Marco.Barra.Blog

Southampton SEO Company Triumphs at Best Business Awards

2009-11-16T19:58:00.001-08:00

Impact Media are celebrating their second award in as many months. Their latest success came at the Best Business Awards where they scooped the award for Best Customer Focus.

In an industry as competitive as Search Engine Marketing, independent recognition such as this is incredibly important to professional service providers and Hampshire SEO agency, Impact Media, are certainly no exception. These sentiments were echoed in the comments by the company’s Managing Director, Ben Norman, following this latest accomplishment:

“This is a fantastic achievement for us. We’ve got a small team here at Impact Media, but we’re dedicated to providing the highest levels of service for our clients; our success at the Best Business Awards shows that our hard work is paying off.”

Mr Norman continued by saying “With our award for Outstanding Online Marketing at the Global Business Excellence Awards last month and this latest recognition for Best Customer Focus, we have achieved impressive industry acknowledgement of the work that we do. There’s no room for complacency though. Our success at the Best Business Awards will spur us on to bigger and better things in the future.”

The Best Business Awards are chaired by a panel of over 20 industry experts, each of whom have previously triumphed in their category. Winners are selected across a full range of disciplines in both the public and private sectors, with Impact Media joining an illustrious list of past winners .

From their offices on the outskirts of Southampton, Impact Media have created a reputation for getting visible results for their clients. The sole focus of the company is to improve websites rankings within the major search engines, helping them to gain more online visibility and improve traffic levels. Their specialist expertise and ethical SEO practises have seen significant improvements for numerous Internet businesses.

Search Engine Marketing itself is a very broad service, incorporating a number of facets that will ultimately strengthen a site and improve its ranking performance. In order to provide the best results, you need the knowledge and experience of optimising websites; something that Impact Media have in abundance. Their Best Business Awards success shows that they are not only achieving results for clients, but are also providing an equally high level of customer service to match.

The Southampton based company are also a specialist Pay per Click management services provider using qualified staff and are a Google AdWords Qualified Company.

Whilst most companies don’t work solely to gain awards, the recognition that they afford provides welcome reassurance that they’re doing something right. SEO is all about improving a website’s strength position gradually by fine tuning the component parts; Impact Media as a company are much the same, gaining skills, knowledge and expertise right across the team to help provide a higher standard of service for clients. The Best Customer Focus award is testament to these continuing efforts.

Retailers Predicted To Have A Merrier Christmas Online Than On The High Street

2009-11-11T01:54:00.000-08:00

Almost everyone will be shopping online for Christmas presents this year, according to a new survey by eDigitalResearch and IMRG. The results of the latest e-Customer Service Index (eCSI) reveal that consumer confidence in online shopping has grown as 93% of people plan to click online for their Christmas gifts this year, with more than a quarter planning to do more shopping online than last year.

As the key retail benchmark indicator, the survey of 2,804 people asked questions about their shopping habits in the run up to Christmas. Results show that increasing numbers of people are flocking online with 71% even prepared to do half or more of their shopping online this Christmas.

However, the findings also support current assumptions that price will continue to dominate the online marketplace, as people are prepared to shop around to get the best deals. Competition for business will be fierce as 88% of people are expected to research and price-compare before they buy, with almost a quarter of them researching while in-store or at home via their mobile phones.

The research indicates that despite price being the main influencing factor, customer’s still expect to get a good service. In light of the threat of Royal Mail strike action, 60% of consumers are confident that they will receive their gifts on time. Price competitiveness can also be offset through improvements in customer service queries, given that customer satisfaction has dropped to 74% this year.

Chris Russell, Director of eDigitalResearch comments: “Given the online price-war, retailers need to up their game and prove that they can respond effectively to all customer queries through their preferred method of contact. Having good communication with consumers is vital as it encourages trust in the brand and engenders consumer loyalty. Retailers that will succeed are those that anticipate online growth and ensure that they are well-resourced to effectively communicate with their customers.”

James Roper, CEO of IMRG comments: “People are set to deck the halls with online shopping this Christmas, the internet clearly being the first place most of us go to find, buy and organise everything these days. Younger shoppers are already buying pretty much everything online, so retailers may do well to focus on older shoppers – a growing sector, with more money to spend – increasing the type size is generally a good start. And with increasing numbers of people using the internet for ‘window shopping’, it is clear that retailers can do more to convert lookers into bookers.”

National Express Appoint SEO Specialists iThinkMedia

2009-11-11T01:46:00.000-08:00

National Express, the transport group has selected SEO specialist iThinkMedia to take charge of all Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for both their Coach and Portal websites, which offer online bookings and information on the transport group’s coach, bus, train and airport transfer services.

Michelle Gledhill, Ecommerce Acquisition Manager for National Express said “iThinkMedia were the obvious choice as our SEO supplier. They showed great knowledge and provided a clear and concise strategy on how National Express can increase their natural search presence and encourage natural growth online.”

Chris Ailey, Managing Director of iThinkMedia added “National Express is a great example of how our approach to SEO appeals to large organisations that already have a strong brand presence online but are looking to attract new customers through targeted optimisation of areas where visibility could be strengthened in the Natural Search listings.”

Bigmouthmedia Wins Travolution Award for Best Use of SEO

2009-10-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

Bigmouthmedia's innovative collaboration with luxury travel operator Kuoni has seen the agency win the prestigious Travolution Award for the best search marketing campaign of the year.

Walking away with the coveted prize for Best Use of search engine optimisation, Europe's largest independent digital marketing agency was recognised for an international campaign that saw Kuoni enjoy a 100% increase in number one search rankings while achieving outstanding ROI. Praising the strategy for delivering a 104% increase in total unique search visitors within a year, a panel of experts singled out the project as an example of industry best practice.

"This was a fantastic demonstration of when SEO and user experience work hand-in-hand to create a powerful new proposition, especially with Kuoni's new i-Travel proposition. The agency met all the client's objectives and produced premium results with a clear return-of-investment," said a panel spokesman.

Beating stiff competition from ambergreen, iCrossing, Latitude and Greenlight, bigmouthmedia's campaign was selected for its implementation of constantly evolving SEO strategies including the use of social media releases and the exploitation of synergies between Kuoni's PPC strategy and its search marketing activities.

"Our campaign was aimed at increasing search engine visibility, traffic and revenues, and I'm delighted that its success on all fronts has been rewarded with such a prestigious honour. Our internal staff have worked closely with bigmouthmedia throughout to deliver a particularly complex strategy, and this award is a richly deserved accolade for all involved," said Joanna Edmunds, Kuoni's Commercial Director.

Matt Rooke, eBusiness Director at Kuoni, added: "The statistics speak for themselves. Results like the 69% increase in organic search engine traffic we delivered over a single year have helped us achieve outstanding ROI on this campaign, while our use of innovative link building activities to increase rankings for targeted keyphrases and video listings has seen us earn first page rankings in Google for over 90% of our targeted keywords"

The Travolution prize rounds off a successful week for bigmouthmedia on the awards circuit. On Tuesday September 29th, the agency learned that it has also been nominated for Agency of the Year at the 2009 Marketing Industry Network Awards.

"I'm delighted to see our campaign recognised in this way. It's a tribute to the very talented team that worked side-by-side with Kuoni on a constantly evolving campaign that used the very latest search technologies to great effect," said Anneli Ritari, Senior Travel Strategist at bigmouthmedia.

'The SEO Song' - Showing the Importance of Professional Web Design & Online Marketing

2009-09-26T19:55:00.000-07:00

The Creare Group, a company consistently dedicated to practising White Hat SEO techniques, have released a brand new music video to accompany 'The SEO Song'. It is designed to help educate businesses about the dangers of companies who promise immediate and organic results in the search engines that they just can't achieve. There are so many SEO firms who practise 'black hat' techniques, it can be hard to know exactly where to start when you need to find a company who can help you.

With their vast technical know-how and fully developed teams dedicated to search engine optimisation, website design and e-commerce web design, The Creare Group are in a great position to help educate others. In such an unregulated industry, with no official external standards, it is easy for companies to get away with manipulating and deceiving innocent potential customers.

The Creare Group are launching this campaign to raise awareness about these issues, and to ensure SEO comes to the forefront of public attention.

Just some of the falsehoods spread by those companies that thrive on using illegitimate techniques include: being affiliated with Google, guaranteeing front page or top position results in a limited time span and failing to properly explain the difference between pay-per-click and organic SEO campaigns. The Creare Group feel so strongly about the widespread black-hat SEO underworld, that they are making it their mission to educate small to medium businesses about these dangers.

A music video is an innovative and exciting way to publicise this message by reaching out to the masses without the technical jargon. Starring home-grown talent in the form of their very own expert web designer Michael Angrave, and the rest of his band 'Charlie And The Martyrs', this could be the best possible way to ensure all businesses understand the need to use honest SEO firms. The video was filmed in house, as The Creare Group pride themselves on their versatility, in addition to their skills with regard to SEO and Web Design.

Lead vocalist Michael Angrave comments; "It's not every day you get the opportunity to make and record a pop song and music video, so naturally, when we came up with the idea, I was more than happy to offer my input. I think the song itself is a fun take on what we do as a company, which is to make a difference to people's businesses and lives."

As a company whose search engine results are all natural and fully above board, The Creare Group feel so passionately that through the medium of music they want to amuse, educate and, above all, spread the word, so that no other businesses are exploited by the practices of black hat SEO firms.

"At Creare, we find nothing more soul destroying than when we go to see potential customers only to discover they have been mis-sold websites and deceived by SEO companies who promise to provide genuine organic results and simply rely on pay-per-click. We feel so strongly about this that we created the SEO music video to educate small to medium sized businesses about the risks of such practices." Mike McKinlay, MD.

The Creare Group feel so strongly about the quality of the techniques used in the SEO community that they will be promoting this video across a variety of online and offline channels. For more information about their honest web design and search engine optimisation services, you can see the video both on the Creare Group YouTube Channel, and on their websites.

Guava to Appear at Chinwag Live

2009-09-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

Leading search engine marketing agency, Guava, will be on the panel of the Chinwag Live event "Search is Dead, Long Live Search" on the evening of Tuesday 29th of September at the Slug and Lettuce pub in SoHo, London.

With the rapid growth of Twitter, as well as the launch of newer services such as Bing, Guava's SEO Director, Teddie Cowell, will be on the panel to discuss how marketers and SEO specialists can optimise for new search technologies.

Teddie Cowell, SEO Director of Guava commented:
"The search landscape is certainly changing. 'Search is Dead, Long Live Search' will be a great opportunity to explore how we can really optimise effectively for the ever-increasing range of search platforms available to web users - in the age of 'social media search'."

Guava are also sponsoring the event, which also sees speakers from Mindshare, Betfair and MediaVest. Chinwag Live is the first of many events Guava are due to appear at.

