorful and engaging. I am constantly impressed with the graphics within Stardoll, it is a very immersive and fun place to be. I will provide a more comprehensive review below.

The Statistics

The latest membership statistics have shown that the average age of users has increased from 13yrs old in 2009 to 15yrs old in 2010 and memberships levels are growing at an impressive rate.

Registered users have doubled in 1 year from 35 to 68.7 million.

Average time on the site has increased from 13 minutes to 17 minutes.

Safety & Security

Parental advice is promoted within the help area, providing a vast amount of information, useful weblinks and puts onus of the parents to talk to their children on internet safety. The site can easily be navigated by savvy web teens, younger children may need more guidance to help them find their way around the links.

My Stardoll Review

First and foremost Stardoll.com delivers and targets the youth market well. There’s lots of room for engagement for brands, due to the technical and design expertise of the Stardoll team. The Stardoll team are also full of creative ideas too, I have a number of video presentations from Stardoll and can let you know they are very convincing indeed (re: getting you to sign up).

Advertising Opportunities

There are several advertising opportunities for brands on the Stardoll site, the site is great at being non advert heavy and rather than delivering adverts they look for brands to provide content and engagement.

For example Simple have their own Stardoll Club and are the proud sponsors of the engaging Stardoll TV, in which a member of their Junior Board of Skincare Advisors is now one of the Stardoll TV stars. The benefit Simple gain from being out there on Stardoll is, engagement with the Teens, which helps them to softly promote their new Teen Simple range of Skincare products.

Experts in their field

In my opinion Stardoll really do have a great opportunity to be an experts in the field of fashion, fame and trends amongst Teens. They are providing the right amount of content, good range of brands and allow their members to develop relationships, share experiences (blog, albums, suites) and provide benefits with creative competitions on & off the site. The competitions / contests promote engagement with Stardoll & other brands.

New site design July 2010

In July 2010 Stardoll launched with a new site design, allowing for easier navigation, promotion of community aspect & provision of more integrated share features linking in with Facebook & Twitter. Stardoll have also launched a Stardoll Blog, which is a very positive move as I have noted (client research) that several Stardoll Fans regularly blog about their Stardoll experiences (all positive)- now Stardolls can have their own blog from within Stardoll that other members can view. This is positive also for parents that which to monitor website activity.

Standard Interactivity Available

* Create your own Stardoll
* Shop clothes for your Stardoll
* Give your doll a makeover
* Design your suite

* Save your dolls, styles and several free celebrity dolls in album
* Join Clubs
* Take part in Stardoll Contests - "Be the Stardoll CoverGirl"
* Rate the best Stardolls, Albums etc
* Learn about Fashion and the latest trends
* Engage with the Stardoll Blog & Social Networks

Level of Skill Required

Some of the suites/rooms designed by Stardolls are amazing & really really creative..great use of colour, with objects re-sized to create depth. As a member I have a lot to learn, which is great as being inspired by others (even if 20yrs younger than me) provides great escapism. With the new design, tutorials on how to use certain features have been introduced, which is a positive move for the younger Stardoll members & possibly their parents. I like the fact that you can now clearly see which other Stardoll members have last viewed your Stardoll Suite, which allows for further engagement as you then go and find out more about them; their Stardoll Suite, their Blog etc.

Things I am fond of with new design

With the new site design, I am really pleased to see that Stardoll has also now entered the blogosphere (on Wordpress) here at the Stardollblog.com, sharing unique sneak previews, shopping tips and Stardoll gossip.

The new design has not only provided aesthetic benefits, improved navigation & usability it is also promoted a much stronger community feel, this is backed up by the “Play & Earn” feature. I am especially fond of the new way to navigate around the suite (big arrows moving you left or right), as I used to struggle with this. Oh and I am loving Stardoll TV too.

Navigation Feedback: For increased usability I do think that the navigation arrows could come below the suite, as I just spent a couple of minutes trying to put a pair of shoes in the storage wardrobe (my shoes were placed near the arrows). You will have to engage with the site to find out what I mean.

Conclusion

In my opinion this is a great site for children to express their creativity and learn about personal expression. Very engaging site, easy to navigate with the ability to provide hours of fun. Stardoll provides a great avenue for brands wishing to engage with the Teen Market, this is backed up with proven results for one of my clients. The type of experience provided by desintations like Stardoll could very well become an integral part of the Web 3.0 era. Other sites that cater to children include: Club Penguin, Barbie Girls, Habbo Hotel

Warning: The site isn’t just for kids, it is great for escapism for adults too, I love it, and visit back to tidy up my Suite quite regularly ;) Got to go now as just noticed, they have a 50% sale on for Superstars ♥ ♥.

Any questions on Stardoll let me know, would love to know what you think of Stardoll too...thanks

Forget A-Level results, go for an A+ on Twitter

2010-08-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

It was sent to me !! I didn't do it...but pleased to get an A+, well done me.

I have become slightly Twitter obsessed of late, so no surprises, that I scored highly. I would share the URL of Tweet Grade, but I can't find it!

I ran a search on 'twitter grading' & 'tweet grade' on Google, there are soo many tools out there, that have been around for quite some time too (2 yrs).

Personally I don't use sites like these to help me make my decision on who to follow, I go by recommendation and interesting retweets. It is a sad state of affairs if you go out there and Twitter grade everyone you are thinking of following isn't it. Be impulsive & run with it, you will soon get to know who the connectors are. Personally I think, it is rather nice though to get a nice certificate to say "Good tweeting".

Several of the social monitoring tools now present influence scores of 'online social connectors', I can't say I find them that reliable, as just because some one tweets a lot or posts X amount of blog posts, doesn't really equal that they will be a good influencer for your brand. Others may disagree. I do stand quite firm on the stance that you need to engage and understand the social individual, by reviewing their posts, tone of voice, tweets & online personality before you can make a decision to say "Yep, connect with them".

Influence grade review done !

Loving the Tweetle Idea

2010-08-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

Found out this morning via Richard Darells Bit Rebels Blog Post about the Tweetle, read his post here: “The Tweetle - Will Tweet you when your water boils”

Loving the idea generation process & concept behind the Tweetle, read it over at the creators blog here.

Especially like this line:

“During the 40 minute wait for the creation of 3 drinks and a shot, we began a conversation about how we could make some Google-style moneyz, or at least enough to buy a boat and a few steak dinners”

Tweetle will in it's basic form Tweet you when the Kettle has boiled, & tweet others in the office that maybe they should stand up and get on tea making duty.

Brilliant.

I really should of been out having a drink with these guys, they are super keen to exploit the trends while they have a chance, that is the exact way I feel at the moment. Alas no funding, or time come to think of it...

They started looking into how real time media will start to contribute to our real “life streams” more and more.

Only the other day I was thinking how handy it would be if Twitter could let me know (“when asked”), if my hair straightner is off, iron off, back door locked..

This would send tweets letting others know about my slight 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder' (OSD) habits, but would be great PR for the service.

As I have a geek multitasking mind, I have often thought how I would love a little birdie to sit on my desk at work and tweet out on an LCD screen things that are going on. This may already be available but I haven’t found it yet.

Anyway enough about me and what I want, head over to the guys who are creating the Tweetle Blog. They are looking to raise funding from interested individuals by using KickStarter (Crowdsourced Funding):

“The KickStarter site offers an online platform for anyone to raise funding from interested individuals. You keep 100% ownership of your project and idea”
I wish the designers Ben Perman and Murat Mutlu from MobileInc all the best with funding & further scoping and I will be watching the developments with personal interest and a little bit of jealousy ;)

Exciting times ! !

Who's this guy? and Why did I bookmark him?

2010-08-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

This is a random blog post, after a random discovery of the above happy guy in my Apple Mac bookmarks , the jpg names him as Mark Bramwell. Thought to add him here, then if he Googles himself, well...he can introduce himself, can't he.

I am currently not winning sorting out my Delicious bookmarks, the reason being is that I must bookmark about 7 posts, a day ! I am addicted ! Plus I have been using Packrati.us for the last month, which easily bookmarks the links you tweet out, along with URLs that are in @mentions to you (optional). I recommend linking Packrati.us to your Twitter, although alas I haven't been using it correctly.

Found this out when introducing Packrati.us to another tweeter, I then noticed that if you include a #hashtag in your tweet outs, then it will add the #hashtag as the bookmark tag. Amazing ! Wish I had noticed that BIG BENifit before...as my bookmark account is (again!) in need of some tagging attention.

First step tonight is removing my Apple Mac bookmarks that I never use and as the above picture denotes are pretty random ;)

Social Media in NOT A FAD - Great video

2010-08-15T14:49:00.000-07:00

I really love this video, great choice of track too "Right here, Right now" by Fatboy Slim. The video has been produced to help support the book launch "Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the way we live and do business by Erik Qualman (Published August 2009). Find out more about Erik here on his Twitter page and if the video has already convinced you, buy the book from Amazon here, the book has made its way to my Amazon wish list for sure.

As I attempt to build up my video editing skills, I want to produce something in a similar style with a UK focus, as the way this has been put together really strikes a cord. Well done Erik and thank you for being an inspiration.

Free Wifi for Everyone Join @AEEvans Global Movement

2010-07-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

Via a very early in the morning RT from the Gadling Travel Blog, I came across an interesting chap today on Twitter, 'Andrew Evans' (see above picture), a writer of books and blogs, a lecturer and smart poet etc etc, read his very lively & creative BIO on his site here, and make sure you visit the home page too. Andrew had written his "Free Wi-Fi Manifesto" in verse. It's excellent, worth so much more than a RT on Twitter, so I just had to blog about it here.

I have added a snippet below, or should I say I have added the below snippet, and would strongly (if I may) invite you to read it in full and join the 'Global movement that demands free Wi-Fi in Hotels & Airports', pure brilliance and puts in a rhyme what we have all been thinking....

Read the verse in full here: The (Un)Wired: A Free Wi-Fi Manifesto

Very short snippet:

The year is twenty-ten A.D. and Wi-Fi should be free.

We travelers bear no grudge with you as long as you agree,

But if you're that one schmuck who likes to play it old school,

Charging folks for internet--well, then basically, you're a tool.

Your penny-pinching greed smells just like boardroom boredom.

It's out of touch and backwards, not to mention just plain dumb.

Please get with the program, be ye airport or hotel:

If you don't have free Wi-Fi, then you can go to hell....Continued

Creating a Pizza Competition

2010-07-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

As my blog is about being more personal. Thought to blog that I will be taking the Pizza Express Pizza Challenge to create a pizza and be in the chance of winning £5K. Will be getting creative on Friday night and will call in the help of The Burb as the chef in the house.

I have been really impressed with the social media from Pizza Express, love receiving their Facebook page updates and recently impressed that they have added a Facebook Share and RT icon to their newsletters. Such a simple idea, but one that I hadn't thought about before.

The only extra thing I would advice them to do, is to add an image gallery so people like me can choose an image in which to promote this engaging competition further.

I will share with you my creation.

Polyvore Review: Easy to use, engaging site for fashion fans

2010-07-24T05:14:00.000-07:00

Alice in Wonderland by SarahGriff featuring TopShop dresses

 Polyvore.com is a great example of a 2.0 website. Visitors to the site can quickly put together outfits and sets from leading (and some not so leading) brands by simply dragging and dropping images from Polyvore or from the web.

On a smaller, but growing scale: Polyvore can also be classed as a social networking site for the fashion fans, as it allows you to find “sets” that other community members have created and then as applicable “like” their set or sets too. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, when I refer to sets, I have added two of my sets to this blog post, which have an Alice in Wonderland theme.

Along with allowing you to embed the sets on your site or blog, Polyvore also allows you to easily send out your creations via social communitites with easy share links to Facebook & Twitter. When links to shops are displayed (see set at base) they act as adverts to the shops in which you can purchase the items - how great is that for viral spread !!. 

Should you have an unlimited credit card balance (as yes, you can get carried away) then Polyvore is also a fun way to shop, also I can imagine that Polyvore is great for Fashion Designers to prove their expertise in choosing clothes & items around a particular theme.

The range of fashion items available range from couture to high street, so suits a wider target market. Polyvore isn’t limited to clothes and also includes interior design pieces & decor. (Personally I would like to see more household items & trinkets in there).

There is an active online community which comments on the various sets uploaded. I have mainly used the site for play and I would say that I am at a beginners level in creating the sets. I believe that once my experience & expertise in creating these sets grows then I will visit the community areas a lot more, (as we all like feedback on things we create) and take part in more Polyvore contests.

The top navigation is really intuitive, allowing you to Create, Explore, Get Help and visit your own & others profiles to view saved collections / sets.  

Bit of background 

The site was launched in 2007 by Pasha Sadri, Jianing Hu and Guangwei Yuan. Incedently Pasha Sadri is the guy responsible for creating Yahoo Pipes. To find out more about the Polyvore Team visit this link: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/about.team 

My Polyvore site engagement review 

Members (registered) can receive a great sense of involvement with the site, as it includes networking, sub creation & creativity. Through this connection members will begin to develop a connection, and a greater sense of involvement to play a further part in the world that Polyvore has created. The desire to sub create is part of who we are as human beings, so in relation to ROI for the advertisers/shop links, the best aspect of the site is that within this engagement/creative time, without knowing you are getting insight into new fashion brands you like, as you search for the perfect items for your sets. I have viewed items from clothes shops that I wouldn't dream of visiting (High prices £££) but at this level it lets me engage with them and dream of purchasing - (and dreams can come true). It is fabulous that Polyvore provides easy ways for visitors to get involved further by providing contests around a particular theme and become part of the Polyvore community.

A job well done.  

Similar sites include:   

Style.com  

Stardoll.com  

ShopStyle 

(Stardoll have recently updated their site and as a regular there too, I have been invited to provide a review in the coming month).

Reasons why I like Polyvore

Easy to use Great for escapism
A new way to shop 
No advertising (that I have noticed) - bar links to shops 
Useful help features throughout 
Ability to browse other peoples sets for inspiration. 
It’s free to use and on registering you don’t get bombarded with newsletters.
Just a lovely site to help put together looks and also to release creative passion with easy to use editing and share features.  
Plus in writing this: someone just liked my set, so I will go and visit their sets now. So the site is also good at continuing your engagement too.

If you are a fan of Polyvore you can find my profile here:

The below image displays one of my sets with links to the shops in which you can buy the items, go check out the links, and if you like the sound of it, then join Polyvore and have fun.

Alice in Wonderland 2 by SarahGriff featuring Menbur clutches

Warehouse - Category List
100 GBP - warehouse.co.uk
More dresses »

Menbur 813040004 Wedding Clutch
$79 - endless.com
More Menbur clutches »

Red Love Heart Stud Earrings
4 GBP - missselfridge.com
More Miss Selfridge earrings »

Victorian Floral Porcelain Tea Pot Teapots Tea Cup Teacups Tea Set...
$40 - roses-and-teacups.com

***Down the Rabbit Hole
catalystforyouth.org

Alice in Wonderland8
gxzone.com

Keynote to YouTube fuzzy text

2010-07-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've had a go at exporting a Keynote Presentation to YouTube today (see above) so popping by to share my findings. After setting a number of different transitions timings in the presentation, so that the pages fit with the music, on export to YouTube the settings only allow you to set 1 transition length from one slide to another. So that was a bit of a waste of time.

Moving on, the Keynote presentation displays fine on a small screen but the font appears fuzzy on a larger screen. It could possibly be the font that I am using and maybe the colour and the size.

I tried to improve the font fuzzy-ness issue by resizing via QuickTime (320 x 240 size) and then importing into iMovie, but no real improvements and the presentation timings got lost on the presentation into iMovie too.

I need to look into this a bit more to fully understand the potential of Keynote for sending out presentations to YouTube. I will continue to play with the video editing features on my Apple Mac, and one of these days I may even read the instructions !!!

If you have had any experience with Keynote & uploading to YouTube let me know.....thanks ;)

Refocusing my blog & rebalancing

2010-07-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

The Blog is back....

Having started as an SEO specialist to move into PPC then Integrated Search Marketing, then Social Media and now Mobile Marketing. I am having trouble digesting all the new trends as well as making sure I connect to the important people around me. Also I have realised that I am spending too much time blogging for others, rather than blogging for myself. This isn’t a bad thing, but I wish to get my own blogging time back. Today is the day that I achieve this, being the 1st blog post since Sept 09!. To kick things off I like to review where I have been, as this will help me determine where I am going.

Refocusing isn’t new to me, for over 10 yrs myself and my closest friends have got together to write individual wish lists each year and then on New Years Day we revisit our lists as a group, to see how we have performed. Some of my friends have stated things like: “have a baby”, “pay of loan” “change career”, things like that. I have decided that I can do a similar thing on my blog/social networking/life, writing out a goal plan / wish list for the next 4 months. This will not only provide me with the focus I need, but it will also help get that work life balance back too.

Feel free to comment on anything than resonates with you.

I have been refocusing since 2001, read my story below. I can’t wait to start blogging again, having written all about the benefits of blogging here in December 09: http://blog.rocktime.co.uk/2009/12/whats-story-with-blogging.html indicating my re-focus to get my own blog back has been a long time coming (well 7 months !! anyway)

Refocus 1: 2001

Refocus 1: 2001 “I’m a creative in an admin world, taking part in a few PR events, need the qualification to be taken seriously”
So I left a very good job, sold the house, went to University to study International Business & Interactive Marketing at MA level..

Refocus 2: 2004

“Equipped with management experience and now the knowledge & theories from University, I am on a mission to find a job that is both linked with thinking strategically & creatively in Online Marketing”
Take temping jobs in PA work, Web Marketing & Project Management for 7 months which feels like an eternity. Find my dream role as an SEO Copywriter moving offline publications online. Mission accomplished and a lot of what I wrote still ranks highly in search engines today.

Refocus 3: 2006

“I have had a sudden interest in social marketing for business with review sites & interest in sites like Yahoo Searching for answers, look for a brand I can help”
Having networked with experts in SEO and now moved into field of Paid Search too, my company relocates to London and I relocate to Jersey. Creating and managing SEO & PPC and directing qualified customers to HSBC International. Mission accomplished.

Refocus 4: 2007
“I have written every offshore banking PPC ad imaginable, looked at Affiliate Marketing, know how to integrate my SEO & Social Media insights into product development and conversions, on reviewing progression, opportunities are limited, I want to give more”
Having several friends who work for agencies, I apply to work for an Agency in Jersey, so I can help more than 1 client, currently my experience in Search was Business, Property, Holiday and Finance. Another plus is that the agency I work with E-Scape Interactive, develop games for the National Lottery and games and gaming is another field I am interested in.

Refocus 5: 2009

“Love working for an agency and the diversity it gives, however feel that I am missing out on networking opportunities in the UK, especially where social media is concerned”
Move back to the UK and work for Rocktime Digital Agency, I am attracted to them as they can do anything web related and design bespoke systems. Set up the Search division and integrated my knowledge of SEO, PPC, Affiliate marketing and Social Media.

Refocus: 2010

“Social media sites, blogs, communities are growing at a fast rate, I am corporate blogging but need an extra place to share my thoughts and network after hours”

Make the decision to re-start my blog, consider starting totally afresh, but keep my timeline as I am proud of it. I am finding so many interesting people via Twitter and need to get organised to follow the ones that are really key to my interests & development. Currently my focuses are heavily on Social Media, Mobile Marketing, Video sharing & Youth Marketing communities. Quite a lot, so I am seeking to re-organise self, use others for inspiration and guidance. I will log my findings on my blog, so that I can free up my mind space for the other area that is important to me in life, my family.

Organising my Spaces

What I don’t want to be is a Jack of all trades but a master of none. I will be using social media to help me with organising the topics and the people that are important to me. I will be using:

Delicious Bookmarks - I have recently set up a http://packrati.us/ which will bookmark every link in a tweet you receive, and every link in a tweet you send. This has been of great help to me already, and I am bit my bit organising my bookmark tagging. Having in the past chosen the recommended tags, I am now being quite particular ie: this isn’t about “socialmedia, social media, social, social networking, social web”, it is simply about “socialmedia”.

Twitter lists - to separate people I admire in the fields I am interested in.
Read about Twitter Lists here....http://blog.rocktime.co.uk/2010/03/we-need-twitter-directory-for-twitter.html

Blog Directories - I will be submitting my blog to more directories with the hope that people will find me and share their information, rather than me seeking out information.
Read about Blog Directories here:
http://blog.rocktime.co.uk/2009/10/increasing-blog-traffic.html

Google - I will be using Google Documents a lot more to keep my blog post plans, store useful white papers and articles. I will also be seeking to organise my mail box a lot better, having interest in E-Marketing, I subscribe to many and general use them as inspiration pages - so need to label appropriately.

Networking - Before relaunching this blog, I wasn’t as keen to comment on blogs as I had nothing (apart from corporate blog and twitter) to give back. Having a more updated blog, will allow me to share with others that I have learnt from, perhaps re-blogging blog posts I really admire.

Home - My boyfriend / manfriend whom I hope will put a ring on my finger soon!! has been a total star in making his home, my home. He has decked out the garden, painted the lounge, kitchen, the overall aim for him was to get me home more, rather than working late at the office. He understands that I don’t have the average job, and I need to research and keep on top of new trends, and I love it that he is trying his very best to get me to come home on time. He blogs too, so understands the need to find time to blog, and that some days you can feel inspired, some days you don’t. I am at home today, in the garden, and blogging, so his plan has worked ! !

My new focuses till November 2010 is as follows:

Get up early to exercise rather than to blog - use Wii Gaming & review progress
Read one book every 2 months -at the beach rather than on the bus. This includes Crime thrillers and not just books focused on Marketing & Business.
Organise my twitter lists, delicious bookmarks, youtube subscriptions once a week when my manfriend is at work
Aim to write just 5 blog posts a month any extra is a bonus.
Focus my networking & blog writing on particular topics to save time & learn more
eg: Focuses for the next 4 months include: Youth Marketing, Mobile Marketing & Onsite Engagement
Continue to thank all the people who help me with my focuses along the way.
Produce the refocus for the next 4 months - make sure I am on track.
Before re-focus kicks off, make plans in July to Organise: email, blog, delicious, twitter - into similar lists / labels / tags. No pressure in July but a clear focus on personal delivery.

All the best,

Sarah

Key considerations: Affiliate Marketing

2009-09-16T23:27:00.000-07:00

Recent Affiliate Marketing Statistics

The UK market for affiliate marketing grew by an estimated 45% in 2007, taking the total value of online sales generated through this channel to more than £3.13 billion. [Econsultancy, January 2008]

– Commissions and fees paid out to affiliate networks (covering payments for both networks and affiliates) amounted to £186 million in 2007, up 40% from £133 million in 2006 (and compared to £83 million in 2005).

The UK affiliate market was worth £3.82bn in 2008, a 22% increase from £3.13bn in 2007. An estimated £227m was paid last year in commissions and fees to affiliates and networks. [Econsultancy Affiliate Marketing Buyer’s Guide 2009].

What is Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is a practice where other sites advertise your products or brand. These are called “affiliates” and in effect can be classed as an ‘online sales force’, a secret army to increase your conversions. Should a user then click through to your site from an affiliate site and make a purchase you pay the affiliate a commission on that purchase. Commissions vary from sector to sector, but I would expect to start at 2% to 5%.

Management, tracking and payment to affiliates can be handled direct with the affiliates but it is best practice for management to take place through an independent 3rd party; an affiliate network.

Affiliate networks handle all of the day to day tasks involved with operating an affiliate program. Along with you they make sure the ‘online sales force’ are happy.

They usually operate on a tiered management system, where you decide the level of involvement you require, from “basic” where they host your product information feed, pay the affiliates, provide an online management control centre, and then leave you more or less to it, to a managed account where they also provide an account manager who will dedicate time each month to optimising your program, acquiring high quality affiliates for you, Basically, actively promote your program.

There are a number of Affiliates networks out there each with a varying number of Affiliate clients. They all perform a similar function to a greater or lesser degree. They are generally judged or measured by the number of affiliates they have, the commission level they charge, and the service they provide to you.

Set up Costs:

Networks usually require a one off setup fee – usually £1,000 to £2,000.

Operating Costs:

Commission - Starts at around 5% - this is what is paid to the affiliate site and is percentage of the sale value.

Override fee - This is paid to the affiliate network – usually 30% of the commission paid to the affiliates.

Management – Depends on level of service required and network, but for a reasonable network £220 per month for basic package and £500 for managed.

Affiliate programs take time to become established but in the long term can be a highly cost effective method of customer acquisition.

Affiliate Marketing campaign goals

Consider the purpose/aim of your affiliate campaign:

• Bring new customers to the site• Deliver incremental business• Compliment existing advertising for brand recognition.• Build relations with your secret sales force

Choose approach

• Incremental sales and brand awareness – campaign structureUse Affiliate marketing to fit in with current campaigns, offers, top sellers. Maximise HALO effect of other marketing media

• Steady sales – flat structureProvides consistent volume of traffic from the affiliates based on small number of ads. Disadvantage of this is that Affiliates can become complacent and tiered commission level remains the same even if products become uncompetitive.

Compliment existing advertising

When using Affiliate marketing to integrate with other online activity and when looking for incremental sales, consideration needs to be given to the below:

• % AD spend: Fixed budget versus unlimited
• Channel conflict: Agency PPC vs Affiliate PPC
• Brand Management: Volume v Control
• Measuring effectiveness: Cost per acquisition and Return on Investment

Monthly reporting can include

• Success of creative and changes required, creative held on central hub
• Sales funnel analysis
• Review quality of customers by each affiliate
• Long term profitability by individual affiliates
• Maintain creative consistency across all affiliate sites
• 30 – 90 day review of affiliate sites.
• All the above working to a 90 day plan from launch – and into the future, be ready to surprise your Affiliates with some great offers.

Organic and PPC: selling tool

2008-09-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

Four steps to sale

Qualification stage: Keyword
Selling phase 1: Adword ad / Organic ad
Selling phase 2: Landing page

Very simply organic and paid search ads are just another way of selling a product. They are small text, sometimes image ads which are clicked on by a qualified visitor. By qualified the potential customer has gained their qualification as they typed in a key-phrase in the search engine which relates to your product or service group. The adwords or organic text ad, is part of selling phrase 1 – on click / arrival to you site, it is time to get their interest by providing the customer with all the information they need.

If I was buying a shirt offline, checked out the spec; it fits, I would want to know if it was available in other colours too, same as if I was online. Other things online are of interest to me ie: I may need to find out about delivery details, as I need the shirt tomorrow, I could consider the sale as being a great deal and look for a ‘recommend a friend to this site’ offer. I then make the purchase and on leaving the checkout I was made aware what else was available after I left the checkout. I have re-qualified, next time I enter could be via the site name; thus I will be taken to special offers appearing on home page straight away. This is why the home page should appear on search for company name.

When picking up potential customers at the qualification stage, prominence should be given to the longer key-phrases, rather than single keyword, as these potentials are more likely to convert. Bear this point in mind when setting up PPC campaigns and Organic strategies.

What potential customers look out for in Selling phase 2.

Selling point 1 should be confirmed
Can they clearly find product or service looking for?
What other info could they need – can they find it?
If ready to buy are you providing them with a clear call to action?
Also consider who they are new v existing customersReview the image what is this portraying to above audience – does it match ad in selling phase 1.