For further information on Guava's juicy event line up visit: http://www.guava.co.uk/events/

Mobile Broadband Providers Deliver a Quarter of Advertised Speeds

2009-09-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

The leading comparison site tested 3,342 mobile broadband connections during the period 1st March 2009 - 31st August, 2009, and found that the average actual download speed was 1.1Mbs compared to the average advertised maximum speed of 4.5Mbs.

The research also revealed that, whilst Vodafone recorded the fastest actual speed with an average of 1.3Mbs, it also delivered the lowest percentage of its advertised speeds at just 18% of the stated 7.2Mbs. The findings are particularly surprising as the operator has recently announced that its maximum speeds are set to increase to 14.4Mbs.

Although there was not a great difference in actual speeds delivered between providers, T-Mobile was the slowest at 0.9Mbs or 20% of the advertised speed. 3 achieved the highest percentage of advertised speeds clocking in at 1.2Mbs or 33.3% of the advertised 3.6Mbs maximum speed.

Rob Webber, Broadband Expert's Commercial Director, is calling for providers to add average speeds to advertising so consumers can make a more informed choice. He said: "It is completely unreasonable for a provider to advertise unrealistically high speeds that the vast majority of customers will never receive. Advertising unrealistic speeds will not help the long term growth of mobile broadband or the reputation of the providers if customers feel they are being misled."

By comparison, over the same period, Broadband Expert tested 94,546 home broadband connections where the average speed was 3.6Mbs or 44% of advertised maximum speed.

Webber concluded: "Consumers who see mobile broadband advertised at such high speeds may see it as a realistic alternative to home broadband, whereas in truth it should be seen as a complementary technology. Continued developments in the mobile broadband industry will undoubtedly allow it to become a true competitor in the future, but at the moment - as our research shows - there is still a way to go."

Bookreaders Give Social Networks a Thumbs Down

2009-09-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

In a recent survey conducted by Book Marketing Limited, book-lovers gave a resounding thumbs down to 'social networks' such as Facebook and Twitter with only 3% seeing them as very useful places they would go to for recommendations on what books to read next.

Instead, they actively seek out more authentic expert views on the web from Author websites as well as trusted independent sources of guidance such as Lovereading.co.uk. In addition, when asked where they find out about the latest books, the web was the most used but email newsletter and reviews in the newspaper scored highly as well.

At the other end of the scale, only 5% of respondents said they often looked at the expensive posters sites typically seen on public transport.

Peter Crawshaw of Lovereading said 'In one way the research findings support the more 'traditional' view that is held about book lovers. What is interesting however is the high level of independence shown by them in the sourcing of authentic expert views on what they might like to read next. It also points to the 'Stephen Fry / Jonathan Ross Twitter effect as being the exception rather than the rule'.

Engage Customers Via Video

2009-09-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

With UK online advertising now worth approximately £3.3 billion, a new website http://www.bizzibox.com launches today that offers businesses of all sizes a place to communicate directly with their online audience with advanced video streaming technology. Bizzibox is the interactive business directory with video streaming technology at its centre – enabling businesses to easily manage their online brand image and reach out to more customers.

UK Businesses list for free on http://www.bizzibox.com and receive a free, interactive profile page from which they can upload news and images. Listings are linked to expert information videos on products and services allowing consumers to find information and businesses quickly and easily.

One feature that business can access directly from their Bizzibox profile page is the My Bizzibox Player. ‘The My Bizzibox Player makes branded video streaming technology available to businesses of all sizes,’ comments Bizzibox CEO, Tom Acton. ‘It allows businesses to create video blogs, upload business videos and publish video news stories that play instantly on a business’ own website. From £19.50 per month, it’s the UK’s only affordable commercial-use video publishing solution and an ideal tool for businesses that want to add professional branded video to their websites.’

In addition to the My Bizzibox Player, the site also offers a professional Filming & web distribution service: ‘Video is a powerful way for business to communicate with their customers and increase their online traffic,’ continues Acton.

‘The consumer market for online video has grown rapidly over the past couple of years with approximately 29.6 million people in the UK accessing online video in a single month in 2009. To reach this ever growing market, businesses of all sizes need to stay one step ahead and communicate via online video. Bizzibox provides the ideal platform to do this.’

UK's Largest Auction Site Sees Traffic Grow Over 5,000%

2009-09-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

With a team of only 10 full time employees, Bid4Vouchers launched onto the UK auction scene with a fanfare not seen since rival German auction site Swoopo entered the market in 2008. From an initial membership of only three thousand the site has grown beyond all expectations increasing in size by over 1500 new members every week. This has left the company with a few initial growing pains but one of the fastest growing companies on the internet.

Founder and technical director, Oliver Hutcheon, explains;

"There's a significant difference between us and other auction sites in that we create substantially more winners because of our business model. We only auction gift vouchers for all the major high street stores and each auction varies in value from £10 to £500.

When we launched we planned for a steady growth so we could meet the challenges of higher traffic along the way. It hasn't been like that at all.. the growth has been phenomenal and driven partly by the auction winners themselves recommending the site. What we didn't factor in was the time that our members spend using the site which is sometimes up to one hour. Thankfully our hosting company, Red Technology, have been excellent in upgrading the hardware necessary to cope with the added traffic.

At present, we keep stocks of around £10,000 worth of vouchers on any of 30 high street stores we represent so delivery is quick and by registered post. You can play and win the day before you go shopping."

So how do the auctions work? It's a tried and tested model where each bidder pays a small amount for the right to place a bid and drives up the price by a few pence. But what's new about Bid4Vouchers?

Jon Molton, sales director explains,

"People have become comfortable with the standard auction model where anywhere up to a few hundred people will chase a very valuable prize for only a few pounds, paying a small price each time to bid. The trouble with the existing model is that this leaves one winner and many, many losers. We run auctions where you can fairly easily win bundles of high street gift vouchers for 30% to 40% of their face value, sometimes with as few as only 3 or 4 members participating in the auction. This new way of generating more successful auction winners has proved to be quite a significant attraction and the levels of interest we've experienced have certainly given us some late nights. But it's a great problem for the company to have."

Looking at some of the recent auctions on the website its easy to see why the growth has been so explosive;

£250 of Boots the chemist vouchers sold recently for only £12.18.
£500 of House of Fraser vouchers went for only £34.84
£25 of Argos vouchers went for only 89p.

Jon Molton again… "Some of the auctions only raise the price by 1p for every bid, so the final value is incredibly small but we're happy with that. Over 70% of the auctions do lose us money, but the 30% that don't make up for the other 70%."

Bacs Approves Experian Payments Gateway

2009-09-16T05:10:00.000-07:00

Experian, the global information company, has announced that its payment processing product, Experian Payments Gateway, has achieved approval under the Faster Payments Approved Software Scheme, operated by Bacs. As the first software to receive approval for unattended use with Direct Corporate Access (DCA), it will enable users to fully automate their Faster Payments and participate in the Barclays launch of DCA to Faster Payments in September.

Originally developed to enable payments originators to process Bacs Payments, Experian Payments Gateway has been extended, tested and approved for use with Smartcards and Hardware Security Modules (HSM) in both attended and unattended modes. It supports Faster Payments DCA via Secure-IP, the secure channel for corporates to initiate Faster Payments.

James Hilliard, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Experian Payments, said, "Many of our large customers use automated payments systems to help increase efficiency and reduce their risk and costs. Recognising their need to automate their Faster Payments securely, we have worked closely with the Faster Payments Approved Bacs Software Scheme to ensure they are able to gain maximum benefit from the new Faster Payments Service."

Gareth Lodge, Regional Research Director, TowerGroup, said, "Automating payments has always been a key priority for corporates as it has multiple benefits, from cost reduction to improved risk management. But in the current economic environment, it probably is even more important than it has ever been, with working capital benefiting in particular. And of course, the deeper that SEPA Payments are integrated into the end-to-end process, the greater the benefits."

TheGiftCardCentre.co.uk Makes "UK Retail Website of the Year" Finals

2009-09-15T05:12:00.000-07:00

The Gift Card Centre Ltd, creator of the UK's first online gift card consumer portal TheGiftCardCentre.co.uk, today announced that it was shortlisted by Retail Systems Magazine for "UK Retail Website of the Year". Retail Systems will announce the winner of this category and others at their annual Awards Dinner on October 29th at Grosvenor House in London.

"TheGiftCardCentre.co.uk is riding two hot UK trends - the rapid move away from old paper vouchers to new electronic stored value gift cards and emailable eVouchers, and the explosion in online shopping," said Paul Preston, Director of Business Development. "We're delighted to be named along with Prezzybox, Kiddiecare and Specsavers as a finalist for this award."

TheGiftCardCentre.co.uk features gift cards from the UK's leading merchants, including iTunes, Debenhams, Argos, Comet, WHSmith, Ticketmaster, Sainsbury's and many more. Their one-stop-gift-card-shop allows UK consumers to browse from a selection of leading stored value gift cards, and select the perfect one, at the perfect value, to fit the occasion.

How To Blog Yourself Out Of Debt

2009-09-14T05:08:00.000-07:00

Lee Smallbone (26) started out in January 2009 owing over £15,000 in unsecured loans and credit cards. Faced with the prospect of divorce and losing his home, he decided to take hold of his worsening situation and work himself out of debt for good within 12 months, and then onwards towards financial security and prosperity. Above all else, he wants to help others do the same.

The world of UK personal finance has always been a minefield, and this has never been more true in the current Credit Crunch climate. His blog is his diary, a guidebook, a "do it yourself" get out of debt and prosper manual, and it's all available in stark honest blog format at FivePencePiece.com

There are no quick fixes involved, no get-rich-quick schemes and no scams. Just hard work, planning and strategy. Documenting what works for him and what doesn't, writing reviews on financial products and services, and offering help to ordinary British people in the most difficult financial times a generation of people know.

Glasshouse Hots Up For Spotify Event

2009-09-11T03:47:00.000-07:00

The Glasshouse, the international membership community for entrepreneurs, innovators, start-ups and investors, has today announced that it is releasing a new block of memberships due to intense interest in its next event: On 17th September, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek will break his current media silence to talk about his real life experiences as an entrepreneur in conversation with the BBC's Katie Ledger.

Judith Clegg, The Glasshouse founder said, "We've been under a lot of pressure to open up the membership to allow in a fresh intake of entrepreneurs. It seems that the credit crunch redundancies have given a lot of people the impetus to take control of their own career destiny and as a result the entrepreneurial buzz is louder than ever in London."

The extraordinary media interest in Spotify, and the chance to see its CEO, Daniel Ek, up close and personal has had the phone ringing off the hook in the build-up to the next event. Judith adds, "The criteria is pretty stringent, potential members will still be screened to keep the ratio of real entrepreneurs to investors and others in and around the community up at the right level. We have a hard won reputation for attracting a really great crowd which is why companies like Spotify, Skype, Last fm and Bebo agree to work with us so we won't ever jeopardize that."