Web Analytics for you

2008-09-14T06:10:00.000-07:00

Help with Web Analytics

We can help you verify, analyse and interpret your web site data in line with your business goals.
At the first stage, we will help you define who your customers are, reviewing what they are searching for; what's important to them (voice of customers online community). This process helps us work with you to idenfity your key areas for growth, which will help set your overall goals and a clearer understanding on how to deliver to your online customer base.

Analytic implementation

Correct implementation of your web analytics will help you answer critical business questions of your websites effectiveness and highlight to you how your website is interacting with your customers.

Hint: The structure of the website should be driven by both the company and the customers.

Establishing a successful Web Analytics Framework

Clever use of your web analytics can help you and your company release the insight from the numbers. It will assist with future site design, architecture and indicate clear product / service drivers which will lead to development of a more profitable company site.

Analytics makes your site changes more meaningful and in line with customer habits.

Where to start

Pretty simply, start by defining your business goals and the goals for your website. Should you have separate product-managers speak to them, as each product-group will potentially have different targets / outcome & audience groups. Working with the project managers or solely, it is important to make sure you document and prioritise your goals and that the metrics being focused on can be actionable.

For example if you find an issue in your shopping cart, make sure you have the necessary back up / help to correct this.

Make use of the features in your web analytics package to assist you in reporting. For example; custom reporting and tracking via the use of tags on and off site.Consider how the analytics package can report on both high and medium level goals.

This may involve you setting up separate profiles in your analytics utilising use of filters –ie: you may just want to track success of organic traffic to the site.

Time to Analyse

The general rule is that you should spend 80% of your time on analysis and only 20% on reporting. Hint; make sure you keep a project list of all developments on your site ie: new banner, new page, new tracking – this will help clearly identify results.

Some areas of particular interest to me in analytics is reviewing the paths visitors took around the site, reviewing how they reached the product page and what creative on or off the site led to a purchase.

If you find that a high % are visiting a particular product page and leaving straight away, then, this may be due to your pricing strategy or they could have arrived by accident (see you organic keyword report).

A complete review will allow you to decipher:

1. How you can make your site better (navigation)
2. What customers particular like (engagement, page views, time in category)
3. How you can use the information to devise retention strategies
4. Whether you can make improvements to your calls to action
5. Look at particular market segments coming to your website, think about how the site
can be optimised for that segment. (ie: Review site traffic, build 'compare us' table)
6. etc, etc, etc – read Web Analytics an hour a day by Avinash Kaushik

Room to improve?

Remember analysis may not always indicate room for improvement, at these stages you could test things on the site to see if performance can be enhanced. This may mean moving a call to action button, or change creative (A/B testing), test different copy, give more prominence to certain benefits.

Hint; If there is a problem and you just can’t seem to fix it, speak to a usability company who can lead insight into the cause of the problem the web analytics has defined.

Analysis Paralysis

Don’t get carried away with the review, always consider how what you are finding will effect your overall business goals. If what you are reviewing is not related to overall business gain, then exclude this data. You don’t want to fall victim to a condition known as “analysis paralysis”.

Keep things focused

Develop scorecards of key business metrics, indicating where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow. These are also helpful when sharing the information with other members in your company. Ongoing review is critical, to obtain a clearer insight into the need and behaviour of your online customers and will help you identify business opportunities as your customers needs evolve.

Four step process

1. Outline your business metrics
2. Set up your reports in relation to business metrics
3. Analyse
4. Optimise the site / take action

WikiPedia thoughts

2008-09-14T05:15:00.000-07:00

Why WikiPedia

Did you know that WikiPedia add “nofollow” on all external links, so that no link gain passes from Wikipedia to an external site. This policy does change the motivation of spammers and SEO professionals to add information to the site, which is a good thing in my opinion.

However just because you can’t get link quality score from WikiPedia, shouldn’t mean that it should be forgot about: as there is still traffic to be gained from having a Wikipedia entry.

The Wikipedia Ethos

The ethos of Wikipedia is that anyone can add and edit anything quickly and easily: however they do have a stringent and high level amount of quality and accuracy checks. It is against Wikipedia external linking policy to add links to sites you own, maintain or represent, so it’s best to add a WikiPedia account that can’t be connected to you. Seems like a dodgy tactic, but it’s true, and based on experience !!

What’s good about having an entry

Having an article mentioned or company entry on WikiPedia can only indicate one thing credibility. Also if you are a new start up, having an entry here could provide the impression that your organisation is bigger than it actually is (more legitimate). In a way having an entry on Wikipedia could be classed as being reputation management, its better to be there than not be there.

A few Wikipedia Tips

Because external links are so hard to add consider adding reference links.

If you do have problems adding an entry – make sure you contact the person who disapproved it, to find out what you could have done differently. If you are not getting anywhere fast, move on.

Make sure you meet the “notability test” and have added a reference to back your entry up, these could be online press releases. Check out Wiki-news, see if anything has been written in there.

Make use of categories, you can place the entry in more than one category via the use of category tags.

Contribute-yourself, to other WikiPedia posts– and build up age history in WikiPedia.

And if all the above fails, become BFF (best friends forever) with a Wikipedian (Editor on WikiPedia).

Good Luck

Benefits and Pitfalls of Adsense

2008-09-11T03:37:00.000-07:00

If you are a niche site and you are yet to start generating revenue, Google Ad-sense would be a good move initially. Later date could look at sponsorship directly with advertisers.

How Adsense works:

Google use their sophisticated algorithm to determine the content and context of your web pages, they then match Google ads to each page.

Before they send out their robot with its algorithm rule book, Google will firstly look at your URL to determine which ads to display, if the site has yet been cached.

There is help to specify what adwords ads you don’t want to appear, just in-case it displays something which doesn’t suit ie: if local food directory focus on organic food – and ad for “Pizza takeaway local delivery” or one of the sites competitor would be unprofitable choice.

Benefits

Easy to set up, inexpensive and accessible – good for short term cash flow

Useful to identify other related sites – ones to contact in the future – possible collaboration to help each other increase traffic to your sites – help identify new
Marketing routes in future months.

Google does offer a higher % of payment to the website owner than other similar sites, the mode of payment is via EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer) directly into your bank account

Disadvantages

Could appear that you need extra income, harm credibility with viewers

No guarantees that ads will result in income

White space isn’t always a disadvantage – see the white space which surrounds this page:
www.google.co.uk

Analytics installed what next?

2008-08-10T10:54:00.000-07:00

My friend has just set up a small site, selling high end goods, asked me: "OK I have Google Analytics installed, what's next?".

I recommeded the book Web Analytics an hour a day by Avinash Kaushik.

While they wait for that to arrive, as a starter for 10 here are some key questions I proposed.

Along with what they should be recording to help plan for the future months and measure the success of their site and their on and offline Marketing efforts. Define and measure are key.

Key questions to ask of your Analytic Package

1. Firstly start to discover how people are using your site, where do they go (may need custom reports, filters set up), review words they use in search to find you, do they all relate to your offerings? Note the key entry points, can you fine tune online material to assist conversions, possible communication opportunities. Reviewing your popular exit pages, could these indicate that the shopper is comparison shopper and can see better offer elsewhere ie: Paid Search ad - review your competition on product pages where exits are quick and often.

2. Find out what volume of site traffic was unique, what was the source of this traffic, and on a individual source basis what is producing the most conversions or quality leads?

3. Import to keep track of your new and returning customers, should you enter a new content area and from launch of that find people keep coming back for more, do more of that.

4. Are you tracking every type of conversion, call us, sign up to a newsletter, what value do you give to those leads?

5. What are the current blockages in your customers online recruitment experience, reviewing conversion funnels, where do the customers get distracted or where are they engaged/staying longer?

6. Are customers buying what they searched for, or is the site leading to other purchases, can a colleration be seen between products purchased.

7. You have a sister site, consider how you can leverage off this?

8. What online creatives do the customers like, what offers lead to conversion?

9. What is the ratio between your PPC traffic and Organic traffic how can this be changed for improved ROI ?

10. Have a look at the Geographic report, any suprises there? anything you can do E-Marketing wise to increase reach to specific country or region ? Could understanding customer demographics assist in any way to fine tune creatives.

Writing Commentary Analytics

1. Executive Summary

Include your overall thoughts on performance based on insights in Analytics.

Inc: Key insights on the customer propositions

Section1: Visits here increased by X due to...
Section2: ""
Location1: Increase to visitors from France this month due to
Location 2: ""
Sales/Potentials:

2. Key Performance Indicators

New v Returning customers:
Visit to Sale/Lead ratio:
Target Ratio:

3. ROI

Marketing spend: Total spend per customer:Average spend per customer:

4 - 10 Overview of leading figures and ROI.

4. Website performance
5. Customer Journies
6. E-channel performance - on and offsite creative
7. Multi channel behaviour
8. Feedback on new creative
9. Feedback from shops / offices / branches as appropriate - top sellers or site content
10. Cross Sales (off plan/on plan)

Finally remember the 80/20 rule - 80% analytics/understanding - 20% reporting

Search Engine Approx Submission Lengths as at Aug 08

2008-08-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

When designing Titles and Meta Descriptions for Search engines, note the recommended averages on title and description length below:

Google

Title: 65 characters with spaces
Description: 160 characters with spaces.

Yahoo

Title: 70 characters with spaces
Description: 160 characters with spaces

MSN

Title: 70 characters with spaces
Description: 180 characters with spaces

Averages - recommended

Title: 60 – 70
Description: 155 - 180

Making sure tracking is Robust

2008-08-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

I love the word Robust, remembering back to when I was at School we were tasked on Enterprise week with a Marketing project to name, design, package a new AfterShave, my group called our AfterShave "Robust". It seemed to sum up men at that time, who knows what the word would be now !!

It is important to make sure that your Web Analytics package is 'strong', to add weight to what you will be presenting at the top table. The below is something relatively simple, but often a formula that is overlooked, sharing with you now.

When comparing one months data to the previous months data for volume figures such as volume of traffic, conversion rates - make sure that you work out the percentage increase or decrease by taking into account the days of the month.

The below outlines the forumula to use, and is based on visitor figures:

Step/Column 1:
Current month visitor figure 'divided by' days in current month (July)
1030/31

Step/ Column 2:
Previous month visitor figures 'divided by' days in previous month (June)
1000/30

Step 3/ Column 3:
Working out % change adjusted for days in the month
Current month 'take away' Previous month then divide by Previous month

Answer: Despite indications that visitor numbers have increased there is a % descrease in July in visitors to the site of around 0.32%.

Online biggest driver of brand engagement for Retail brands

2008-07-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

Newsflash: Retail

A recent study from IAB has identified that online ad spend delivers the biggest impact for retail brands within the media mix. Online was seen to drive 40% of brand engagement, whereas Press received 31% and TV 19%.

Another interesting statistic was that the retail brands surveyed spend 2.5% of their marketing budget online, seems pretty low considering these statistics.

See further details on the brand engagement study from the IAB here:

Brand engagement measurements for the store brands reviewed are listed below, the results indicate that store reputation and whether they could associate themselves with the retail brand (Affinity) provided the highest %.

If it is affinity they want (only women surveyed) then it is my opinion that online is place to give it to them, with opportunity to segment, talk in their voice, get them chatting to you (Blogs, Facebook Fan pages etc etc).

I am confident that we will see the brand engagement level for online rise this year, as more retailers turn to the web for their online promotions.

It was only yesterday that I found myself completing an online competition for Primark to win a £200 shopping spree (times are hard!).

Interesting brand engagement measurements and results from the New IAB study on retail brands:

Affinity (24.3%) - whether the store has a good reputation, and is for 'people like me'

Quality (19.3%) - that the store sells well known, high quality brands ·

Fitting one's needs (16.5%) - relating to store convenience, and whether it suits a consumer's particular tastes ·

Presence (14.7%) - a readily available, traditional store, with a national high street presence

With recession looming and purse strings tightening, businesses may want to cut back on marketing spend and for retail sites, this study indicates that online is the way to go especially as you have the ability for tighter targeting and of course have the ability to truly measure the ROI of your marketing efforts.

All about Affiliate Marketing

2008-07-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

Introduction

The below provides an introduction to Affiliate Marketing, outlining the key considerations when setting up an Affiliate Marketing campaign. I wrote it a while back, but all still relates.

What is Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is a practice where other sites advertise your products or brand. These are called “affiliates” and in effect can be classed as an ‘online sales force’, a secret army to increase your conversions. Should a user then click through to your site from an affiliate site and make a purchase you pay the affiliate a commission on that purchase. Commissions vary from sector to sector, but I would expect to start at 2% to 5%.

Management, tracking and payment to affiliates can be handled direct with the affiliates but it is best practice for management to take place through an independent 3rd party; an affiliate network.

Affiliate networks handle all of the day to day tasks involved with operating an affiliate program. Along with you they make sure the ‘online sales force’ are happy.

They usually operate on a tiered management system, where you decide the level of involvement you require, from “basic” where they host your product information feed, pay the affiliates, provide an online management control centre, and then leave you more or less to it, to a managed account where they also provide an account manager who will dedicate time each month to optimising your program, acquiring high quality affiliates for you, Basically, actively promote your program.

There are a number of Affiliates networks out there each with a varying number of Affiliate clients. They all perform a similar function to a greater or lesser degree. They are generally judged or measured by the number of affiliates they have, the commission level they charge, and the service they provide to you.

Set up Costs:

Networks usually require a one off setup fee – usually £1,000 to £2,000.

Operating Costs:

Commission - Starts at around 5% - this is what is paid to the affiliate site and is percentage of the sale value.

Override fee - This is paid to the affiliate network – usually 30% of the commission paid to the affiliates.

Management – Depends on level of service required and network, but for a reasonable network £220 per month for basic package and £500 for managed.

Affiliate programs take time to become established but in the long term can be a highly cost effective method of customer acquisition.