Glasshouse membership ensures preferential access to events and is free to entrepreneurs. To apply for membership please email Sylvia at theglasshouse.net for further details. Tickets for events start at £25 each.

The next Glasshouse event is at 7pm on Thursday 17th September at The Royal College of Physicians, NW1: Pop Idols, a new musical democracy - does the rise of Spotify signal lasting change for the music industry?, with Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify interviewed by BBC Click's Katie Ledger.

UK Slow To Take Up Super-fast Broadband

2009-09-11T03:41:00.000-07:00

Simiplifydigital.co.uk analyses broadband figures according to the Broadband World Forum. The results show that the UK is lagging behind the rest of Europe for super-fast, fibre to the home broadband.

According to figures announced at the Broadband World Forum in Paris this week, fibre to the home (FTTH) broadband has grown by 18% in Europe over the last 12 months, but the UK has failed to make the list of top 10 adopters of this new technology.

FTTH broadband is the "Rolls Royce" of broadband delivery solutions and allows super-fast upload and download speeds ideal for emerging web 2.0 services like person to person video calling. FTTH is the generation beyond, fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) solutions used by suppliers such as Virgin Media in the UK (which themselves offer speeds far faster than standard DSL broadband).

The Fibre-To-The-Home Council, which compiled the rankings, showed that Sweden came top with 10.9% of broadband homes enjoying FTTH, followed by Norway (10.2%) and Slovenia (8.9%) in third place. The UK, France and Germany all failed to feature in the top fourteen European FTTH-enabled nations. Interestingly Lithuania and Slovakia do make the ranking, showing how emerging European nations are far better prepared for the online future than the old industrialised economies such as the UK and France.

Fibre to the home (FTTH), as the name suggests, involves the laying of fibre optic cable all the way into the home. This is much more costly than the FTTC fibre optic broadband infrastructure, which relies on a standard cable connection for the last yards from the street cabinet to the home. The Fibre-To-The-Home Council forecasts that 13m people across 35 European countries would have fibre broadband by 2012, with average broadband speeds of around 100Mb/sec. This compares to the UK, where the average residential broadband speed is currently 4.5 Mb/sec.

Charlie Ponsonby CEO of broadband comparison service Simplifydigital.co.uk comments:

"The UK’s very limited FTTH network is unlikely to change any time soon. No major broadband provider has committed to a substantial FTTH rollout. BT’s much publicized £1.5bn investment in fibre optic broadband is FTTC, like Virgin Media’s network."

Charlie Ponsonby continues:

"FTTC broadband is still a big improvement on standard DSL broadband services. Virgin Media is currently offering an up to 50 Mb/sec broadband package via FTTC – and is piloting a scheme to deliver speeds of up to 200 Mb/sec. However, both networks will still leave about 30-40% of UK homes relying on slower DSL broadband connections."

In Japan over 40% of residential broadband connections are via fibre to the home (FTTH) so they enjoy broadband speeds roughly 20 times faster than t he average UK household. One Japanese cable company KDDI, recently launched a FTTH broadband and telephony package with upload and download speeds each of up to one gigabit per second, (1000 Mb/sec). What's more the KDDI service (with a free phone line) costs only around £35 per month.

Base London Launch Online Gentlemens Club

2009-09-11T03:35:00.000-07:00

Base London has expanded its e-commerce site to incorporate an online Gentlemen's Club aimed at entertaining and educating their loyal customer base and giving them the opportunity to interact directly with the brand.

A variety of 'rooms' in the Gentlemen's Club play host to elements of interest to the Base London target market including competitions, videos and reviews along with fashion and style tips educating the customer on key looks for the season and what to wear to which social event.

Once in the Gentlemen's Club the visitor has the opportunity to enter a selection of 'rooms' such as the Video Lounge, screening the choice cuts of the best videos on the net, and the Comedy Club which offers some witty one liners and classic quips. The Trap Door reviews a variety of subjects ranging from weird restaurants to the latest movie releases while a Games Room offers the chance to win a pair of the latest Base London mens shoes.

The Base London Gentlemen's Club also features a Dressing Room section that advises customers on how to pull of the latest looks and a Street Style section that spots Base London customers on the streets from around the UK. The Base London Gentlemen's Guide also offers some handy tips for men, with topics ranging from how to impress your boss to pub magic.

Customers can find everything they need to know about the latest Base London formal, semi formal and casual shoes as well as pairing shoes with situations, with all products available to buy in the Base London Online Shoe Shop.

Camping Is Back and It's Here to Stay

2009-09-10T03:18:00.000-07:00

The launch and rapid growth of Pitchup.com, a campsite and holiday park search website, couldn't be more indicative of the current holiday climate. Official statistics released yesterday by UKTS show that UK camping and caravanning was up by 27% compared to 2008 (January to May). Official statistics for June onwards have not yet been released, but the renaissance of UK camping and caravanning holidays was predicted early in the year with advance bookings up by 25% over 2008 (from the National Caravan Council). Looking forwards to 2010, 54% of Britons who took a YouGov poll plan to take their main holiday at home- compared to the 26% who said they would this summer.

Furthermore, the credit crunch in the UK and a collapse in holidaymakers' overseas buying power (Source: X-rates.com) resulted in a 19% decline in holiday trips abroad in June 2009 (Source: International Passenger Survey - IPS).

This year's growth in the UK camping and holiday park market stems from a variety of factors. As well as the credit crunch and holidaymakers seeking value for money, a yearning for the nostalgic, the growth of "glamping" (glamour + camping), and the mushrooming of UK festivals have all paved the way for the rise. In addition, the growing awareness of the necessity for sustainable travel means a 'staycation' is one of the best ways to lower an individual's carbon footprint.

Pitchup.com is the most comprehensive website in its sector, with 5,000 UK and Ireland campsites and holiday parks featured including hundreds of hard-to-find sites. The website has an easy-to-use search facility and contains information on accommodation near hundreds of beaches, nine National Parks, 17 World Heritage Sites, and the main UK festivals.

Pitchup.com allows visitors to make specific searches according to their needs. The site's comprehensive listings make it possible, for example, to search for a campsite in South-West England that is near a beach and a National Park, allows dogs, offers disabled facilities and wifi, and has sailing nearby (in this case, Porlock Caravan Park in Somerset). Users can also search for any post code and see local sites. Alternatively, users can search for what they want to do first and the site will show the accommodation options nearby.

Users can also search for places to go such as beaches and walking routes, as well as UK events and festivals via a direct link to Ticketmaster and eFestivals.

Dan Yates, Managing Director, Pitchup.com commented:
"2009 is the year of the "staycation" and particularly camping and caravanning. The credit crunch, investment in tourism facilities and growing spontaneity in travel patterns are seeing UK holidaymakers staying at home looking to enjoy the great outdoors."

"The massive growth of the market kicks the doors wide open for this website. It helps visitors find exactly what they want if considering a UK- or Ireland-based camping or caravanning holiday - whether it's a family holiday, activity holiday with friends or a trip to one of the UK's music festivals. We want Pitchup.com to be as helpful as possible to our users: for example, we've added a 'near festival' search to the homepage and are incentivising campsite reviews with a tent competition. There's no doubt that this type of holiday has a great deal of appeal to the British from students, to families, to the over-55s; and Pitchup.com will assist in finding the holiday they want, whatever their criteria."

Over 700 sites listed on Pitchup.com are open all the year round, and the site is preparing autumn and winter campaigns that highlight the UK's natural charms, working in partnership with leading brands. Dan Yates continues: "The site promises to be the portal for the camping and caravanning world as we positively encourage feedback and collaboration by our users about a whole range of accommodation and things to do in the great British countryside."

Real-Time Search Engine Launched By FAROO

2009-09-10T03:11:00.000-07:00

FAROO, an innovator in Peer-to-peer technology, announced today the launch of Real-Time Social Discovery and Search, which uses a crowd-sourced approach to search, offering the discovery of new and relevant Web documents within minutes of their being published.

Using connectors to popular social services such as Twitter and Digg, FAROO's Real-Time Search is able to leverage a larger representative base of attention data for discovery and ranking. FAROO deep crawls all discovered links and uses the number of votes, trust and reputation for ranking those documents.

"The discovery of topical, recent, and novel information has always been an important aspect of search, but the perception of what "recent" is has changed dramatically over the past year," said Wolf Garbe, CEO of FAROO. "FAROO's new Real Time Search is the next step towards a unified and distributed Web search, enabled by the scaling and cost advantages of our peer-to-peer technology."

FAROO offers a number of benefits which improve real-time search including:

Social Noise Filter
FAROO analyzes the trust and reputation of the original source, the recommending user, and the attention and popularity of the information among the final consumers in order to separate the relevant documents from the constant real-time stream of noise.

Social Tagging
There is nothing as powerful as the human brain for categorizing information. FAROO utilizes collective intelligence and aggregates the tags from all users and all of the connected services for a specific document. Tags may be used as filters in the faceted search.

Rich Visual Preview
Whenever possible, a teaser picture from the article is shown in front of the text summary, not just a thumbnail of the whole Web page. The author is also displayed and can be used for filtering purposes.

Sentiment Detection
It's not just the pure news, but also the emotions that involve users and make information relevant. FAROO detects and visualizes which kinds of sentiments have been triggered in the conversation.

Multi-Language Support
The real-time search services are still dominated by English content. Yet, the country with the most Internet users is China, and due to the long tail the vast majority of Internet users use languages other than English. FAROO provides language-specific voting, ranking, and searching together with a localized user interface.

Faceted Search
FAROO's faceted search feature enables users to navigate a multi-dimensional information space by combining text search with a progressive narrowing of choices in each dimension. This helps users manage the increasing flow of information by narrowing, drilling down, refining and filtering the search results.

RSS result feeds
Users can subscribe to the result streams, applying any combination of the faceted search filters, so they can be notified and browse through the news in a preferred feed reader.

Fujitsu Chooses Bigmouthmedia For Paid Search

2009-09-10T03:02:00.000-07:00

Electronics giant Fujitsu has chosen bigmouthmedia, Europe's largest independent digital marketing agency, to lead its international PPC campaign.

Fujitsu Technology Solutions GmbH selected the Edinburgh based search engine optimisation company following a multi-agency pitch. Bigmouthmedia will now lead the company's paid search advertising campaign in more than 25 countries worldwide, including Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

David Hardy, bigmouthmedia group's international sales and marketing director, commented on the deal saying: "We're delighted to be working for such an internationally renowned brand like Fujitsu. One of bigmouthmedia's key strengths is our international scope, and our demonstrable expertise in running complex multi-language campaigns has been a key factor in winning this account."