Affiliate Marketing campaign goals

Consider the purpose/aim of your affiliate campaign:

• Bring new customers to the site• Deliver incremental business• Compliment existing advertising for brand recognition.• Build relations with your secret sales force

Choose approach

• Incremental sales and brand awareness – campaign structureUse Affiliate marketing to fit in with current campaigns, offers, top sellers. Maximise HALO effect of other marketing media

• Steady sales – flat structureProvides consistent volume of traffic from the affiliates based on small number of ads. Disadvantage of this is that Affiliates can become complacent and tiered commission level remains the same even if products become uncompetitive.

Compliment existing advertising

When using Affiliate marketing to integrate with other online activity and when looking for incremental sales, consideration needs to be given to the below:

• % AD spend: Fixed budget versus unlimited
• Channel conflict: Agency PPC vs Affiliate PPC
• Brand Management: Volume v Control
• Measuring effectiveness: Cost per acquisition and Return on Investment

Monthly reporting can include

• Success of creative and changes required, creative held on central hub
• Sales funnel analysis
• Review quality of customers by each affiliate
• Long term profitability by individual affiliates
• Maintain creative consistency across all affiliate sites
• 30 – 90 day review of affiliate sites.
• All the above working to a 90 day plan from launch – and into the future, be ready to surprise your Affiliates with some great offers.

Another tip

Set up a twitter account to shout about your promotions to your affiliates. Make your Affiliate link shorter using tinyurl.com.

Web Analytics – It’s simple really !

2008-07-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

I learnt something new today when reviewing my analytics report. Not sure why the thought hadn't come to me previously, I will call it Analytic Evolution. Blogging about my experience to help me understand it further.

I noticed that my own domain was appearing in the ‘top referring sites’ and ‘top referring page’ in my Analytics reports.

Firstly considered what a referrer is:

“It is a site/page that refers a visitor to my site by linking to it”

Secondly looked for answers as to whether this is normal, good news it is. Great... but why is it good ? mainly becuase I understand the reasons, these are listed below:

The reason why my domain was appearing as a referrer can be due to a number of reasons, outlined some key findings below:

1. A user of your site may browse then leave to put the kettle on make a bit of lunch, leaving the browser open. On return they start to browse again and since the user session has timed out, the referrer to the site will be the page they were on before they left.

2. Could occur if IP switching occurs, which basically means the users IP address changes when browsing your website. As a new IP appears then the Analytics will treat this as a separate user and thus the referrer will be the previous page (of your site). However this only happens if tracking definition is set to use IP/User Agent.

Also would like to blog that I found out that ‘No referrers’ often appear in the analytics, typically due to the below reasons:

1. User accesses site directly
2. Site could be made home page by the user
3. User may access via a bookmark or favourite
4. Or they access via an email link
5. The event that started the visitor session was a hit to
something other than a page, such as an image.
6. User came to your Web site by way of a java-script-based
Redirect ie: a pop up.

Also some duplicate URLs, (same page different URL dependent on function on site) were appearing in my report, so off now to use a tool called URL search and replace to tidy up the log files.

Integrated Marketing Communications

2008-07-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

I have always been a fan of integrated marketing and the joined up approach, and have seen as a marketer and customer the benefits of a joined up consistent message.

It is all about delivery of a cohesive message across all sales and marketing media, rather than them operating on there own. Having this consistent message enables the marketing campaigns to work harder towards a common set of measurable results.

It is surprising through that many industry leaders are not following this practice. I have just Googled a few companies who have an obvious strapline – finding out that these straplines are not presented to me in paid or natural search ads, sometimes the message isn’t even present on the main website home page. Strange !

I just Googled Halifax – they have another repetitive ad on the TV at the moment all using their common term “Extra”.

Good news is that they are following the practice as shown in search in their natural and paid search ad – both of which mention – “extra”. Great. See below:

Halifax Online Banking - UK Banks, Finance, Personal, Telephone ...Halifax Online Bank UK - Our online banking service always giving you extra with your finance and money - mortgages, savings, current accounts, credit cards ...

Unfortunate news is that the strap line isn’t doing them much favours, with people in forums and review sites using the “Who gives you extra” term – as a way to highlight what they believe to be their limitations. Should Halifax read this then suggest that they should put the story straight on these forums, it can only build trust in the long term with the current or ex customer and potential prospects finding your response.

The negative feedback on these review sites is a good example of why you should give consideration to your multi channel behaviour of your customers. For example, it is estimated that a finance customer will touch 14 sites before committing to registering with a new finance product, it is also likely that they will visit the comparison and review sites for advice before this commitment (especially with Credit cards).

Putting a positive spin is that the ads that Halifax produced, have gone Viral, with Howard (from the ads) receiving his own fan base. However how many You Tube video pass ons will lead to a new customer is limited. You Tube.

Another good example of integrated message is:

Car insurance and home insurance - Sheilas' WheelsSheilas' Wheels - Cheaper car insurance and home insurance online for women.

On arriving a their site – the heavily advertised on TV “Car insurance for women” product, is more prominent than what they also offer (home insurance) – even the Get Quote sign is bigger. They have given consideration to their brand name and that most people will arrive looking for the ‘car insurance’. Also as they have stuck to the name and not advertised “we have the best deals ever” they have (maybe without thought) stopped the possible critique in forums.

I came across quite a good process for measuring and thinking about customer behaviour in a multi channel environment from the book Web Analytics and hour a day by Avinash Kaushik, 2007. The diagram which can be also found in a section called non line here: It’s a flash site ! So quite contradictory as this section 'non line' which I wanted to find, will not appear in search, spiders have trouble reading flash.

Below paragraph explains the diagram quite clearly taken from Avinash’s book as quoted above:

“The diagram provides a simple representation of customer behaviour on two different channels. The physical acts are different but it is essentially the same process of moving from research to selection to qualification to purchase”.

The diagram highlights how customers move at their own pace across on and offline mediums before making their decision. The process can work for both services and products, it is one that I will be revisiting again, when highlighting the importance of the intergrated message, so thanks to David Hughes of Non Line Markeing for producing and apologies for the ‘quite contradictory’ point, but it is true.

As I find good examples of the integrated message, will revisit and post them here.

The importance of product descriptions

2008-07-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

“Product descriptions are very important on retail sites” Sarah G July 20th 08

Wouldn’t it be great, if you could web cam in one of your in-store sales representatives and place them right inside you website. There are developments for this – Woopra – however it is slightly scary for someone to pop up and say “Hi, have you chosen yet” – but as we get more involved with the interactive internet – sure this could be a possibility. Find out more about real time features here.

Before we move onto Web 4.0 and lets assume that the sales rep is currently on leave from the site.

Here are my thoughts on optimising product descriptions using an example of a fashion site.

Something that many fashion and retail websites currently lack is the persuasive sales representatives together with the tangibility of “feeling the garmet” to help the customer make their decision. (Think about how M&S describe their food, "these are not just fish fingers, these are M&S fish fingers, made with the finest cod, crumbled breadcrumbs etc etc).

Giving attention to your product descriptions can help let the potential customer know that they must have “this” designer piece, how glorious it is, the fit, the style, the feel, the experience of wearing it and buying it.

Another important thing about product descriptions, is that you can use them to include the key terms that a potential customer may use when searching for the product.

So by optimising your product descriptions, you can not only benefit your search engine rankings for key phrases relating to your brand, but you could also potentially increase your sales too.

An eloquent description talking in the brands natural voice should offer the customer confidence and amusement when browsing through the selections.

What information should you write:

Consider this example: Shopping for Vivienne Westwood Dress

One site says: “Vivienne Westwood Sweety Dress”

Another says:

“This stunning dress, encompasses everything this British designer set out to accomplish. The corset style front with the drawstring bust gives the edge to the dress through fantastic tailoring, making this a Vivienne Westwood classic. The clean lines and shape give a timeless look and appeal to be in everyone’s designer ladies wardrobe. Team this with the Vivienne Westwood XY bag to create a style which says “I have arrived”

Even better would be to have a link to more information: ie: “History of Vivienne Westwood Fashion” “New collections from Vivienne Westwood designer clothing range”

It is clear that the second example will have more appeal to the style hungry shopper, and helps persuade consumer to buy (everyone wants a classic!). Remember that unlike shops (the bricks and mortor) online you do not have the support from your sales representatives, thus your product description will become your most valued friend.

Few more points

You can also add some key points to your description:

Key points
1: 96% Cotton
2: 4% lyocell
3. Contrast Fabric 100% cotton.

Other points could mention, other product:
1: Logo on front lower left side
2: Double Collar
3: Three button round collar shirt
4: Reversible shirt (Yes Reversible)

Some people do have problems writing the product descriptions, finding it hard to expand further on “it’s a pair of jeans” however it is likely that the people in store are experts in the designer clothing field, so use them, how they talk about products in the shop can echo online.

The Social Web is here or should I say is working !

2008-06-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

If you can just search what your friends think and prioritize this over every other social network online, then I am predicting that Friend Feed could become a very powerful recommendation engine.

I am strangely attracted to this new search engine/social network "Friend Feed", it is all about “easily searching content created by people you trust”. Could this be the new search engine of the future, going to find sites that your friends are making recommendations on?

It certainly could be powerful, if advertised right. (See link below from Venture Beat).

Great feature is that you can create your own room to discuss, comment on sites or news stories that your friends have found note worthy. Personally would find this useful.

I really love it, however not sure how many people I know will sign up right now, maybe with a few more years on Facebook, or maybe a year, they will then move over to friend feed – when become aware of ads interrupting their social browsing.

First things first, I have my preferred log in name, so will revisit in the future. Find me and my currently limited online connections here:

Interesting times…..

For more information on the recent use and future uses of Friend Feed see the article here from Venture Beat titled FriendFeed imports more usefulness into rooms

For more information on the future of the social web from Joe Kraus, Google’s director of product management see here: he was quoted as saying “Social is the new black”, so wish I had said that first… oh wait I can, off to Twitter it now.

Managing redirects notes & links

2008-05-21T04:28:00.000-07:00

Managing Redirects

When designing landing pages with new unique marketing URLS, alerts need to set up a redirect to the correct page. If the site is indexed by search engines, the traffic needs to redirect seamlessly and correctly to avoid any problems with crawling and indexing.

The way to achieve the above is to implement a permanent re-direction (HTTP status code 301) to the pages which need to be moved.

Important to remember that 301 redirects – are server side redirects which are generally set up in the .htaccess file (Apache server) or in the control panel (IIS server).

Process being to use either the PermanentRedirect or mod-rewrite to redirect the page.

If on a Linus or Unix – system then placing redirects into a .htaccess file will be the best and easiest way.

The.htaccess file is just a text file which can be created in with a plain text editor (ie: Notepad). When uploaded to the root level of the website with the main index page, it will work alongside the server and handle everything.

It can even redirect from htm to asp – see below:

Redirect 301 /old-file-name.htm http://www.yourdomain.com/new-page.asp

Important to note that meta refresh or javascript redirects are not best practice when it comes to SEO – to find out more I recommend the below links:
Useful links for more information

IIS Redirects – 301 & 302

Apache Domain Redirects for SEO

301 Parking and Other Redirects for SEO

Draw backs and options

Setting up the redirects does mean that for every incorrect URL request, you will in turn be asking the browser to go and fetch a new URL (in effect 2 requests). However it is enabling you to not show to the search engines 2 URLs of the same content, which is bad practice.

Another option with regards to marketing landing pages, is that if all landing pages are set up in a separate directory - you can inform spiders not to index the pages, by disallowing that area for all spiders in the robots.txt file.

Setting up an internal 302 redirect will cause the original URL to be indexed, but the content found will be that of the destination URL – not the previous URL.

Duplicate content revisited

Redirects are also used to help solve duplicate content issues. It is important to make sure that 1 page can’t be reached by more than 1 URL. You can sometimes see sites with more than one URL for the same content example being:

Such as:

mysite.com/products
mysite.com/products/
mysite.com/products/defaults.aspx

Should people (bookmarks) sites (Href) link into these pages then by having 3 separate URLS will mean that you will fail to maximise on all your incoming links.

The number of incoming links is very important for SEO – and if you fail to get control on how people could link to your site – then you are immediately reducing ability to appear higher in the natural search results.

Multiple Domains there not big or clever !

2008-05-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

I had a query recently from a friend – who was hosting 2/3/4 domains of the same content. They had noted that Google was now mainly indexing one URL and not the other. They had also seen shifts in the search results, this is my advice….site names have been deleted to protect the innocent! And it was an innocent mistake.

Although written on here about Duplicate content penalties before, thought to share my comments here (in a different tone) and could be useful for others to refer to in the future – as the duplicate content issue will never change on Search Engines.

Feedback

Firstly I see your site is built in asp now this was designed and released before SEO became the talk of the town. However it is performing well for some key terms, well done on that, and it certainly does the job at converting visitors with great help areas and calls to action.

Should you be building the site right now, the first bit of advice I would give you to plan early for SEO, considering how your sites architecture is going to be laid out. Building relevant link paths of relevant content – good thing about the fact it is a “Holiday site” is that you can dig down deeper from UK to South East to Berkshire to Reading to Reading East. You could look at adding content as appropriate ie: events in area, places to see, restaurants etc – lots of lovely content for spiders and most importantly the site visitors. Your site has a community feel too, you could build on that, get others to send you the information (information on this blog on building communities).

Hopeful that you will already be using Google Webmaster tools to help you with SEO really useful, especially the ranking information plus suggestions on how to improve your site for indexing.

If you are not using it, start today. With digesting & implementing data from Google, the comments below and keeping your current internal linking, headers and content, will put you on the right path.

First step

Before beginning to develop new key word rich content (density of around 3% for 250 words) and implementing tools as required. You need to tackle a pretty big issue of duplicate content.

Firstly I am unsure why you thought parking more than one domain was a good idea ! If you think it would increase your presence in search engine result pages, you would be mistaken.

To be even more blunt this is Pretty Old School !

By having more than one website – showing the same content on multiple domains you are taking away the uniqueness & richness of your content – Google want to supply searches with unique and relevant data. Check out the Google Rules in Webmaster help, it tells you clearly there that duplicate content is a no go.

Several site owners actually use Copyscape.com, to check if people are using their content – which can some times happen and decrease their relevance quality in Google.

Google only want to present one website, not a big list of similar websites.

It makes sense

Imagine what a dull place a search engine would be if that happened all the time, ie: presented you with the same site, over and over again. After while (the big G) will work out which one/site it prefers – there are lots of algos (rules) to determine this, however the main one would probably be links into the site from external sources. Another option is to think you are up to something dodgy and ban you (it does happen!).

It is likely that the site that remains has more external links (links in) than the other site – it could be bookmarked by more people.

As this site does mirror another site, your quality score of relevance is diluted this is why you are seeing a shift in search results as Google struggle to make up its mind.

You are making the spiders job difficult. Don’t.

Another thing is that the spider won’t come back as often if you make its life difficult, think customer service, give it what it wants and it will come back. (as mentioned earlier see Webmaster help).

Second step

I do hope that you don’t have a link from one site (of same content) to another as if Google doesn’t see it, a competitor may, and they can very easily submit a spam report across the 3 major search engines. Outcome being as above, you will be banned from search results.

In effect by having multiple sites you are cheating the system as you are putting out more relevant words…… Google is highly focused, clever, and getting clevererererer so beware.

Third step

Query: Is it 3 domains you are supporting or more ?

Most people don’t realise that the below URLS are not the same:

www.mysite.com/villas
mysite.com/villas
www.mysite.com/villas/
mysite.com/villas/default.asp

Search engines would view these as 4 different sites – and this isn’t even counting your other domains. (However note - if your site has history, Google does work out in the end that mysite.com is the same as www.mysite.com - takes about a year).

So if you create content which the search engines can get to with or without the www you are decreasing your uniqueness and duplicating the content.

On a positive – it is pretty easy to resolve your issue of having a number of domains with same content.

Finally: Sorting it all out

Lucky for you, your IIS server does have a built in ability to sort this out.

You will need to create a permanent redirect in IIS. In the Virtual Directory – it will say when connecting to this resource content should come from - …Tick ‘A redirection to a URL’ – and then place in Redirect to: http://www.mybestrankingsiteblahblah.com/ Make sure you also tick ‘ Permanent redirection’. So when requests are put in for your other domains – the server will issue a Permanent redirect.

You will want to check who is linking to you too, you could request for some sites which have wrong link, to change it to the correct one.

You can but ask !

It will be OK not to change the URLS though, the only downfall is that your server will have to work a bit harder as it is having pull 2 pages (the first one and the correct one).

With regards to links, IMO the best place to check links is Yahoo Site Explorer UK, rather than Google (using inlinks:) obtain the little snippet of code in Site Explorer and keep check of those links in – and keep building them (good links, not link farms, and don’t submit to more than 25 link directories a day – Google have eyes and see this too). I have spent quite a while sourcing those good directories, think about 3 yrs in total.

With regards to which URL you should pick, first thought, which has the most external links pointing to it and also consider the name.

Note although Google doesn’t have URL name/wording in their algos/rules – (some people think they do, as appear highlighted in search results, this is just conditional formatting) – a positive about having two main keywords in your URL is useful in link building exercises – as Spiders do read the link text. Positive move for you was using a hypen, between two keywords relating to your brand, reason being is Google read underscores as continuation of a word (due to historical codey stuff) – hypens separate the word.

More information on SEOing your site for visitors and search engines on the blog.

END

Linking historic Google Analytics with new Adwords

2008-05-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

Recently found out that - if you didn’t link you Analytics account to an Adwords Account with you signed up for Google Analytics you can still do it.

It is best practice to:Sign up for Adwords account under same name as Analytics account

If you didn’t then go to your Analytics account and add your Adwords account as a user with admin privileges. Then you go to your Adwords account and add your Analytics account as a user with admin privilages.

Once above is complete

Click the Analytics tab which is situated across top of your Adwords account portal
In the page that follows click the box that says I already have an Analytics account

You will then be presented with a drop down which lists the accessible accounts

Defaults will appear ticked to have auto tagging on and to apply cost data from Adwords to your Analytics account. Decision as to whether you want to use auto tagging will depend on whether you currently tag your own data. Keep ticked cost data which is the whole reason why you would want to link the two anyway. Next step is to click: Link Account and that’s it.

Google Sitemaps - The Benefits & How to set up

2008-01-31T08:51:00.000-08:00

What are XML sitemaps

XML Sitemaps are the best format to use to record and montior pages on your site, benefits include:

* Supported by Google, Yahoo & MSN see: http://www.sitemaps.org/index.php

* Up-gradable (can add extra info at later dates)

* Can separate website blogs into separate site maps or jumble together

* Where have more than one domain, make it possible to tell the search engine the preferred URL.

* Search Engines will use the sitemaps to enhance their crawl and discovery process, it does not however guarantee that those pages/URLs will get indexed.

* See: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview?pli=1

NB: There is a limit of 50K pages, although nested sitemaps can be submitted to get around this.

Why Submit

Submitting a Google sitemap – lets Google know about the URLS on your site.

It is also helpful tool to make sure that some of your pages are not easily discovered by the spiders for example, pages that are only accessible via a form.

From a web design perspective Google sitemaps can identify potential crawling problems, broken links, robots.txt or crawling problems arising from the CMS.

From SEO perspective Google sitemaps also give indication on the top performing phrases by country and identify trends. This information is available elsewhere however useful to have link information and keywords in one place.

Reason to set up

Along with providing information to Search Engines, so that they can better understand the site, making sure they know about the URLS.

Another reason for setting up a sitemap in Google (Webmaster tools) is that you can capture statistics such as how many of your URLS are indexed.

Which is really useful on launch of a new site, new category/section.

No guarantees

Google do not guarantee that having a site map will increase your rankings, however it does increase your chances of getting crawled, as using site maps we can let them know about new URLS, and help them prioritize them, ie: know where to start the crawl.

Having a Google site map can however lead to increased visibility in the search engine result pages.

Understanding about setting priorities in the sitemap

Google state: "priority only indicates the importance of a particular URL relative to other URLs on your site, and doesn't impact the ranking of your pages in search results."

Adding priority 1 or another level to all of our pages, does not mean that they will rank any higher or be crawled faster than another site who has all their pages set at priority 0.7 for example.

Also by only indicating that all of your pages have the same priority is the same as not providing any priority information at all.

The default priority is 0.5 and many web masters make the decision to leave it on the default. See evidence at the Sitemap help forum.

Google mention ‘relative to other URLs’, so should priorities be set then
it may provide them with indication on how to crawl your site, ie: start at home / about us, then dig deeper into categories, subcategories and products.

In effect the priority order can only provide hints to Google about the importance of the pages. There is also an area to state how often page is updated, similar to the Robots revisit rule, which is known not to have an impact. Due to this I see no pressing need to update this area. Spiders will revisit regardless of updates.

It is however believed that by giving hints on updates, will be of benefit when a new section of site, or new site is launched.

Adding meta data to Sitemap

If all the meta data is 100% the same, then there is no pressing need to include the tag in the sitemap.

The reason for the meta data is to Google can distinguish the difference between each URL.

Where should a sitemap be placed

With sitemap cross submission, you can place it just about anywhere as long as the sites are verified in your Webmaster Tools account.:
---------------------
Steps in Setting up Sitemaps – from Dave Chaffey – E-Marketing Guru

1. Go to personal Sitemaps page at Google Webmaster Tools http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ requires Gmail login.

2. Create Sitemap format in correct format: See https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/protocol.html

It is limited to 50K URLs, but for larger sites you can create a sitemap index file that references more than one sitemap file.

1. Verify site - there are two methods - see http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35181&topic=8509- I don't see any particular merit in either approach - use that which is most convenient, but remember the security implications of publishing your sitemaps.

2. To create site maps you could use the Google sitemap Generator or hidden on the site are these third party tools

I have personally found the free downloadable tool which crawls a site automatically on this list best for creating mine: http://gsitecrawler.com/,

Remember that Yahoo! have now launched an equivalent in Yahoo! Site Explorer
-------------------------

More answers can be found at: Sitemaps Help Group

Google Analytics

2008-01-29T03:53:00.000-08:00

Understanding Google Analytics

Google Analytics allows you to identify, measure and compare the performance of search engines, campaigns and mediums. It allows you to determine how profitable your keywords are across different search engines and to review performance of your online campaigns.

Online campaigns may include: email newsletter, affiliate network campaigns, referral sites, as well as paid for keywords and those found in natural search. Suprisingly Google Analytics will also let you track conversions from third party sites including Yahoo Stores and Ebay (see the Google Adwords conversion tracking guide).

Along with measuring the performance of your customers online journey, you can also identify where your best online customers come from and which target audiences are the most profitable.

Value of conversions

If you understand what value a conversion is to your business, and the percentage of pay per click customers who do convert (conversion ratio) this makes it easy to calculate your return on investment (ROI) for your Google Adwords campaigns.

For a positive ROI you are looking at the following equation:

Conversion amount * Conversion Ratio > than Average CPC

£10 * 3% = 0.30

If average CPC is 0.20 then this is a positive CPC.

Implementing Google Conversion tracking

Google supply a special tracking code that can be added to the result pages on your site.

To enable Conversion Tracking for your website, follow these steps:

Log in to your Google AdWords account.
Click the link that says Conversion Tracking
On the page that follows, click the button that says Start Tracking Conversions.
Once Conversion Tracking is setup, you have to get the code to insert into your site.

How it works in Adwords

When a potential customer clicks on one of your Adwords ads, Google then places a cookie on their computer to track there customer journey.

When this potential customer arrives at a conversion page decided by you (ie: order confirmation) then a conversion is recorded and reported within Adwords.

As part of the tracking: Google notifies users that they are being tracked, this notification is supplied by the Google code you enter at the results page. The tracked user then sees a message titled Google Site Stats with a “send feedback” link when the results page is opened. This allows users to find out more about Google’s Privacy Policy. At this stage users can reject the Google tracking cookie if they wish (meaning you loose that conversion data).

Cross channel conversion tracking

As well as measuring success from Google, the cross channel conversion tracking feature within Analytics allows you to see conversion traffic coming into your web properties from other advertising networks ie: Yahoo, MSN.

As well as tracking conversion to campaigns & keywords you can also get loyalty and engagement metrics. You can also determine which pages, categories on your website where you are loosing the most of your online customers – this feature is called Funnel Visualisation which tracks a users journey to the conversion page. This is useful feature in deciding whether improvements are needed to your site navigation.

For more information on Google Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics/

Points to note

Inaccuracies

If inaccuracies do occur in tracking conversation via backend systems and analytics, it could be due to one of the below:

Obvious one: Tracking code is at the bottom of page, user gets bored clicks on another page and tracking code isn’t’ logged (as page not fully loaded)

There has been a restructure of the site navigation and conversion funnels not been updated (conversion tracking is broken in Analytics)

If "No Referrers" appears in the conversion/order confirmation page? This may be because people are book-marking the site from that page or they are using their History file which may show that as the most recent, so every-time they visit the page it is throwing off conversion data.

Routine quality checks

It is always worthwhile to conduct a few days' worth of extensive tests to ensure tracking properly installed.

Optimising Press Releases

2008-01-28T07:09:00.000-08:00

How to write a press release

Along with formulating a writing style to your press release which will resonate with your brand, you can also SEO optimise your press releases to increase presence of your company in the Search Engine Result Pages.

Word of caution though is to avoid keyword stuffing press releases, as not surprisingly this will reduce the credibility of your news to the readers. A good SEO copywriter will be able to incorporate the keywords into a press release at the same time satisfying any creative requirements for a compelling read.

Writing a press release for SEO is the same as writing a web page for SEO, looking for relevant links and relevant content on subject matter with keyword density of around 3% - 7%.

For step by step guide on considerations when writing a press release see the criteria at Pressbox.co.uk http://www.pressbox.co.uk/contpr1.htm

More information on writing Press Releases can be found at the BBC and WikiHow: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A4288944
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Press-Release

Where to distribute

For maximum impact, where to distribute your press release is also an important consideration. Dependent on your industry and importance of the news story will decipher whether you pay or opt for a free press release service.

Remember that wire press release services will send out your press releases to a number of mail boxes, in effect Spamming mail boxes, thus you need to consider whether you want your company associated with that practice.

List of Press Release Distribution Services

The number of press release distribution services are growing, however at this current date, these are the ones I recommend:

Press Coverage free:

Press Coverage cost: Members news releases will be found on Google News, Google Search, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com News, Ask.com. My favourite is PRweb.

http://www.prweb.com/ - also always your news feed to be fed into five targeted industries and 2 metropolitan areas. – Cost $80
http://www.prleap.com
http://www.webwire.com

For big announcements opt for:

RSS Feeds

Another strategy on getting press coverage on your news story is to pull journalists to you by making sure you have good visibility on places where they will be looking ie: RSS feeds in search results.

Make sure that the news is available to this network of readers ie: every article or press release distributed is available as part of a RSS feed. Should news stories be updated daily or weekly on your site then you could be eligible to qualify for Google News. Other criteria for Google News include: editorial needs to be written by more than one person, regular news stories on the site and these can’t be a duplicate of a news story found elsewhere on the site.