He added: "Over the past 12 years we have established a proven track record in managing big brands across multiple territories, and I am confident we will enjoy similar success with our strategy for what promises to be a challenging and exciting campaign."

Employing more than 10,000 members of staff, Fujitsu Technology Solutions GmbH is part of the global Fujitsu group, which offers IT-based business solutions in 70 countries worldwide. The innovative technology company was searching for an agency that could manage all of its campaigns across multiple target markets from a central location, which led them to bigmouthmedia.

Fujitsu's digital marketing requirements also included an increase in the profile, turnover and traffic on their international sites as well as the capacity to oversee new product and service launches. Beginning work immediately, bigmouthmedia now develops and manages Fujitsu's PPC (http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/products_services/pay_per_click_management/ ) campaigns in more than 25 countries, including Italy, Spain, Turkey, Scandinavia and the Eastern European countries.

Putting Twitter Into Perspective

2009-09-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

Perspective, a leading authority in apprentice training and distributed learning, has taken their online presence a step further by joining Twitter, the micro blogging social network.

The move comes as Perspective aim to utilise the network as a message platform, using it to communicate important and relevant information regarding the world of education and apprenticeships to all interested parties on the internet.

The rise of the social network Twitter has been swift and well documented, with many businesses and brands beginning to realise the potential of integrating Twitter into marketing strategies. Perspective will be using the social media tool to provide insights into issues from the education field, whilst also liaising with other authorities on schooling and apprenticeships in an effort to increase its contact base.

"Twitter has become such a popular network that it is almost impossible to ignore" commented Jim Davis, CEO of Perspective. "We will be looking to use Twitter as another medium through which we can impress our personality and expertise as a company into the public domain, as a way of highlighting and discussing important issues in the world of education, training and apprenticeships".

Perspective provides learner management software that acts to help enterprises, businesses, schools and colleges with monitoring a learner's progression and attendance in the field of distributed learning.

Perspective's Sunesis system allows both tutors and apprentices to track progression throughout the period of a training course, as well as creating trainee targets and areas that need more focus. The Sunesis Training Management System (TMS) also provides facilities for funding management, recruitment and the creation of training reports.

Perspectives CLM software has been designed to support the delivery of 14-19 diplomas, whereby many students undertake a distributed learning environment that sees them work outside the grounds of their school or college. CLM allows for the monitoring and measurement of student attendance and links the various partners involved in the educational process. This serves to relieve the strain that was originally placed on manual monitoring solutions.

Perspective is also part of the Systems Interoperability Framework (SIF) Association, which has defined a set of rules and regulations regarding the sharing of data in the education sector, aiming to streamline the data sharing process.

Through SIF, software application agents communicate with each other through a central communication point, improving accessibility and compatibility across the various different types of software available to the education industry.

SEO Consult Still Going Strong

2009-09-09T04:11:00.000-07:00

TopSEOs, the independent search vendor authority, have ranked SEO Consult first in their monthly evaluation list of the Best UK Organic Search Engine Optimisation Companies - that's 10 consecutive months at the top for SEO Consult.

Coming out on top of up to 300 UK-based SEO agencies each month is no mean feat - SEO Consult scored top marks in creativity, competency, competitive cost and customer satisfaction. The time in which first page organic SEO listings are achieved is a premier consideration, in which category SEO Consult excel.

To back up the statistics, at least 3 customers are sounded out by TopSEOs to assess how efficient they found their SEO agency's services and to gauge their average Return on Investment (ROI). SEO Consult's 100% score speaks volumes. SEO Consult also offer a free SEO website analysis worth £500 to highlight ways in which a site can be optimised for the best possible search engine ranking results.

"We're very proud of this achievement and are delighted by our consistent performance," said Matt Bullas, Managing Director of SEO Consult. "The cutting edge of the SEO industry is an exciting place to be and with our comprehensive, creative and highly effective SEO services it's where we hope to stay. Visit us to see how a custom-built campaign can generate great results for your business?"

Absolute To Manage Active4's Activities

2009-09-09T04:06:00.000-07:00

activ4 chose Absolute as its Web Marketing agency due to their wealth of experience and in-depth knowledge of the travel and tourism industry, which has stemmed from a significant amount of time spent client side, working for several UK travel businesses including lastminute.com.

Simon Colley, MD of Absolute commented: "Through reviewing activ4's niche operation, I firmly believe the web has the potential to be a great source for generating good quality enquiries and bookings, which should also achieve a healthy return on investment for activ4".

activ4 specialize in organising sports tours, cultural tours, performing arts tours and ski tours for groups. Their holidays are tailor-made specifically to each and every enquiry received; and they are already a leading specialist in organising group holidays for many UK secondary schools.

A key differentiator for activ4 is the way in which it can ease the load for the party leader, as well as provide a great tour experience. activ4 will support and provide help with all stages of the organisation of the tour.

Just one example of activ4 going the extra mile:-
It's a common occurrence, groups have a great time during the day and then, nothing happens, many tour companies suddenly become absent each evening leaving the party leader to organise and amuse the rest of the group. activ4 takes proactive steps and makes recommendations to party leaders, creating evening entertainment programmes, thereby extending and enriching the experience of the destination being visited - the result, a 'hassle free' and enjoyable holiday for all to remember.

Steve Scott, MD of activ4 commented: "our highly trained and skilled staff are great in organising fantastic holidays for groups both large and small, what we don't have is the necessary knowledge and experience in marketing our business online. By partnering with Absolute we can get the activ4 brand in front of the many users visiting the web, to find the best company to book their next trip with".

Search Engine Strategies (SES) Berlin 2009

2009-09-09T04:04:00.000-07:00

Incisive Media and BBP today announced that Bill Hunt, President of Back Azimuth Consulting, will be the opening keynote speaker at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) Berlin Conference & Expo.

Bill is internationally recognised as a search marketing expert who is helping to shape online marketing and social media on a global scale. Bill is currently on the Board of Directors of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization and is active in growing SEMPO's international base of members. He is the co-author of the best selling book "Search Engine Marketing, Inc." Driving Traffic to Your Companies Web Site and writes a popular blog on search and social media marketing at www.whunt.com.

The SES Berlin Conference & Expo will be held at the Crowne Plaza Berlin City Centre on 24-25 November 2009. The German event is focused on search engine marketing (SEM), including pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimisation (SEO), For more details, go to http://www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/berlin.

SES is the leading global event for education in online marketing and advertising - including search (SEM/SEO). Organised by BBP and hosted and co produced with Incisive Media and Thomas Bindl, one of Europe's leading authorities on search, SES Berlin's sessions will help marketers ensure online success. Beginner workshops, intermediate sessions, and debate panels will address applications such as video, podcasts, and blogs, as well as design and writing for search engines. More advanced marketers can attend sessions on search advertising tools, web analytics, and advanced paid search tactics.

Thomas Bindl, SEO expert and moderator of the "European Search Engines" said:

"We are delighted to announce that Bill will be opening the event this year. Bill's experience and expert advice is sought by industry analysts and corporate leaders looking to implement an effective enterprise and global search marketing and social media strategy. This is a great opportunity to hear Bill's thoughts on industry developments as well as networking with one of the foremost industry leaders."

Matt McGowan, Vice President and Publisher for Incisive Media's Interactive Marketing Group, including Search Engine Strategies, Search Engine Watch and the ClickZ Network, said, "SES Berlin is a crucial event on the industry calendar. It has grown over the years and attracts the most prominent people in online marketing. I am thrilled that Bill will be joining us and looking forward to hearing what I'm sure will be an inspirational presentation on the first day.

After the very successful co production of SES Amsterdam in March 2009, BBP and Incisive Media joined forces to take upon the already 7 years tradition of SES in Germany. "As Europe's second largest search market, Germany will have one of the most attractive SES programs this year. Great speakers like Bill Hunt and several key German search specialists will guarantee the newest insights and cutting edge best practices. I'm looking forward to SES Berlin", said Paul Petermeijer, CEO for BBP.

Embracing Social Media Does Not Require A New Website

2009-09-08T02:55:00.000-07:00

Brands looking to utilise social media in their online marketing efforts don't need to build a whole new website for that purpose, as social media features can be easily incorporated to an existing site framework according to Reality Digital, the leading provider of online community software for brands and businesses.

Social media has become one of the most efficient ways of crowd sourcing consumers, and therefore an effective method of marketing on the internet. Many brands have looked to engage their consumers and fans of their brand using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Features such as online video mean that consumer engagement with the brand will greatly improve, and brands will then have the opportunity to further interact with their audiences through marketing tactics such as user generated content competitions.
According to Reality Digital, for the maximum benefit of social media to be realised, brands must implement social media of their own. Many brands see this as entailing the costly construction of an entirely new website in order to achieve all of the latest features of social networking functionality, but this is not the case according to Reality Digital.

Robert Proctor, the Head of EMEA for Reality Digital, said: "Social media can just as easily be employed in an existing website as it can be created from scratch. Most websites can simply slot the specific aspects of social media that they desire into parts of their domain, enabling them to make the most of social media without needing to invest in an entirely new website.

"Features such as online video mean that consumer engagement with the brand will greatly improve, and brands will then have the opportunity to further interact with their audiences through marketing tactics such as user generated content competitions. "

The Reality Digital Opus Platform is a social networking application that not only allows brands and businesses to create a social network dedicated to their site, but also facilitates the implementation of the same features into a brand website that is already up and running. In addition, there is also the option of being able to choose exactly which elements of functionality are needed for a website, and which ones can be left out, in order to maximise the value of the platform and ensure that it fits into the existing framework as smoothly as possible whilst meeting the criteria needed for the brand to achieve its overall goal.

Free Wi-Fi On Greyhound UK Inter-City Services

2009-09-08T02:41:00.000-07:00

Icomera, the world's leading provider of cellular broadband gateways, has announced that Greyhound has selected Icomera's award-winning Moovbox M200 Mobile Broadband Gateway to provide Wi-Fi connectivity and GPS tracking on inter-city coach services in the United Kingdom. Greyhound, owned by Scotland-based transport giant FirstGroup plc, launched direct services from London to Southampton and London to Portsmouth with forty journeys each way, each day. The free Wi-Fi hotspot service will provide passengers with Internet access at speeds up to several megabits per second, using a 3G HSPA network connection from Vodafone. In addition to free Wi-Fi, passengers will benefit from at-seat power sockets, reclining leather seats and complimentary newspapers. Fares start at just £1 plus 50p booking fee. FirstGroup is evaluating plans to roll out new Greyhound UK services from 2010.

"Despite our low fare prices we want to offer our customer the very highest level of amenities on board the new Greyhound services," said Alex Warner, Managing Director of Greyhound UK. "Wi-Fi is becoming increasingly popular on public transport - indeed our research suggests that that Internet connectivity is a high priority for our customers. FirstGroup has installed Icomera's mobile Wi-Fi hotspot technology on many other UK routes, and it has proved popular as well as reliable."