Optimising for You Tube

2008-01-24T00:48:00.000-08:00

Optimising for You Tube

By making the most out of You Tube you will be able to:
· Promote videos
· Promote business
· Increase traffic to site
· Target niche groups related to company

Information on building & optimising your own YouTube Presence

1. Create your own channel (Creating on sign up to YouTube account)
2. Create your own profile and link back to your website URL
3. Create your own How to guides – more people likely to subscribe.
4. Join a group, create a new one (public or invitation only)

Tips

Review customised options in your channel settings:

Thoughtfully select 9 videos to appear on your channel profile page. Make sure you target your content by choosing the most appropriate account type

Info on account type: Account type is found within the channel info page, in here you will asked if this is Standard account, Director etc…in general most people will choose standard….so as you are experts in your field choose Guru. The Guru/expert account type lets you choose a custom logo and allows you to link to other websites within your profile page. Also people can search by account type.

Choose appropriate video length:

You have more chance of your videos being highly viewed if length is no more than 5 minutes. Bear this point in mind when choosing videos to appear on your profile page. It is also good to stay in the file size limit of 100Mb. Should you have longer videos you could create play-lists – allow viewers to decide whether they wish to watch at later time (when have more time).

Choose the right category:

Make sure you choosing the right category and tags for video. Do not rush this. Check popular videos in your niche, view how these have been tagged and placed in categories.
If you are uncertain of the category, run a keyword search for similar content and take note which category they belong too. Also look at less popular categories, as this will reduce competition and place you as most popular video with a specific category.

Tag it right:

Add as many keywords / tags that you can think off as tags allow your video to be tagged alongside other YouTube Channels, as a relevant video and this will increase awareness of your Channel and your profile and most importantly your site.

Create niche targeted play-lists:

Gather individual videos into niche groups, so that viewers can find related content more easily.

Don’t forget that YouTube is a social community:

There are options to email other YouTube users, promote your channel, comment on others videos. Make sure when contacting that user is in your target market. Also take advantage of Bulletins (short messages) on your profile and on others. Bulletins are a way to leave messages for users on their profile pages, increase your audience. Promote new videos or simply news about company. If they like your videos then they may even subscribe, also Bulletins lets visitors know you are active YouTuber. As mentioned earlier it is important to make sure you target the right audience correctly.

Join or create a group:

This is a great way of reaching out to your target audience. To monitor responses you can choose whether posts/messages, can be posted freely or whether they need approval. If objective of your group is to generate awareness then remember to open it to the public, another option is invitation only. Main aims of group set up though are too share videos.

Extra way to increase awareness

You can turn on (newish feature) ‘Active sharing’…which allows you to drive traffic to your profile. How ? This service is aimed for those who which to form opinions on subject matter, or for those interested in video trends. Basically, if you turn on ‘Active sharing’ then your YouTube name will appear under the video, people watching the video maybe interested to click on your name and see what else you have been watching. This is within your profile, where link to your site sits.

Facebook Fans

2007-11-16T03:43:00.000-08:00

Introducing the Facebook Fan profile pages

If you have a company, a snazzy product, or a corporate champion blogger, then it maybe worth setting up a Fan site on Facebook. Before a fan or a competitor does it for you!

The majority of these fan pages are public which means (with focus on SEO) that people could find the Facebook Fan Club in the search engine result pages, visit the Facebook page and then visit your site.

Another bonus is that you can add links from the Fan page into your site (although no optimised link tags can be added).

Should you be lucky enough to establish a database of registered users on your Fan page, then you can use the group to send out updates to fans ie; changes to your website, add new products. The big bonus is that you are in control of the page, and to an extent can control the information.

Making this page before a fan is therefore key, as you want to be able to control the information to some extent.

The Bonus: When someone joins your Fan page, it is published in their News Feed for all their friends to see (unless they have this turned off). Spreading viral messages..

Its free and takes minutes to set up.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Google’s Europe Market Share Update

2007-11-14T03:49:00.000-08:00

Google have recently supplied me with data on their Market Share in Europe, sharing information with you

Point to note: Google are unable to locate any recent data regarding the Google Market Share in other countries. They don't actually carry out research related to the search market share themselves. Therefore, they do not always have access to the latest figures. The studies are usually carried out at a country level by companies such as Neilsen, MediaMetrix and CommScore.

Overall, Google reaches 89% of all European Search Engine users (March 2007). The breakdown across countries is as follows:

The below review relates to March 2007 (most up to date!) data on Google’s Search Engine Market Share in Europe and notes (where stats available from Sept 2006) whether there has been an increase or decrease in search engine market share by country.

I await Google market share on the Rest of the World.

United Kingdom
25.3M unique Google users
74% search referral share (interestingly no change)
79% Google reach

Belgium
3.8M unique Google users
93% search referral share (increase)
79% Google reach

Denmark
2.4M unique Google users
90% search referral share (increase)
75% Google reach

Finland
2.1M unique Google users
95% search referral share (increase)
74% Google reach

Ireland
984K unique Google users
80% search referral share (increase)
69% Google reach

Netherlands
7.7M unique Google users
74% search referral share (decrease)
69% Google reach

Norway
1.5M unique Google users
77% search referral share (increase)
55% Google reach

Portugal
2.6M unique Google users
94% search referral share (increase)
68% Google reach

Russia
2.9M unique Google users
60% search referral share
23% Google reach

Sweden
3.9M unique Google users
86% search referral share (increase)
71% Google reach

Italy
16.7M unique Google users
83% search referral share
75% Google reach

France
20.9M unique Google users
84% search referral share (decrease 1%)
80% Google reach

Germany
27.6M unique Google users
86% search referral share
74% Google reach

Spain
14.9M unique Google users
94% search referral share
85% Google reach

Switzerland
2.9M unique Google users
90% search referral share (5% increase)
77% Google reach

Green is the new black

2007-11-05T03:04:00.000-08:00

Have you been on MSNs new Green Channel yet ?

http://green.msn.com/

They are offering environmental news content from conservation & environment orgs and useful tools & quizzes to access how environmentally friendly you are, or not as the case may be.

Green really is the new black, I have been advising clients where possible, to explain their Eco-stance on their websites. Following the increasing trend of consumers looking for green information to assist in their decision making process (at the shopping basket).

Trend Spotter Alert !!

2007-10-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

This will be a quick post, just to outline, how you should really delve into Web Site Analytics.

It is important to be curious, asking the "Why?", never jump to conclusions and when looking at peaks and troughs, always have an open mind.

It is after that exercise that you can pull out your marketing plan, and say oh, it is because of my Yahoo Banner ad, that I had more conversions, or it's due to that article I submitted to XY directory. But don't look at the plan, until after your 1st review, as you may miss something rather interesting, with the question: Why ?

When on the search for trends (Google Alerts is a good one), look cross industry and notice the changes in customer expectations on and offline. When did X site realise that a helpful online assistant would be essential in their transactions.

I am noticing lately that the social, in social networking is on the rise, with industry experts posting articles on their blog, about their home lives. Connecting in a personal manner is the new way of doing business (Quote: "Sarah G"), it is knowing where to settle which is the issue (Quote: "Sarah G")

My advice and sure would be others too is to not just look at your competition, look outside, get inspiration from everywhere, and do something totally different from the one in which you are next to in natural search or sponsored listings.

Generalising is the key. I will be back with my generalisations shortly....

Sarah G

Something new in Analytics

2007-10-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

The "Big G", Google have announced that in the next coming weeks that they will be adding some new features for its users.

Including:

Site search: Find out what people search for on your site

Interaction: Allow you to find out how users on your site interact/engage with Ajax, Flash and Multimedia (to give clearer picture of page view metrics)

Where visitors go: Looking at whether they have clicked on any outbound links on your site – this is an interesting one !

Launched in Beta to review outgoing links.

For more information, see the blog post from Google themselves:

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2007/10/exciting-announcements-at-emetrics.html

Facebooks getting personal

2007-10-19T07:12:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal posted this article about Facebooks plan to launch a new advertising system which will target ad delivery to Facebookers based on the profile information they submit.

It is aimed that in the near future the system will even be able to 'predict' (Minority report stylee: "How's your sweater") what they are interested in, trawling other information on the page, even before the Facebooker submits their interests.

Although Facebook has a higher advertising rate, than other search mediums (aka:Google) it is thought that via enhanced targeting, upmarket facebookers, that this advertising avenue, will definately be one to watch, as right now my thought on the subject is that, it seems logical that Facebook will provide attractive conversion rates.

Interesting times are ahead, could Facebook become the new Google, when looking for and generating customers. Or will Facebookers flock elsewhere if the commercial nature becomes too rife. Already we have flyers along the side and seeing ads being displayed within the new feeds sections.

Optimising content & links

2007-10-12T06:10:00.000-07:00

These are all steps I've known about in the search engine world for over 5 years, now putting finger to keyboard and sharing with you.....

Search Engine Optimisation steps to take:

Step 1:

You need to review target audience, what are their needs, optimise site around these needs. Look for online studies for demographic information, visit other sites, social communities where audience reside online.

Step 2:

The selection of keywords should be based on campaign strategy, competition, products & volume. We research keywords using, tools such as WordTracker, Overture keyword checker (currently offline) & data from Google & Yahoo search marketing accounts. E-consultancy reported (2006) that over half of the online audience now use phrases that are 3 words or longer in their search queries, this further indicates need for key-phrase analysis to determine the most appropriate. Studies have highlighted that it is important to note the different themes used in search, when choosing appropriate key phrases:

Search themes (courtesy and thanks sent to e-consultancy) include:

Comparison: compare hotels
Price: cheap holidays
Intended use: family holiday in September
Product type: package holiday
Product spec/feature: Hotel with spa facilities
Brand: Seymour Hotels
Location: Hotel Jersey
Action: Book Hotel Jersey

Google’s keyword tool is a great way to generate synonyms and variations of your existing keywords. It also predicts monthly search volume on Google for previous month, based on campaigns locaiton and language settings, and gives indication (if interested in PPC) of the number of advertisers bidding on each keyword across all of the Adwords.

With regards to competition analysis, the below tool could be used to identify the most common key-phrases listed on each page of competitiors sites, showing 2nd, 3rd and 4th most popular key-phrases.

http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/tools/topword.html

We also use the advanced search syntax for competitor benchmarking in Google and identify pages that perform well through googling [“keyphrase” site:www.competitor.com].

Step 3:

Base site architecture and navigation on the audience & keyword research in step 1 and 2, ie: If site sells Shampoo, consider how could categorise so people find what they are looking for in natural search, ie: are people looking for Shampoo for Coloured Hair or are the searches more brand related. Set themes, as this will assist with setting future objectives, performance, and ongoing optimisation. For example for retailers themes would be based around product ranges, categories and subcategories.

Structure of the site is also about labelling content in the most appropriate way & making link journeys relevant for spiders and humans with this in mind place appropriate keywords in filenames.

Step 4:

Make sure the website is suitable for users and search engine spiders. Spiders are unable to fill out forms, read JavaScript links, and they sometimes have trouble with Flash. We can use these areas, as long as we make sure that we provide alternative HTML links in the navigation. Ask E-scape Interactive about the document (in continual progress) titled ‘code considerations’ document for more details.

Step 5:

Where possible you should look as every link as an opportunity, and be descriptive (within reason) with every link, be it general more information ‘on subject’ link, link to image, video clip – it is important that using Alt & Title attributes that we let the spiders know what they can expect at the other end of the link . The online sitemap should be given close SEO attention.
We have experiene in optimising both videos and images, ask E-scape Interactive for details.

Step 6:

Search engines need to read keyword rich text to help them determine what the website is about. As mentioned before the copy produced should be based on the chosen keyword phrases and the sites target market needs. Looking at generating a keyword density of 3 – 7%. (No more than 10%) within the text.

Step 7:

Place the important and page relevant keyword phrases into each pages unique Title Tag. Typically between: 10 to 15 keywords (60 – 70 characters). The information you place in this text will appear as clickable link in search engines. Also make sure that the meta description is focused on the page content. Remember that just 15-20 words (approx: 150 – 180 characters) of the meta description are visible within the SERPS of Google. Keywords in the meta data are now not deemed as vital, however useful for engines which use meta crawlers. Use 5 to 8 keyphrases maximum otherwise there will be a dilution effect which will decrease keyword density

A good example of keyword density can be found by Googling, Yahooing, or Live searching for Cycle breaks Jersey: There are 266 words on this Seymours page (which ranks 1 or 2) 10 of which are the keyphrases, giving a keyword density of 3.75%. Which is about right for number of words on the page, note also the link off the page.

Step 8:

All the search engines place weight on the sites overall link popularity when determining the natural search engine placement. With this in mind it is important to make sure that the site is link worthy ie: is it full of useful information, updated content. Then people will link to the site without asking. Another way of creating links is contacting directories (relevant & quality ones), increase reach in Blogs, Forums, niche portals, and if e-commerce site shopping portals (ie: Froogle & Ebay).

Hint 1: You can find people to link to by putting this into Google "niche word""add url" or "niche word" "add site".

Hint 2: You can find all links to your site by putting this into Google link:www.URL.com to exlude internal links put in, site:www.URL.com and to find niche directories put in: intitle:"word directory".

Link building is an important practice, as with all other steps, relevancy is key. Steer away from link farms and be selective in who you decide to create link partnerships with.

The best way to assess links in is to use the Site Explorer tool at Yahoo, placing relevant code within your meta data.

This is your basic list - next step is integrating your results with your sales & marketing strategies.

Ebay Optimisation

2007-10-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

Useful Ebay stats

Ebay was founded in 1995, Ebay UK was launched in 1999.
Ebay has a global consumer base of 244 million registered users (as at 10/9/07)
At any given time ebay UK has 3 million items listed and growing.
Ebay UK is the 2nd most popular site in the UK with 2.51% market share.See: http://www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter/rankings.php
The most expensive item sold on eBay to date is a private business jet for $4.9 million.

Two strategies for using Ebay

1. Sell products

2. Use as a customer acquisition tool, and sell products at minimal profit, grow customer base.

Making Ebay a customer acquisition tool

Advice is to include a link to the off eBay website in the: “About me” page. You can also place on opt-in form in there to collect people’s e-mail addresses, so you can build relationships with customers and promote products to the customers in the future. The “About Me” page is the most important area, some do’s to use this page properly.

1. Include link to the off ebay website in the ‘About me page’ – and encourage visitors to see other products.
2. Include an opt in form on the page, to encourage sign up add promotion, newsletter, something free.
3. Also in the auction listing encourage people to visit the ‘About me’ page. Possibly ask them to read FAQ – about shipping & delivery.
4.When someone does buy something from ebay, important to get in the habit ofsending out a ‘thank you for your custom/order’, if available invite them to sign up tonewsletter, so that you can then get this customer on the ‘opt in’ list. Important tonever email, without ‘opt in’ as the customer could complain and ebay will close theebay shop.

Make sure you follow the ebay rules:

Don't include any links to your off-eBay website in your auction listings.
Don't include any links to your website in your eBay store or custom pages.
Don't include an opt-in offer in your auction listings or eBay store.
Don't automatically add your auction customers or visitors to your opt-in list.

Basically the above means don’t try and send people off eBay or collect their information for marketing purposes on your auction listings, your eBay store or any of your customer pages.

How do you take advantage of eBay?

1. Recommended: Selling Manager Pro

Monthly fee – this application will: automatically list and re-list items for you plus:
Inform buyers by auto notification
Let you know when payment has been received
Tell you what items you have shipped
Provide Auto feedback upon buyer payment
Allow the scheduling of items
Offer Reporting
Allows you to Design Professional Listings
Restock alerts

It also allows client to create professional & business like listings which are similar to company website. Mimic the company website for integrated brand communications. Example of company using Ebay as a successful sales and customer acquisition tool:

Ebay shop example - good integration from ebay shop to site

Shop
About us section
Public website

EBay Shop set up – four quick steps via Ebay

1. Build and customise shop (Your online marketing agency can assist with this)
2. Manage listing and sales
3. Promote shop
4. Track shop traffic & sales.

Useful Ebay Firefox Addon

Understanding social media & social network marketing optimisation

2007-10-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

It is important to think beyond Google, Yahoo, MSN (main road) as traffic drivers to your site (via search engine marketing) and to consider the potential of the social side streets (new neighbourhoods).

Hitwise (June 07) state:

“Social networking has firmly established itself as one of the most popular online activities, with the top 20 social networks accounting for 4% of UK Internet visit, up 79% year on year”.

This growth has increased the amount of traffic that they distribute to commercial websites as Social networks are not just about finding friends, they are also about sharing interesting content. Businesses can take advantage of the networks by listening to what their target market is saying and engaging them with relevant content.

Social marketing is about making your data/messages available to potential site visitors no matter where they are on the web (ie:YouTube, Directories, Flickr, Image search). It allows for the design of more targeted messages to groups found in online communities.

For further information on implementing social media into your marketing strategy read on:

Social Marketing Optimisation

The main goal in social marketing optimisation should be, to deliver the right message to the right people and for those then to pass the message onto others. That is known as viral. An additional benefit of Social Marketing Optimisation is increased presence in the search result pages & increased traffic into your website. Two tactics for optimising social media are listed below;

*Create Compelling copy that people want to pass on.
*Optimise on Text, Images and Videos by tagging and indexing them properly.

Words of advice for people new to social media

Before you can determine social media goals it is important for you to:

*Go online without an agenda and listen to conversions – especially those around your brand.

*Participate in conversations

*Comment in blogs

*Set up own blog, group, community based on popular themes or possibly missing themes.

*Start to use social media sites that will be useful for you: such as Digg or Del.icio.us, Stumble upon.

*Consider how social networks can be matched to your target audience ie: for SEO audience Sphinn better than Digg.

*Consider how much time you can invest to communicate to your target audience.

*Don’t jump straight in and promote your company in the networks, this is bad practice, it is important to pay attention to the ongoing conversions, spend time their, build up your authority to ‘related or unrelated to your brand’ answers. This will provide you with credibility & trust which on click on link through to your website, will lead to improved ROI.

*Note that in the terms and conditions on the majority of social network sites, it states that profiles made are for personal and non commercial use only, so strong word of advice: make sure you don’t directly sell and are using it for the objective to increase awareness and traffic to your site.

Interested in social media optimisation steps to take

Seek help as to why you need to move into social media and how it could benefit you. Link the social media planning into the goals in which you are trying to accomplish within your own marketing campaigns. For example should you wish to promote your brand then YouTube (engaging videos) may be the most successful place for you to send out a viral message.
Alternatively if a major focus is that you wish to generate more links and increase your reach then creating content that can be promoted on a social news-site could be best. As well as compelling text it is also important to make sure that all the social media campaigns are optimised for search engines.

Should you be running an E-commerce site, then note that several recent studies have indicated that word of mouth has the greatest impact in purchase decisions. If a customer can see on/off your site what people with similar interest and needs are buying then this is likely to sway their decision.

In summary it is important to:

*Identify where your influencers are online
*Create the right content
*Let the consumer take control.

Create your own network

The biggest opportunity within the social network arena is to build a community within your own site, so your visitors can share their experiences and if applicable shopping lists.

Word of advice would be to set the tone right for your target market, to make sure you reach out to those people who have a particular admiration or enthusiasm for your product or service.

Should you be running an E-commerce site then you will know that consumers no longer just shop, but they also share insights into their shopping experiences and purchases. This has been named ‘social retailing’. Social retailing on or off your site can be used as an information gathering tool. Example of social retailing on a site could be: “Save products in your locker, share you locker with a friend or someone who is interested in same products as you”.

To entice this activity provide a reward scheme, where they receive points for contributions and best answers. Possibly you could provide incentive if reach X amount of reward points.

Should you run a social network off your site then it is important you make sure you follow the rules (T&Cs) at the social network sites, as several state that use of page can be for personal use only meaning no direct selling.

Did you know ? that Expedia have a Myspace page – in which they invite customers to share their travel experiences with the opportunity to win a holiday. Travelocity & Priceline also have MySpace pages. I wonder which page has the most friends……

If your social network site / page has a non commercial focus, make sure on launch you invite your readers/visitors to let you know what they would like to see on the group, whether an application (Facebook) would be useful and whether they have any ideas. Get the community involved, create a dialogue and build a relationship. Never sell directly, but do engage and build trust.

Spread the love

Best practice to spread links in the social marketing arena is to create compelling copy that people would want to share and discuss. Consider the potential of creating a simple way for your readers who have other Web sites to easily syndicate your content on their own pages.
Also if creating your own social network remember that constant innovation/something different is key to capture and keep your target.

Developing a social media plan

*Learn what people are looking for online and give it to them.

*Understand about the different target markets in social networks, ie; how does Facebook differ from Myspace & Bebo.

*Identify who are the major social influencers in social media in your industry.

*Consider creating an index, feedreader to track what they are saying. Utilise Google Alerts.

*Consider that these influencers are additional targets to reach.

*Develop a plan should you fail to deliver and people comment on poor service /product. Make sure all acknowledgements are dealt with promptly & honestly.

*Consider creating an internal blog for your employees, they can share tips and ideas on how to grow the site and consumer base.

Challenges in measuring the success of a social media campaign

*Instead of tracking page views, engagement has become the new buzz word in social marketing ROI tracking.

*Review whether visitors arrived from a social network? Which network?

*Review whether there been an influx of visitors 3 months after posting RSS news story on company.

*Review any interaction with marketing messages on and off the site?

Visitor Map

2007-09-07T04:08:00.000-07:00

Less search bang for your buck !

2007-08-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

At the end of last week Google Adwords announced that they are changing the rules re: Top ad placement criteria.

This is to take effect in the next few weeks. The wording they have supplied to explain the change is pretty confusing: How the formula for ad placement is changing

It my quest to understand it further, making a note of where we currently are and where Google are taking us, plus my thoughts on the change.

At this present time the top position is determined via a combination of quality score relevance of ad text to page – (rule which was brought out about this time last year) and your ‘actual’ CPC.

The new formula takes into account the quality score (criteria I like as relates to relevancy and customer journies) and the maximum CPC.

Google imply that this is a positive change stating:

“Actual CPC is determined, in part, by the bidding behavior of the advertisers below you. This means that your ad’s chance of being promoted to a top spot could be constrained by a factor you cannot influence. By considering your ad’s maximum CPC, a value you set, you will have more control over achieving top ad placement”

However I am viewing this change (and could be wrong) that it gives the larger companies who have more funds assigned to Google PPC more chance of appearing at the top spot. (Big plus for the big players).

This was against Google’s grass routes, who originally said that their system allowed everyone with a chance for stardom in the top tables, even in paid.

I’m not overjoyed at this change, as believe larger companies will place in a larger budget and let ads ride (without tweaking ads).

It also stops current control over PPC activity by smaller companies within FMGCs categories.

There could be more chance for you appearing if you have a niche product ie: ECO bags.

But with larger firms diversifying all the time and being more up to date with consumer trends (with social network uptake and realtime consumer research) will their be any room in the top listing table for smaller players. I think not.

Possible impact of this is that the smaller players will now have to rely on recommendations in social networks, (this thought warrants another post).

Google originally were looking for quality and relevancy in paid search. Now they are looking for quality and ££££££££££.

As I am struggling to find a positive, I will be looking out for other peoples thoughts on the above and will post here.

I will also be viewing my Google accounts to see whether this has an impact, and looking at Yahoo which has always had a lower CPC, and as Yahoo is on a steady increase since 2006, could be one to watch.

Incidently this practice reminds me of Tescos - their large 24/7 store and then Tesco Express as your corner shop - I wonder if this off line activity will echo now in paid search and we will loose our local shops from Google paid forever !!

(Note to colleague: Thanks Julia for the Tesco thought)

Go to the Tesco Store Locator put in Bournemouth and you will see 14 Tescos in the area. Where are the local convenience stores ! there is no room....

Possibly Paid search will be a place for the larger brands and natural to give chance to the smaller niche brands.

Another thought is that people could go to Yahoo (more in touch with networking with answers) and find their smaller players in sponsored results there.

Time will tell......

Disgruntled with Google Sarah

Exploring Yahoo Site Explorer

2007-08-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

Yahoo Site Explorer

I never really saw any point submitting to Yahoo Site Explorer, as Yahoo spiders search the web and will find the site. However an old search colleague informs me that it is worth while tool to use and good way to manage website. Especially if one of the main aims is to increase in links to the site. Which for new sites, this is a must, and would be nice to have a tool, which has most authority to do the job.

So aim to test it.

Features include the normal list of ‘inlinks’ to the site, which are regularly cited as being a more accurate picture of your links in regards to the ones reporting by Google. (which from experience is well off the mark).

Lets you know last time the Yahoo spider visited / cached the page/site, so good for reporting impact of SEO changes.

Tells you all the subdomains it is aware of at the site.

Apparently gets websites indexed quicker !

Allows you to submit a feed – and finds your feeds quicker.

It also makes sure Yahoo knows the correct language of your site, not sure what the steps are though if states you are talking Double Dutch !

All you need to do is place a new Meta Tag with Y!Code on the sites home page.

Will watch out for impact with interest,

Sarah

Understanding Duplicate Penalties

2007-07-30T02:37:00.001-07:00

Duplicate Penalties

Penalty in the search world means that search engines will punish a website for violations against the search engines terms of service. The punishment includes removal of the website from the search engine listings.

There is a ‘duplicate content penalty’ for content that is duplicated with little change on a single site. There is also a ‘mirror penalty’ for content that is more or less duplicating another single site.

Swings and Roundabouts

Should your content be reproduced on another site, you will not incur a penalty as Google look at a lot of other factors beyond just the content of the page, ie: links. however should that site have a higher page rank than your site, it is likely that link to the article on the other site, will be listed higher than our own website.

However by adding a link, you can increase your chances of receiving visits to your site by adding more entry points.

Targeted traffic

Allowing customers or people with a common interest to your proposition toplace blog feeds, or place your articles on their site, will increase the number of targeted visitors to your site. Also if the article is posted on a relevant to your proposition site, then the links from this will increase your search engine listing position.

Local Search coming to a neighbourhood near you

2007-07-27T02:11:00.001-07:00

Your Local Search listing

An increased number of people now use local search engines to find businesses online.

Indicating that presence in a local search engine would be a positive move to increase your traffic and links to your site. Due to Google’s launch of Universal Search, which integrates vertical search networks into the results, there is an increasing need to build presence in local search.

Google Maps was launched in 2005 as a development off their local search service, which linked in with the Yellow pages listings.

It has recently been enhanced further as they now offer businesses with the opportunity to add more detailed information, such as: extra contact details, logos, images, business descriptions, payment mentions etc. You can also post promotions on the site which users can print out bring along to the shop (if you have one!).

The thought is that as local search marketing and the vertical networks grow in importance, and when mobile search services develop then the need to have placement in local listings will indeed increase.

Is this the end of the Yellow Pages?

Do you search locally? Hotel in Jersey, Flowers, Plants from Jersey, Cheap DVDs Jersey,
e-Marketing Agency Jersey. I am sure you do.

More and more people now turn to the internet to help with their local searches. As well as appearing in local search engines, forums, directories you should work at making your websites location friendly, so that it is responsive to search queries which have a location basis.
You can do this by letting people know where you are based within your content and title. Where possible you should also add your site to local directories, forums where people go to find your products.

Online submissions

The main local search engines with map technologies include:

Google Maps – Can add listings via local business centre

Yahoo Local! – Powered by Info Serve

MSN live search – will be made live with link from ThomsonDirectories / Thompson Local (see below)

You can also submit to:

Yellow Pages - £360 a year.

Info Serve - feeds Yahoo Local and City Visitor plus a range of local search engines

Thomson local - free, Live Search buy the data from Thompson Local and put on their site, there is no obligation on their part to add each and every listing ie: they are allowed to be selective. From submitting to Thompson Directories it takes 4 to 6 weeks for it then to be on Thompson Local, then around 2 months to appear on Live Search (who buy the data).