The Moovbox M200 Mobile Broadband Gateway acts as a bridge between a vehicle and high-speed cellular data networks including 3G/HSPA, EV-DO and WiMAX, providing Wi-Fi access and an Ethernet-based local area network (LAN) for connecting on-board systems such as CCTV and passenger information systems. The M200 also has integrated GPS receiver for real-time automatic vehicle location (AVL) via the web-based MoovManage service.

"We're delighted that FirstGroup has selected Icomera to provide the on-board Internet technology for its new Greyhound UK services," said Dave Palmer, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Icomera. "Despite the growth of 3G coverage, passengers will take advantage of free Wi-Fi where it's available, to avoid eating into monthly bandwidth allowances and to reduce the very high costs of data roaming outside the home cellular network."

With the proliferation of Wi-Fi enabled portable devices such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry and netbooks, free on-board Wi-Fi is rapidly becoming expected by rail, bus and coach passengers, especially on commuter routes and inter-city transport services. All five major UK transport operators - FirstGroup, Stagecoach, Arriva, National Express and Go-Ahead - have deployed Icomera Internet systems on key routes favoured by commuters, students and international travelers, serving over 50,000 Internet connections every week.

Localisation Is The Key To Globalisation

2009-09-07T02:47:00.000-07:00

Google's growth in international markets has been five times faster in 2009 than in 2008 and five times faster than in the US this year. The search giant has actually seen a decline of 8% in the UK.

Multilingual Search Marketing Agency WebCertain is advising search marketers to follow Google's example and target the more buoyant global markets, where there is more opportunity to make money.

Andy Atkins-Krüger, Managing Director of WebCertain, recommends using keyword research to determine which markets show the most demand for a product and service, and therefore offer the most potential.

"By tapping into local search data, marketers can get a good understanding of what internet users are really searching for, and how they are searching for it. Organisations can use this information to tailor their campaigns and communications to the most relevant markets, and the most popular search terms, leading to improved ROI and higher sales.

As well as enabling businesses to reassess their strategies, the keyword research will also serve as the foundation for any online campaigns, be it SEO, PPC or Social Media.

"By building search campaigns based on keyword research, which has been conducted and verified by native speakers of each language, marketers will ensure they are driving quality and relevant visitors to their websites, who are more likely to convert".

Aurora Looking To Maxymise Their Conversions

2009-09-02T04:51:00.000-07:00

Aurora Fashions (Aurora), the group that owns some of the UK's most respected high-end women's brands -- including Karen Millen, Oasis and Coast -- has partnered with online conversion management expert, Maxymiser, to increase conversion rate and boost its online presence.

Maxymiser have a proven technology platform with a core proposition based around making the most of the traffic we already have visiting our websites rather than focusing on customer acquisition. We are aligned with this approach and as a result have broadened our focus from traffic generation campaigns to include customer retention marketing.

Using Maxymiser's conversion management solutions, Aurora Fashions will be trialling different web page layouts, sequences and content across the websites of Karen Millen, Oasis and Coast, in order to determine which content has the most positive effect in improving conversion rate.

As Julien Shirley, Head of E-Commerce at Aurora Fashions explains, "At Aurora, we are looking to enhance our online presence in order to provide our customers with the best possible service whilst also driving our e-commerce revenues. By using Maxymiser's conversion management solutions we will now be able to see a direct correlation between website content and performance."

Shirley continues, "Maxymiser have a proven technology platform with a core proposition based around making the most of the traffic we already have visiting our websites rather than focusing on customer acquisition. We are aligned with this approach and as a result have broadened our focus from traffic generation campaigns to include customer retention marketing."

Initially Aurora will be testing four different areas of the websites with Maxymiser in order to try and optimise the entire shopping journey. This will begin with a test on the category page to establish whether the specific category links or the innovative Fitting Room application - currently available on the Coast and Karen Millen sites - are more successful at driving traffic from the homepage through to individual product pages.

Simultaneously, Aurora will also be running tests on the product page - where the focus will be on understanding which elements of the diverse styles and formats currently used are most successful in generating larger basket sizes per visit; the shopping bag page - where the tests will look to understand how content can impact on consumer perceptions of site security and a brand's ability to cross sell; and the registrations page - where the best format to drive consumers through the final stage of this process will be examined.

Punch Sees SEO Services Take The Lead

2009-09-02T04:17:00.000-07:00

PR Company Punch Communications has announced that more than half of its clients are now commissioning search engine optimisation (SEO) activity as part of a traditional public relations campaign.

The dominance of Punch in its own search engine rankings has led to many clients tasking the agency with the job of achieving similar results on their behalf. An SEO campaign is a great way to send increased numbers of traffic towards a relevant website and so the return on investment for businesses following a successful spell of SEO activity is invaluable.

Punch's adoption of the skills necessary to become a successful SEO agency has been a major catalyst in its own growth, both in terms of the results that it has been able to achieve for itself, and the high quality, diverse offering that is provided to all of its clients. As budgets become ever tighter during the recession, the value to clients of the PR Consultants' expertise in SEO strategy and implementation has been of significant measurable benefit.

Pete Goold, Managing Director said: "Our advent as an SEO Agency has been a hugely positive development for us, providing us with key leads generated through our website, as well as enabling us to add another valuable service to our overall offering to clients.

"Our success is clearly demonstrated by the number of clients who have commissioned us to incorporate search engine optimisation into their overall public relations campaign. This also illustrates that SEO is increasingly being considered a subset of public relations, but that a growing number of businesses are investing in SEO as a core marketing discipline.

Punch has a vast array of expertise and experience within its team, from more traditional aspects of public relations such as media relations to more recent developments in PR, such as the use of social media for promotion and instigation of conversation. Punch is also again in a position to add more members to its team, which has doubled in size over the past two years.

Social Media Is Making Marketing Campaigns More Effective

2009-09-02T04:05:00.000-07:00

Marketing campaigns that incorporate a brand focused social network are more effective due to the increasing popularity of social media according to Reality Digital, the leading provider of social networking application software for brands and businesses.

Reality Digital have indicated that marketing campaigns that integrate social media activity, such as a social network dedicated to a brand, are far more influential in reaching out to key audiences than those that only focused on media content advertising.

A social networking platform provides the perfect focal point for marketing activity as the brand can unite its audiences within a single community, providing an efficient delivery platform for campaign messaging. These networks can be moderated by the brand too, removing any risk of negative content being uploaded and shared.
The advantages of using a social network as the hub of marketing activity in both online and offline promotion are numerous, particularly due to fact that the vast majority of consumers have an online presence. According to Reality Digital, the ability to direct consumers to a single point of engagement can make a marketing strategy even more effective.

The use of a central website or network as a focal point also makes it easier to reap benefits from a search engine optimisation perspective too, through the generation of URL's and keywords that match and compliment each other.

A brand focused video social network such as Reality Digital's Opus Platform allows fans of a company to interact with the brand in a much more direct way than other marketing strategies allow them to, on a mass level. A social network can also hold user generated content features that can be used as a marketing tool to create and manage competitions based around the brand and the network.

"The use of social networks in a marketing strategy is becoming more and more important in the engagement of consumers throughout a campaign" said Robert Proctor, Head of EMEA for Reality Digital.

"A social networking platform provides the perfect focal point for marketing activity as the brand can unite its audiences within a single community, providing an efficient delivery platform for campaign messaging. These networks can be moderated by the brand too, removing any risk of negative content being uploaded and shared."

The Opus Platform incorporates a number of cutting edge social networking tools guaranteed to entice users, from basic social network functionality and user generated content capabilities, to a high definition video engine.

Beware of the Facecrook

2009-09-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

Many social network users reveal personal information such as age, telephone number and address to approximately 59 million people worldwide and around seven million in the UK. When combined with 'status' updates that describe users as "on holiday" or "on a day out" this provides an open invitation to opportunistic burglars.
According the Home Office in 2008 there was a 4% rise in the number of UK burglaries in 2008, the largest rise in seven years and young people (16-24 yrs old) are twice as likely to be burgled as any other age group.

Steve Chelton, insurer development manager at Swinton home insurance, said: "Social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo or My Space are great for connecting people with friends, family and colleagues. But people are unaware of the potential risks associated with revealing personal information and updating their online status.

"We would advise all users not to include your address or telephone number on your profile and only ever accept online friends that you know and trust. Think carefully before updating a status, especially if going on holiday to avoid advertising to thieves that a home is empty and easily accessible. Also, keep profiles private so that only certified 'friends' can view it and status updates."

Swinton advises social network users to:

Restrict all personal information without stating your exact address.
Only accept people as a friend that you know or can trust.
Set your profile to 'private' so that people who are not your friend cannot see your personal information.
Never update your online status to tell people you are going away from your home.

Jellyfish and Fresh Egg Sign Exclusive Partnership Deal

2009-09-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

UK paid search specialist agency Jellyfish has concluded an exclusive partnership arrangement with Fresh Egg, the award-winning web design and internet marketing company specialising in SEO.Together, the two agencies now represent one of the UK's top 3 best-resourced integrated online PPC and SEO marketing providers, with a joint staff roster of 110, and clients including Skype, Which?, Visit Wales and NatWest.

Jellyfish has pioneered a CPA model that is second-to-none. Using CPA rather than the more traditional 'management fee' approach means that Jellyfish is focussed on quality, conversion and guaranteed ROI. That chimes exactly with the inherent approach we have to SEO at Fresh Egg. We both share the same commitment to delivering outstanding ROI.

Signing up Iwantoneofthose.com as our first client together is a hugely positive achievement, especially at such an early stage in our joint relationship. Combining our expertise in SEO and PPC is a match made in heaven, and by introducing Jellyfish's proven CPA model to clients we're confident that this partnership can offer brands a dynamic and cost-effective search solution.

The partnership arrangement will commit Jellyfish and Fresh Egg to working closely together to exchange knowledge to benefit their mutual and independent clients. While remaining completely separate businesses, they will present a seamless, one-stop-shop solution that will appeal to clients seeking a single source for briefing and reporting, with the appointment of dedicated account managers whose task will be to manage partnership business.

Unlike many other agencies that claim to have everything under one roof, this arrangement will present a coherent single source in terms of management and operation, but guarantees access to dedicated specialists and acknowledged experts in SEO and PPC.

Iwantoneofthose.com will be the first sign-up in the joint venture, with Fresh Egg handling SEO and Jellyfish Jellyfish handling PPC for the shopping site.

Earlier this year, Fresh Egg appointed leading entrepreneur and BBC Dragons' Den panellist James Caan as chairman following his investment in the agency.

Adam Stafford, managing director of Fresh Egg, said: "Jellyfish has pioneered a CPA model that is second-to-none. Using CPA rather than the more traditional 'management fee' approach means that Jellyfish is focussed on quality, conversion and guaranteed ROI. That chimes exactly with the inherent approach we have to SEO at Fresh Egg. We both share the same commitment to delivering outstanding ROI."

Rob Pierre, managing director of Jellyfish Jellyfish , added: "There are obvious synergies between our two companies that can be exploited to the benefit of our clients and each other. We will clearly be able to maximise our mutual effectiveness by access to skills and knowledge from one another. With this exclusive collaboration both Jellyfish and Fresh Egg provide a joint resource that challenges the biggest agencies in the UK and worldwide without diluting our core strengths."

James Caan, chairman of Fresh Egg, commented: "Signing up Iwantoneofthose.com as our first client together is a hugely positive achievement, especially at such an early stage in our joint relationship. Combining our expertise in SEO and PPC is a match made in heaven, and by introducing Jellyfish's proven CPA model to clients we're confident that this partnership can offer brands a dynamic and cost-effective search solution."

Global Search Market Draws More Than 100 Billion Searches Per Month

2009-09-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world has released a study of the global search market showing that more than 113 billion searches were conducted in July 2009, representing a 41-percent increase versus year ago. Google Sites attracted significantly more searches than any other engine with 76.7 billion searches conducted, or 67.5 percent market share. Yahoo! Sites ranked second worldwide with 8.9 billion searches (7.8 percent share), followed closely by Chinese search engine Baidu with 8 billion searches (7.0 percent share). Most of the top search properties worldwide experienced significant growth in search query volume versus last year, with Russian search engine Yandex growing at the fastest rate (94 percent) among the top ten.Europe Accounts for Most Searches, but Latin America Highest in Searches per Searcher

The dynamics of search behavior vary considerably across different parts of the world. Among the five global regions, Europe accounted for the highest share of searches at 32.1 percent, followed by Asia Pacific (30.8 percent) and North America (22.1 percent). Notably, Latin America exhibited the heaviest search behavior per person with an average of 13 search usage days in July and 130 searches per searcher. Europe had the second highest overall search volume per person (117 searches per searcher) while North America exhibited the second heaviest frequency (12.5 search usage days per searcher).

BT Yahoo Chooses Google Search

2009-08-27T01:31:00.000-07:00

In an amazing development in the UK, Google search has just replaced Yahoo’s web search engine for natural and sponsored results on BT Yahoo, the online portal for BT Broadband users that is run by Yahoo. The co-branded BT Yahoo service was initially launched in Sept 2003 and provided a wide-range of Y! services to BT Broadband users, including search. The new service will continue to provide Yahoo services such as email, but the Y! search engine has now been replaced by Google’s.

Google and Yahoo tried to agree a deal in 2008 in the US to replace Yahoo sponsored listings with Google’s higher value listings, but the deal ran into Justice Department issues and didn’t complete. This deal in the UK clearly goes one step further by replacing not only Yahoo’s sponsored results, but the whole Yahoo web search engine i.e natural results, with Google’s. Image and Video results appear to be still coming from Yahoo though.

The deal makes good sense to BT, the leading broadband provider in the UK with 35% market share of the market. Unlike in the US where Microsoft and Yahoo have respectable shares of the search market, the situation in the UK is very different with Google totally dominating the UK search market with over 90% of the market. By replacing Yahoo’s search engine, BT are hoping that overall search usage will increase by providing users easy access to the #1 service in the UK. By doing so, BT should also benefit from Google’s higher Revenue Per Search (RPS), which is believed to be up to 2-3x that of Yahoo’s. It will be interesting to see if any of Yahoo’s other ISP partners such as Rogers or SBC follow suit.

It represents a strange move for Yahoo on the back of the 10 year search deal that was announced with Microsoft last month, that will result in Microsoft Bing becoming the default search engine on Yahoo.com with Yahoo’s sales teams selling the ad inventory on both services. I wonder if Microsoft knew when they signed the deal that 35% of broadband users in the UK would be directed towards Google’s search engine, rather than the new Bing/Yahoo search engine when they signed the deal? Some UK advertisers may divert even more of their spend over to Google now that Yahoo will no longer represent BT’s users, which wouldn’t be good for Microsoft’s/Yahoo’s ambitions in the 2nd most valuable internet market in the world.

Google must be extremely happy to have sewn up BT’s users, the leading broadband provider in the UK with 35% market share. Capturing BT is a big coup for Google and they now have deals with all of the big ISPs in the UK.

Microsoft and Yahoo To Share Technologies

2009-07-30T04:26:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers.

For Web users and advertisers, this deal will accelerate the pace and breadth of innovation by combining both companies' complementary strengths and search platforms into a market competitor with the scale to fuel sustained development in search and search advertising. Users will find what they care about faster and with more personal relevance. Microsoft's competitive search platforms will lead to more value for advertisers, better results for web publishers, and increased innovation and efficiency across the Internet.

Under this agreement, Yahoo! will focus on its core business of providing consumers with great experiences with the world's favorite online destinations and Web products.

"This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development," said Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz. "Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers. Finally, this deal will help us increase our investments in priority areas in winning audience properties, display advertising capabilities, and mobile experiences."

Providing a viable alternative to advertisers, this deal will combine Yahoo! and Microsoft search marketplaces so that advertisers no longer have to rely on one company that dominates more than 70 percent of all search. With the addition of Yahoo!'s search volume, Microsoft will achieve the size and scale required to unleash competition and innovation in the market, for consumers as well as advertisers.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the agreement will provide Microsoft's search engine, Bing, the scale necessary to more effectively compete, attracting more users and advertisers, which in turn will lead to more relevant ads and search results.

"Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers, and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company," said Ballmer. "Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, we've created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there's so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search."

"This deal fits the long-term strategic direction of Yahoo! to remain the world's leading online media company and Carol Bartz has the full and unanimous support of the Yahoo! Board behind this deal," said Roy Bostock, chairman, Yahoo! Inc. "This is a significant opportunity for us. Microsoft is an industry innovator in search, and it is a great opportunity for us to focus our investments in other areas critical to our future."

The key terms of the agreement are as follows:

The term of the agreement is 10 years;
Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!'s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;
Microsoft's Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft's AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter's automated auction process.
Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
Yahoo! will innovate and "own" the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.
Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!'s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
- Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!'s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
- Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!'s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.
At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.
The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

The agreement does not cover each company's web properties and products, email, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies' businesses. In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously.

The transaction will be subject to regulatory review. The agreement entered into today anticipates that the parties will enter into more detailed definitive agreements prior to closing. Microsoft and Yahoo! expect the agreement to be closely reviewed by the industry and government regulators, and welcome questions. The companies are hopeful that closing can occur in early 2010.

The companies have established a website at http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com to provide consumers, advertisers and publishers with additional information about the benefits of the agreement.

Can Facebook and Twitter Help a Startup Company Succeed?

2009-06-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

Toronto, ON (Vocus/PRWEB ) June 1, 2009 -- ShipGooder, Inc. today announced that it has officially launched pages on Facebook and Twitter, the social networking websites that are both experiencing explosive growth by leveraging community-based interaction.

Image via CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

The term "Social Networking" has been gaining notoriety over the past few years. As of today, Facebook has over 200 million active users, while Twitter already has 17 million registered users in the U.S., up 3,000 percent from a year ago. Although Facebook and Twitter are primarily focused on individuals rather than corporate entities, both websites offer tremendous advantages for startup companies to bring their message to the masses.

Facebook provides businesses with a page that includes an overview, announcements, photo galleries and discussions. Users on Facebook become "fans" of the business, and are kept up to date on what the company is doing. When an individual becomes a fan, their friends on Facebook are presented with a "fan" notification; the friends then can become fans as well. The viral effect of friends announcing their "fandom" to other friends can lead to hundreds of thousands of followers for a company. The Starbucks coffee company alone currently has close to 1.8 million fans on Facebook.

Twitter is an announcement system, where users post a short message called a "tweet". The tweet can be a simple description of what they are eating, where they are going, website links and photos. Users "follow" other users on Twitter and receive a real-time stream of announcements. As each user follows a new user, they can "tweet" their new following, again creating a viral effect. Companies are using Twitter to post news and announcements, using the medium to promote their marketing messages.

"Facebook and Twitter provide ShipGooder.com with powerful communication channels for our customers, website visitors, and new visitors who may not be aware of the exceptional free services that ShipGooder offers," said Nancy Chafee, VP of Sales and Marketing for ShipGooder, Inc. "We're using both of these services to augment our existing sales and marketing efforts, promoting our brand, and our primary message that ShipGooder.com provides instant shipping rate quotes from FedEx, DHL, the U.S. Postal Service alongside quotes from regional and local courier companies," she added.

"ShipGooder.com is the 'search engine for shipping rates', offering its services free of charge, with no advertising and no visitor registration required," said Franc Vodopivec, President of ShipGooder, Inc. "Our proprietary Rapid Rate Search system allows smaller couriers and messengers to compete directly with large national carriers, and we're going to continue to promote this message through the mediums that prove to be the most effective," he added.

ShipGooder has used Facebook and Twitter to announce their new Courier Directory of carriers from across the U.S. and Canada, as well as announcing the recent addition of international rate quotes. Can social networking help achieve success to an innovative startup? The question was best answered by Nancy Chafee, who stated, "Word of mouth about ShipGooder is our most powerful promotional vehicle. We are delighted that 'word of mouth' is evolving into new, creative and exciting mediums."

New SEO Friendly Search Engine Captures Niche Market

2009-06-01T01:26:00.000-07:00

Search Engine SEOENG(R) and other small tech startups break new ground in Search - carving out the visionary niche markets of the future, while Search Giants enhance their current industry-dominating Search solutions by increasing Search 'intelligence'.

Bradenton, FL (PRWEB) - A new storm is brewing in Search 2009, and Search Engine SEOENG(R) is rapidly gaining traction in a highly saturated industry with its unique SEO Friendly Search Engine. This technology startup has developed a Search Engine with a transparent and navigable interface where users can, for the first time, see precisely how a Search Engine analyzes and ranks a Website. SEOENG(R) is taking Search in a new direction, by opening its arms to the very industry that Search Giants have fought so hard to keep at arm's length. A new market for Search, directed at Website Owners, Web Designers, and SEO Experts is proving to be a prosperous and exciting venture for this tech company.

Competition is alive and well in the Search Industry, as top Search Engine Google(TM) recently announced its new Google Labs project, which according to the Official Google Blog, is called 'Google Squared', and is Google's attempt at delivering a more structured result to a user's question. Search Giant Yahoo!(R) is also talking about its new vision of Search, which is called 'WOO' (Web of Objects). WOO is Yahoo's take on the next generation of Search, which some believe involves a graph of 'things', not just Webpages. And finally, Microsoft(R) is rumored to be releasing 'Bing(TM)' (formerly Kumo), which according to the Website is a new version of a Search Engine called a 'Decision Engine'.