192 - costs start at £192

Local.co.uk - this also provides free entry onto Classifieds.co.uk - however currently only UK focus (Not the Channel Islands)

UK Top local listings - Local directory - costs min £8.99

The most local one for Jersey I can find is a Directory site with a Jersey section here:
http://www.freeindex.co.uk/Channel_Islands/Jersey/

NB: At this present date Google Maps service currently cover United States, Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, the UK, China, and Japan. Jersey is indeed a part of the UK, however not all of our 12 parishes yet are listed, however I have a nudger at Google, and have you scratch my back and I’ll scratch your letters to get Jersey firmly on the map. My quest here continues.

Word of Web Marketing – is the new Word of Mouth Marketing

2007-07-26T03:40:00.000-07:00

The Word on the Web

Building networks, contacting people in a similar mind/social set is what social networks are all about. There are trends indicating that people are moving away from distracting media sources and embracing those which embrace user generated content.

The challenge for companies is to know how to strategically place your company in the social network arena for commercial gain.

As User Generated Content grows, we can predict that more people will aim to find out about the product creator before purchase. Q: How many people have you Googled? Before a meeting?

Upon finding you in a social network, the consumer feels that they have more direct contact, and if you set the tone right, builds familiarity and trust with your brand/s.

Along with the offer of customised features & page design, MySpace offers a multitude of ways to contact/attract your potential consumers via: groups, forums, messages, events, blogs, videos, and classified advertising

Your profile should focus on the most remarkable aspect of your brand/proposition. Make sure your story is a persuasive one, which will not only appeal to your target market but that will compel them to find out more and support you by buying your products.

Focus should be given to tone of page, images, message, and your profile header. You can send your viewers/friends Bulletins on your new offers, invite/encourage them to tell others about you by including something for your readers to pass on, funny videos, unique pictures etc. (Remember word of web)

Recent statistics from analysts at comScore Media Metrix found that the most dramatic growth in the use of social networking sites was occurring among 25- to 34-year-olds, and the number of users aged 35 and older had grown by 98 per cent between May 2006 and May 2007.

Due to the above we are in direct contact with the social media giants as we continue our personal quest to discover their full potential.

For more statisitcs on social networks see the links from this story at the Independent:

"The Big Question: What is the point of sites such as Facebook, and should you join up?"
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2802586.ece

Plus below articles:

AdAge: Would You Let These People Friend You?
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=119841

Adweek: Facebook Spawns Ad Networks
http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003625255

Newsweek: Facebook Grows Up
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227872/site/newsweek

Search Timeline

2007-07-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

History of search

1995 - AOL got people on the Internet

1999 - Yahoo Organised it

2003 - Google made it searchable

2007 - Facebook made it socialable

e-Scape Interactive envisage that the future of search will be focused around the power of the new social networks, with consumer decisions based on other peoples opinions/recommendations. We envisage that search engines of the future will display information based on: Personalisation (Vertical search & social book-marking) and intent (to buy/order/rent etc). It’s just a thought, and builds of the martini effect, anytime, anyplace, anywhere – by adding what do you want it for, what do you want to do with it. We would be interested to hear your thoughts on where you believe the future of search will be and what your ideal search engine would look like, so if you are passing by, feel free to comment:

Google / Facebook / MySpace / Someplace else ?

Writing articles is a great way to drive traffic to a website

2007-07-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

Why article submission

As well as being a good source of PR, I heard on the grape/webvine that article submission is a quicker way to build links, in comparison to contacting directory editors submission times.

Article sites generally make the article live with the company link straight away, as they are keen to get fresh new content on their pages.

It makes sense.

Another advantage of article submission is having them republished in some other persons blog (in theory this should related to your proposition). This will help increase visitors to your site, create new links, which in turn will assist your placement in the natural search engine results pages.

You can stumble across a few issues with article submission as several of the article publishers don’t follow the same rules:

Some won’t add links (wasted effort for SEO, good for PR)
Some sites need HTML coding – although don’t state that (unfortunately sometimes find out after submission, when link is shown as not a live one)
Some offer article templates which are great for bulk submissions as you can copy and paste some sections ie: Category & Author.

Tips: Place article in Dream weaver the view source and copy and paste the code. or add the code yourself and place in own tags

ie:Bold anything you want in bold should go between 'b' tags
italic anything you want in italic should go between 'i' tags
and you can create a Href link to your site with name of choice. YourWebSite

More tags can be found here:
http://www.web-source.net/html_codes_chart.htm

A lot of the article sites, state that you are free to republish the articles as long as the links to article site and the author/site stay with the article. I am currently collating a list of Article submission sites, and struggling to find those UK focused article submission sites, should you be reading this and have any links, happy to receive.

Tip: When writing articles – provide an introduction filled with unique keywords, and finish off the article with some keyword filled comments.

Interactive Mobile Marketing

2007-07-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

Mobile Marketing

I aim to keep up to speed with the Interactive Mobile Marketing medium and its capabilities. Reviewing how mobile can engage customers:

Big players in UK include the below:

Response Mobile
Incentivated
Sponge – UK market leader in mobile marketing applications.
Dennis publishing - Head here focused on integration of the medium (Background in Multi Channel Business, Mobile, Digital, TV, Kiosks and Messenging)

Quest to get data on

Which handsets drive consumer service adoption?
What is the demo profile of users of video services?
Music services ? News and info services ?
What market trends in mobile will open up new business opportunities ?
Mobile = Interactivity, Content, Sales Promo (Get sample, brochure), Advertising (TXT/AD -118, MTV) Direct response, Customer service & CRM (Remind me of flight – Orange Wednesdays, Gym Membership, Tickets)

Managed services would include

Platforms:
Some companies charge a one of platform fee, others a by application fee. Expect to pay between £2K to £10K

Maintenance:
Expect to pay between £500 - £1500 a month
Dedicated short codes will cost additional £1K

Messages:
SMS – 6p outbound message
MMS – 30p per outbound message (less than 30kb)
WAP Push – 9p each.

Bespoke costs:
Creative copy, solution design, database creation and management, WAP site design and build, Project management

Tasks in setting up a mobile campaign

Setting up a keyword and short code combination

Creating or receiving a file of unique codes that appear on the product, Creating a validation process that will check such codes when receivd.

Creating a bounce-back message of messages and associating them with known incoming words (B this includes establishing misspellings and variants)

Database creation and profiling (inc: Capturing ongoing permission when appropriate)

Capacity planning (esp where volume ‘spikes’ are expected and/or known)

Testing (all known outcomes and timescales within Service Levels)

Performance monitoring

Close down and reporting

Vertical Networks

2007-07-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

Targeted categories: Will search engines be focused on these in the future ?

If I think of any more will add below:

· Automotive
· Business & Finance
· Computers & Internet
· Conservation
· Eco Warriors
· Education
· Family
· Fashion & Apparel
· Films
· Food & Drink
· Gadgets & Games
· Gambling
· Gay & Lesbian
· Health & Fitness
· Hobbies
· Home Improvement
· Humour
· Kids & Teems
· Legal
· Marketing
· Men
· Mobile Communications
· Music
· Parenting
· Pets & Animals
· Politics & Government
· Recreation & Sports
· Relationships
· Self Help
· Travel & Leisure
· Web Development
· Women
· Work
· Writing & Reading

Get to grips with the Gartner Hype Cycle

2007-07-25T05:51:00.000-07:00

The Hype Cycle (Gartner's 1995 model)

Basically, the hype cycle measures the buzz as well as the adoption rate.
It doesn't necessarily relate to the long-term utility - or success - of a phenomenon.
That is something that only time will tell.

For further information see:

Diagram
WikiPedia link
Introduction to the 5 phrases to 'hype cycle'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner

5 phrases of the Hype Cycle taken from http://www.gartner.com/

1. "Technology Trigger"The first phase of a Hype Cycle is the "technology trigger" or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.

2. "Peak of Inflated Expectations"In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.

3. "Trough of Disillusionment"Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.

4. "Slope of Enlightenment"Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the "slope of enlightenment" and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.

5. "Plateau of Productivity"A technology reaches the "plateau of productivity" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

Reviewing Success of a Blog

2007-07-19T03:25:00.001-07:00

Blog Analytics

In reviewing strengths & opportunities of a clients non commercial Blog (links into e-Commerce site), I identified that review should not be on traffic alone, and should be based on several other factors these are listed below:

Don’t review apples with bananas!

Links to the client’s Blog have been optimised via increased appearance in Blog directories and answer engines. The directories have been seen to have an impact on the rise in traffic. One Blog page in particular drives the most traffic to the site, and I seek to find out where this traffic comes from (organic, links, paid search, rss feeds).

The fact that one Blog post (new or old) can have a big impact on traffic to site, bothers me. In that it becomes difficult to state X happened because of Y. Possibly it could be something on the news previous evening that spurred an interest in a particular field. Due to the above influx, it is important to also identify other factors when reviewing Blog performance. Factors which I propose for Blog review outlined below:

Influential inbound links

In the Blog world quality comes from influence. A small group of the right people (Martini effect), reading and linking to your Blog can have a huge impact on your influential stakes, by web users and search engine spiders alike. The challenge will be finding a way to break into these groups and using analytics identifying who they are. Blog & site review sites will be of benefit to promote your site to the right people, publish your status, as a Blog that is here to stay.

One link on an influential Blog (with lots of links off page & in) is better than 30 odd links on random Blogs that no one links to, especially if the links on the influential Blog are centred around propositions similar to your brands. It will also be of benefit to increase the amount of links from key social networking sites including Dig it, Del.ici.ous.

At this present time I am unsure as to whether RSS feeds will be listed in analytics tracking as an RSS feed or whether we will see a website which has the RSS feed embedded as a referrer. Finding out (will report back here).

On the clients Blog, we currently have the opportunity for people to social bookmark, however is everyone aware of how to use these tools ?

Will be proposing that we provide advice area on social bookmarking to help increase these links in.

Reviewing Blog position

I have highlighted to client that for the Blog to appear on the first page of natural search results focus needs to be given to products and core proposition. At the same time it should be noted that the Blog is there to act as a companion to the e-Commerce site, so we don’t appear to have timeshare tactics and more of ‘fruit & veg first in the supermarket’ approach. Is the blog appearing for brand related terms, if not need to build further.

Appearing highly in natural listings will:

Provide the Blog with a status that your Blog is indeed influential

With influence and ranking status more people will link to you, from you.

Allow you to exploit your status by providing readers ways to advertise your site (link criteria and logos).

Reviewing Blog brand name position

As well as having a product focus it is also beneficial if your Blog ranks highly for keywords associated with you brand. Reviewing position with regards to company name, your tag line, your personal name. This will indicate how much search engines notice your Blog in general.

Tone of the Blog

Showing the readers your passion for your proposition is of great benefit. You should be speaking to your customers in a way in which they can gain respect from you and your business.
Propose that where possible build on advice aspect (place links to Blog in answer engines) and provide your readers with more timely information ie: Event dates.

Reputation Management

Consider sponsorship – publish in Blog.

Consider who else could contribute to your Blog – another influencial blogger?

Create posts on topical discussions that relate to your brand

Add links to brand related associations & express interest in these
Increase useful content: To link from Answer Engines

Social Network Marketing Trends listed July 07

2007-07-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

Recent 2007 trends include:

Face book overtaking MySpace in share of UK Internet searches - (reported by Hitwise)

Growth of Podcasts

Uptake of photo sharing software

Google bought You Tube & now offer web-wide video search.

Microsoft are going to launch a service similar to You Tube

Yahoo’s ‘Flickr’ added multilingual capabilities

Rumour that Yahoo are keen to buy Bebo, the UK’s leading social network site (as the mo), which would increase their presense in the UK market.

You Tube launched nine new international sites

Google now offer web-wide video search on Google video

e-Marketing on the move: MSN recently launched mobile portal, Google mobile and Yahoo! One search.

WebTV / Apple TV / surf in the living room TV.

Search Statistics July 07

2007-07-18T04:44:00.000-07:00

Stats from: e-Consultancy
Report title: UK Search Engine Marketing Report 2007

Respondents included: Agencies and companies from Retail: Financial Services; Travel; Publishing.

Interesting that 44% of responders to this survey don’t track paid search and about 64% don’t track SEO ROI either. Companies with over 1 million turn-over likely to outsource SEM – less than 1million majority conduct SEM in house (and with agency)

Search Engine usage: 87% Google – 45% Yahoo – 33% MSN – 11% Miva – 6% Ask. Google outperforms on other factors – however Yahoo & MSN score well for quality of visitor (even though low traffic).

Google's Radical Update May 16th 2007

2007-07-18T04:36:00.000-07:00

Did you notice?

Have you ever noticed the boxes/links which appear above the Google Search box (where you enter your keyword), do you use them ? In general many people don’t, however for your reference these additional areas are known in the Web World as ‘vertical search engines’, where you can search a specialised area ie: Images, News, Maps, Product, Groups, Scholar, More>

Google noted their lack of use and made a radical decision on May 2007 to integrate all their vertical/specialist search results into our regular search results. This update was named by Google as ‘Universal Search’.

What does this mean to you?

Well if you search Google for ‘Simpsons movie’ or ‘Hotel in Jersey’ you will get the general idea, results in the main search result pages now show links to blog articles, news stories, image, video links, and where relevant local map information and book search links. It is providing users with more information and providing you with increased opportunities to increase your exposure online. Search is getting personal.

For your interest you may like to visit this search engine, which displays results in a vertical/specialised manner www.searchmash.com and with regards to search getting personal check out www.50matches.com which only shows sites that have been book marked or voted by people on social bookmark sites Digg, Delicious, Reddit – thus as well as being relevant to query, they also deemed important by the searchers themselves.

Exciting times are ahead in the ever evolving world of search engine marketing.