After more than a decade of rule by Search Giants, SEOENG(R) and other small startups have staked new land in the World of Search. According to Search Engine SEOENG(R), "We are entering a historic time that is very different from the past ten years, because no longer is the competition about delivering the best '10 blue links'. It's all about the 'Next Generation of Search' and the many niche markets that Search is now exposing due to the rapid decrease in costs of infrastructure."

The largest of these niche markets appears to be Semantic Search. Semantics is the study of meaning, and in Search this means not only delivering relevant results, but attempting to infer the 'reason' behind the user's question. Because computer hardware is much less expensive these days, Semantic Search and other new niche markets do not require large investments in infrastructure upfront, and some smaller Search Engine startups, including SEOENG(R), are entering the race and reinstating that spark of creativity and competition that some might say has been lacking for some time.

In addition to SEOENG(R), Wolfram Alpha(TM), is a new Search Engine startup whose Website promises '...an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone.' Wolfram Alpha, created by Stephen Wolfram (the inventor of the famous technical and scientific tool suite Mathematica(R)), may have found its niche as the next premiere research tool for scientists and engineers. Other niche markets in Search also exist, and companies are quickly starting to take claim.

SEOENG(R) Co-Founder and President, Marketing & Operations, Maura Stouffer, recently stated that "One only has to look at our tiny startup SEOENG(R) , an acronym for 'Search Engine Optimization Engine(R)', to see the potential available in new Search technologies. We have created what none of the Search Giants have even considered - an honest attempt at being 'friendly' to Webmasters and SEOs. Sure, there were Google's Webmaster Tools and Yahoo's Site Explorer, but did Google and Yahoo! really let users in to their Search Engines to see how things were working? How things could be improved?" SEOENG(R) is the creation of talented individuals from Carnegie Mellon and Cornell University, and promises to be the first SEO Friendly Search Engine for Webmasters, SEOs, and basically anyone who owns a Website. A Search Engine that shows the World how it ranks a Website by disclosing where the internal penalties and deficiencies lie, and how they can be fixed to improve placement on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). As more and more innovation begins to take place, new ideas will bring new direction to Search, and that can only mean one thing: In Search, good times are ahead for both businesses and end-users!

Aiden Davies' Online Reach

2009-05-16T13:52:00.000-07:00

11 year old Aiden Davies has given the best performance of the series in tonight's episode of Britain's Got Talent. And having been blown away by his solo dancing piece, I found myself online within minutes to rerun the video for some of the younger members of my family - And then it hit me... I wonder what impact his performance will have within the online space?

According to the current stats from Google, Aiden does not appear to be in much demand, with a miniscule 16 searches as a monthly average for the term "aiden davies", and only 7 mentions within Twitter.

But with the exposure he has just received, through which all of a sudden his skills have been aired to millions of viewers, I'm in no doubt that Aiden's online popularity will see a huge surge over the next few weeks as he sails his way through the rounds for this year's opportunity to perform in front of her majesty.

SEO and social media join up : DirectNews

2009-05-08T05:14:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Businesses are increasingly looking to join up their social media and search engine optimisation(SEO) strategies, it has been suggested.

According to PRWeek, Volvo has surprised the PR sector by using a media agency rather than a PR specialist to manage its social media campaigns.

Duncan Forrester, head of PR for Volvo UK, said that the company had decided to do this because it believed traditional PR agencies are less able to incorporate SEO into their work than media buying organisations.

"It is very clear that social media actually feeds into the SEO side of the business. Can a PR agency do SEO as well? I think there are question marks around that," he commented.

Read the full story

Twitter Integrates Search

2009-05-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

For a while now, Twitter has been making use of the technology they acquired when they bought Summized back in July 2008, but until now this had only been available under a separate website.

The integration has taken a few months, but it appears to have finally made it through to the main site, as per the visions sketched during the discussions surrounding the partnership.

Since the early days, search has been an important element of Twitter:

"There is an undeniable need to search, filter, and otherwise interact with the volumes of news and information being transmitted to Twitter every second. We will be adding search and its related features to the core offering of Twitter in the very near future."

And it looks like the future has arrived, what's more, as well as being able to find who's Twitting about a particular topic, you're now even able to save your searches to return to them at a later date.

Give it a try!

Web tool 'as important as Google' : BBC NEWS

2009-04-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

A web tool that 'could be as important as Google', according to some experts, has been shown off to the public.

Wolfram Alpha is the brainchild of British-born physicist Stephen Wolfram.

The free program aims to answer questions directly, rather than display web pages in response to a query like a search engine.

The "computational knowledge engine", as the technology is known, will be available to the public from the middle of May this year.

Read more...

Study reveals impact of SEO from leading brands on flight searches : Travolution

2009-04-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

UK-based research from Greenlight Search into the most visible sites in Google natural search has revealed a clean sweep for cheapflights.co.uk in the flights category.

The study found that a selection of 3,200 generic and destination-specific key terms generated 5.5 million searches in March. The rankings are based on a site’s presence on the first page of Google for the term.

Cheapflights achieved 100% visibility across all categories of key-terms – generic, domestic, short- and long-haul terms. Skyscanner.net and travelsupermarket.com achieved 80%+ visibility and comprise the top three.

Lastminute.com was the most visible online agent at 59%. Dealchecker.co.uk is the only other site to be visible on more than half the 5.5m searches.

Read more...

Search market report finds growing focus on social media | Blog | Econsultancy

2009-04-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

Econsultancy's third annual UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report was released last week; it profiles the UK search marketing environment, and covers paid search, SEO and social media.

One of the trends uncovered by the report, produced in association with Guava, is that social media is becoming a bigger part of the marketing mix, with 91% of search agencies already offering, or else planning to offer, advice and services to clients on how to make the most of social media.

The rapid growth of Twitter is reflected in the attention paid to it in companies' marketing strategies; this year 49% said they were including the site in their social media marketing, compared with just 3% last year.

Read more...

Travel companies 'need to improve search engine marketing' : Clickthrough Marketing

2009-04-28T02:51:00.000-07:00

Image via CrunchBase

Travel companies may be missing out on valuable business by failing to make the most of search engine optimisation (SEO) and internet marketing, it has been suggested.

Travolution's Kevin May reports that at the recent Travolution Summit, Graham Cooke, ecommerce project manager at Google, outlined the importance of effective SEO for travel firms.

Research from Google shows that when looking to make travel arrangements, consumers spend 29 days researching - making 12 travel searches over 22 travel sites.

This means companies that use SEO to boost their search engine rankings may be in a better position to attract customers than those who do not.

Read the full article...

Over half of companies to increase search budgets for measurable ROI : New Media Age

2009-04-24T06:16:00.000-07:00

More than half of companies (55%) intend to increase natural search budgets and just under half (45%) will up paid search investment this year as they look for measurable ROI in difficult economic times.

The annual UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report, which surveyed 800 client companies, agencies and search consultants, found large numbers were continuing to increase spend on search, where ROI is more measurable.

Some 48% reported better returns on natural search (optimisation) campaigns and 43% claim greater ROI on paid search (pay-per-click). However, 15% reported decreasing effectiveness for paid search compared to just 6% for natural."

Read more

Google patches "severe" Chrome bug : PC Pro

2009-04-24T06:10:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Google has patched a bug in its Chrome browser that allowed attackers to perform cross-site scripting attacks.

The flaw was discovered earlier this month by an IBM security researcher and was patched last night, with the release of Chrome version 1.0.154.59.

"An error in handling URLs with a chromehtml: protocol could allow an attacker to run scripts of his choosing on any page or enumerate files on the local disk under certain conditions," Chrome program manager Mark Larson explains.

"If a user has Google Chrome installed, visiting an attacker-controlled web page in Internet Explorer could have caused Google Chrome to launch, open multiple tabs, and load scripts that run after navigating to a URL of the attacker's choice. Such an attack only works if Chrome is not already running."

Read more

Growth in social media spend

2009-03-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

A study by Forrester Research found that while half of marketers said they would boost budgets, social media spend remains very small in proportion to other media -- 75% of respondents who knew their budgets said they were planning to spend $100,000 or less over the next 12 months.

Image by M. Keefe via Flickr

Areas that they highlighted for investment included social networks, blogs and user-generated content.

However, the majority of social media budgets are not predetermined -- 45% said they were generated on an "as needed" basis throughout the year; and 23% said that their funds were scraped together from wherever they could find them.
The research also highlighted that money being allocated to social media comes at the expense of other budgets -- the biggest proportion of respondents (35%) stated that social media spend came out of the corporate marketing coffers; while 24% of the sample said that it came from the advertising budget.

Read more...

Bebo Goes European

2009-03-17T05:31:00.000-07:00

Bebo is launching local-language versions of its social networking site in five European countries, offering premium video content via media partners, the company said Monday.

Image via CrunchBase

Bebo will offer sites in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch as it seeks to enlarge its user base. It also plans to leverage its Open Media technology, which allows media companies to distribute content on Bebo's network.

Bebo was bought by AOL in March 2008 for US$850 million as part of AOL's plan to move away from being an ISP and more of an advertising-focused content provider.

Bebo has been strongest in the U.K. market and has about 22 million unique visitors per month, according to January figures from ComScore, However, Bebo lags in user numbers behind social networking giants Facebook and MySpace.

Read more...

Thief Uses Google Earth To Nick Lead Roofs

2009-03-17T03:50:00.000-07:00

In an incident which further sparked concerns over the misuse of Google Earth application for felonious purposes, a thief stole lead worth a whopping £100,000 from the roofs of the buildings, by using the application to get the detailed view of these listed buildings.

Image via CrunchBase

Berge used the application to figure out lead roofs with their darker colours, and made £44,500 by selling around 44.6-tonnes of lead during his six months long spree, which started from September to February.

The roofs of Sutton High School for Girls, Croydon Parish Church, and Honeywood Museum in Carshalton were all looted. Berge is sentenced to eight months in jail, suspended for a couple of years, after he confessed involvement in as many as 30 offences.

The court was told that Berge, along with his accomplices, meticulously planned the thefts, as he went to site equipped with the necessary equipment, such as ladders and abseiling ropes, to plunder the roofs, and even stole a car to make a speedy escape.

Read more...

Using SEO to Manage Your Online Reputation

2009-03-17T03:33:00.000-07:00

Is there a page you don't like about your company on the web? The best way to "take care" of undesirable material with a high organic ranking is through search engine optimization, writes SEOmoz.

Image via CrunchBase

Google has posted advice on how to remove unwanted pages, but its strategy is mostly to contact the person who put up the unwanted webpage and trying to convince them to modify and maybe remove it, with the option of taking the request to court if the page contains something illegal.

But there is a third method – left wanting in Google's response - that involves using SEO to help with reputation management. Unfortunately, it is neither easy nor cheap.

The three main components of an SEO-fueled reputation management campaign:

1. Identify which keywords produce prominently listed and undesirable results.
Create content on multiple sites that will outrank the negative content, keeping in mind that Google generally only lists a maximum of two pages from a single domain on a given results page.

2. Optimize those pages with content & links to achieve rankings higher than the negative content, thus "pushing it down" to the 2nd page of results (or further).

3. To create content with the aim of outranking a negative result, leverage as many positive "pre-existing" conditions as possible.

Read more...

Ask.com Joins Canonical Trio

2009-02-24T01:26:00.000-08:00

It looks like the precedence has been set and Ask.com has opted to follow Google, Yahoo, and MSN in their quest to make issues raised by content duplication a thing of the past.

I recently wrote a post showing how website owners can take advantage of the new 'Canonical Links' to extract maximum value out of duplicated content.

Yesterday Ask.com announced their intention to join the big three through their official blog, in which Yufan Hu of Ask.com says: "The 'canonical' feature represents a timely, relevant, and positive partnership between major search engines. It is a step to ensuring more consistency with regard to treatment of duplicates among all of the engines. It will also put more control into the hands of site designers over how their sites are represented within the search indexes.

You can read the full announcement in their blog post entitled 'Ask is Going Canonical'

Canonical Links and Content Duplication

2009-02-20T01:13:00.000-08:00

For a long time now, search engines have been implementing stringent measures to stop website owners manipulating rankings through content duplication. The way the Internet has evolved over the recent years however, has meant that some sites have been running the risk of being unfairly penalised for content duplication caused more by the technology they are using rather than their intent.

In an effort to address this, the big three (Google, Yahoo, MSN) decided last week to support a common standard which aims to eradicate duplicate URLs within a site.

Image via CrunchBase

The standard being introduced is very simple, and consists of no more than nominating a single URL (or "canonical" location if you're a search engine) and defining this on all other URLs where the same content is replicated.

Take the following URLs as an example:

http://www.my-company.com/my-products/product-details.aspx?id=0101&source=google
http://www.my-company.com/my-products/product-details.aspx?id=0101&source=yahoo
http://www.my-company.com/my-products/sun-glasses.aspx

These three URLs will display exactly the same content even though the page has three very distinct URL locations based on the origin of the visit and its optimisation.

The agreed standard requires no more than the following syntax being implemented within the <HEAD> section of the two dynamic URLs.

Doing this, will make search engines aware of the preferred URL and pass on any PageRank and link equity the dynamic URLs may have gained across to the chosen URL.

Google guru Matt Cutts explains Canonical Linking on an interview for WebProNews. You can also find out more directly from Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

And the Brit Award goes to... Twitter!

2009-02-19T01:25:00.000-08:00

Having spent last night sat in front of the TV watching the Brits, I begun to wonder how many people would be forming their own opinions based on what we liked and what we didn't.

With the help of Twitter, it didn't take long this morning for me to find out what my friends through of it, and I was intrigued by the mixed views on the event.

Image via CrunchBase

Having drawn my own conclusions last night, I wondered if the mix reaction was only based on my friends or whether this was in fact a true representation of the public in general.

Having sent myself on a quest to find this out, Twitter itself proved to be the answer to my question.

To get a full picture of what people using Twitter (even those you're not yet following) thought about the show, type "brits" in the Twitter Search box or alternatively see the results here.

Is Google Chrome In Need of a Polish?

2008-10-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but after becoming used to Google's highly useful and free tools, I've been left feeling somewhat disappointed with Google Chrome, their new browser.

Image via Wikipedia

I've been an advocate for all things Google, since the brands infancy, and right up to now I have always been wowed by their tools and they have always found their way into my shortcuts.

Google Chrome however, has left me wondering what the fuss has been all about. Most of the functionality we've all become used to of basic browser seem to have been missed by their developers, and there isn't any additional ground breaking functionality which could make up for the loss.

After eagerly awaiting what could have been one of their biggest products to date, I've ended up going back to my original default browser, at least until the guys have had a chance to give Google Chrome a good polish.

Prosperous Online Prospects

2008-08-19T04:35:00.000-07:00

Understanding your market is arguably the most important aspect behind the success of your site, and understanding the impact this could have on your search engine strategies is equally as important.

But you're probably thinking that this level of information is likely to cost a small fortune and that you will only be able to obtain this by involving a specialised agency.

Well, think again...

Image via CrunchBase

Google are once again ahead of the game and are currently testing AdPlanner, a tool which will turn the market on its head when its finally released.

Even though this tool is primarily aimed at the Advertising world, the ability to identify the nature of your audience and then to provide you with a list of other sites catering for the same group of people, opens up a world of partnership opportunities. Just think of all those highly relevant inbound links and you'll start to see value this could add to your SEO campaigns.

So, will it cost you an arm and a leg to do your market research in the future? Not if Google can help it!

This tool is currently only available to a selected few (OK, so I'm boasting a bit!), but there's plenty of information about the ins and outs of AdPlanner directly from the Google guys... Enjoy!

SEO Friendly Downtime

2008-07-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks I've picked up a thing or two when it comes to website development, and the relationship between this and SEO.

Generally speaking, website downtime (period of unavailability) occurs for one of two reasons, coding errors (unplanned) or system updates (planned).

So how does downtime affect SEO? well, downtime has the same impact on search bots that it has on real users, and it can have lasting effects.

Image by Irregular Shed via Flickr

Let's take an example, a user types a key phrase into his/her preferred engine, your website has a good ranking and engages the user. He/she proceeds to click on the result only to find out that when the page loads, an error appears indicating that 'the site could not be found'.

This opens up a whole raft of questions, how likely is the user to click on another result for the same site? what is the user's perception of the brand? to mention just a few.

Search Bots behave in a similar way to real world users, and the impact downtime has on these is just as damaging. Should your site be indexed/listed at all if this is unavailable?

But what if you could let search bots know that 'you are aware' that your site is unavailable, and even tell it to come back at a later time when you know the site will be back up and running.

Well you can, with a very simple and 'above board' tactic which is implemented on your server.

The techie name for this practise is 'HTTP Error (503)', which in layman's terms means that instead of the server hosting your site telling robots that the site can not be found, it tells them that the site is 'only down temporarily' and it's expected/planned to be back up at a predefined time and it should revisit the site then.

Http error handling can also be used to redirect bots visiting an obsolete URL through to a new one, and also allows 'geeky' error pages to be converted to 'user friendly' pages containing meaningful and understandable messages.

Relaxed Domain Names

2008-06-27T02:27:00.000-07:00

I have read a number of different articles about the benefits and drawbacks surrounding sub-domains, and the impact these have on SEO. Overall, there seems to be a very even split between those who recommend this practice and those choosing to focus their efforts on other activities.

Image via Wikipedia

This much debated topic is looking to take a life of its own with this week's announcement by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) to relax top-level-domains (TLD's).

The approved recommendation looks into creating domains formed as sub-domains and discarding extension altogether (.co.uk/.com).

Take a page in a typical UK based domain for example, and assuming this follows the standard, this would be:
http://www.somesite.co.uk/products/details.aspx

This will become:
http://products.somesite/details.aspx

Having been involved in setting up sub-domains before I really don't know how beneficial this approach would prove for small/medium websites as this essentially mean having to split a site up into smaller parts.

On a positive note, this approach means that keywords can be used closer to the start of the URL, so it's not all bad news.

I'd be keen to hear your comments on how you see this affecting the SEO world.

Bridging the Analytics Gap

2008-06-25T04:58:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics have recently introduced a handy little "benchmarking" feature which let's you compare your site against your industry's overall performance.

Image via CrunchBase

So you decide to launch a site, you are confident that over the next 6 months you'll increase the traffic by 50%, and then double it within a year. But is that good enough? How can you really tell? What if everyone else is achieving 4 or 5 times that? Will you survive in a market where your competitors are going at 100mph?

This information is now readily available as part of Google Analytics service, and for free! - I use an enterprise level analytics tool, the cost of which would probably be enough to help solve the financial crisis of a small country by the way, not yet offering this level of information (though I'm sure they will).

In true Google style, Analytics is now effortlessly taking full advantage of the gap between "site-centric" and "market-centric" solutions.

Google Ads through Yahoo!?

2008-06-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

I was surprised to see Yahoo! getting into bed with Google and setting up a deal which sees the big G's ads cropping up within Yahoo's results.

Image via CrunchBase

Initially this is only set to run across the pond, but it makes me think this could be the beginning of the end for Yahoo!

Let's face it... when you get in to a situation where you're ready to let your biggest competitor have a presence in your site, how far must you be from hanging your gloves up? Microsoft's u-turn on the original deal must have left Yahoo! even more vulnerable than initially thought.

The Only Way is Up...

2008-06-24T05:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm showing my age a bit, but what can I say... I'm in a good mood and Yazz's classic hit seems more than appropriate for the occasion.

Image by Aleksi Aaltonen via Flickr

My site seems to be in Goggle's good books once again, and traffic is slowly (but very surely) heading in the right direction.

The main page has made it back into the first page, and is steadily crawling it's way up to the number one slot for the brand's name, where it rightfully belongs.

I can once again focus my attention on some of the activities, which had up to this point, understandably been relegated to the lower tiers.

Fragile Google Rankings

2008-06-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I've been experiencing a drop on traffic on one of my websites, and today finally I found the fix. It just goes to show how easily Google can turn their back on you if their bot is not being looked after.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

So what happened? I hear you ask... Well, it all started with some changes which had been scheduled for release at the beginning of the month meant the site had to come down whilst maintenance work was being carried out.

As the laws of Murphy came into play, the site was payed a visit by Google's trusted Bot, and hey presto, the website was no more than a holding page in Google's eyes.

Confident that Google would be sending its most trusted agent back to the site in a matter of days, I decided to play the SEO waiting game once again (not uncommon in the SEO world).

A week went by and still no sign of getting indexed, which made me wonder if something had gone wrong with the release... could the changes had caused the drop? could the updated or deleted files have been so critical to Google that it simply decided not to come back at all?

Not having direct access to the website files, at this point I decided to have a chat with the project manager to air my concerns and left reasured that none of the files updated as part of that release would have had an impact on Google.

Another two weeks had passed, and all I could do was scratch my head and hope that Google would soon come back to take pitty on the traffic being sent through them (lowest volumes since records begun). Not even updating the sitemap file did the trick.

So what was the problem? I hear you shout... Well, somehow we ended up with a corrupt Robots.txt file, which even though available in the root of the site, was inacessible to Google (and all other search engine bots).

Recreating and uploading this file once again has done the trick... Google is once again seen as a friend rather than an enemy.

I'd be interested in hearing your stories.