Social Media Never Sleeps (but im in need of 40 winks)
December 9, 2010
Social Media.
Love it? Loathe it? Still don’t quite understand it? What ever your feelings you are not alone.
Social Media is changing the face of the web and transforming how companies and brands engage and communicate with users. It is revolutionising the dialogue between the service provider and the customer, breaking down boundaries, creating transparent communication channels, empowering consumers and extending the reach of businesses.
But I hear you ask… How do we start? Where are these social networks? How do we find them and begin to engage and converse with customers?
The delightful bods at SEOmoz have but together a list of the most popular and effective social networking sites. All you have to do to find this list is repeat after me:
I Heart Social Media and Digitelle is a fantastic little blog
Alternatively, you can click on the link below.
I’m off now. Early start in the morning.
View SEOmoz’s Social Media Marketing Guide
Night Chaps.
Get Going with Google Places
December 3, 2010
Searched Google recently for a local service provider? You are not alone. Latest stats released from the Big G state that over 20% of searches made on Google are related to location.
In latest developments to its Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s) Google has merged its Google Places listings with Organic and Paid Search listings to meet the demand for local search queries.
Take a peek: A search for “counselling liverpool” (It’s not for me – I just have this friend that…you know…)
Note the 7 Google Places listings (A-G) before the 1st organic listing!
Google Places listings are completely free and non technical (you don’t even need a website to create one). They offer an excellent opportunity for increased exposure detailing your business name, address, phone number and services/products description.
Cash in on your FREE Google Places listing with the following hints and tips.
How to Optimise your Google Places Listing:
Get Listed: Yes. Sounds simple enough. Get yourself listed with a Google Places listing. You have to be in it to win it.
Get Verified: Prove that your Google Places listing is legitimate and “Verified by Business Owner” by claiming your listing. Listings can be claimed and verified by post card, phone or mail.
Get Reviewed: Gently prod your customers into writing reviews of your business/services/products on Google Places. Offer incentives if you have to – but get those positive reviews! Not only are they great for your reputation, they help to pad out your Places listing with relevant and real content.
Get Photographed: Show your online audience that you are physically present. Perhaps you could photograph your shop front? Take a snap of the company car? Increase the level of content surrounding your business and provide a visual point of reference for your consumers. everyone a winner.
Link to YouTube: You might be more Bollywood than Hollywood but you will have plenty of useful content about your business/service/products that will make for perfect video footage. You might want to interview customers, employees, take some action shots of people at work. What ever you fancy, what ever suits the voice and vision of your business, get it filmed and upload to YouTube. You then just need to upload the URL of your YouTube video into the given field of your Google Places listing and there you have it. Content fresh for viewing which will be displayed in SEPR’s.
Post to your Places pages: You are now granted the special gift of 160 characters which you can use to share information with your Places users. 160 character posts can be used to give customers concise and meaningful bursts of information as well as links to your website. Use your posts to detail info on special offers, new products and up and coming events. Keep a dialogue going with your consumers. Show them that the lights are on and somebody’s home.
Categorise yourself carefully: Used to classify your business, Categories are how Google determines when your Google Places listing will be displayed. You can select up to 5 categories, so its important to choose categories that describe your business accurately, be specific and accurate about what you do and the services you provide, with clear categories that tell Google and your users what it is that you do.
Google places is all about establishing a strong, accurate presence on the web. Help yourself and your business to be found online in these times of localised search by providing your users with the information that they need and want. Whether it’s through image, video, text, categories, posts or reviews. Generate content and encourage your users/customers to do the same.
Make this free tool work for you.
Prepare your Pay Per Click for Christmas
November 8, 2010
Halloween. Done.
Bonfire Night. Been and Gone.
Christmas. It’s a coming (cue advert with bearded chap on lorry).
People are searching now for ideas, inspiration, products and services that will delight their loved ones this Christmas. With Mega Monday on its way (the past 3 years running has seen the 2nd Monday in December championed at the biggest single online shopping day of the whole year) what can you do to make sure your business, products and services are out there, waiting to be found by the searching public?
Prepare your Pay Per Click Campaigns for the run up to Christmas
It’s Britain which means it’s cold, raining and slightly miserable outside. The shops however, are likely to be clammy, filled with screaming kids who want this and that and this and that and those, whilst Cliff at Christmas is being played on loop. Ghasp!
For this very reason, Search Statisticians are expecting a 40% increase in the number of people shopping online in December, compared to October.
Cash in on this traffic with your Pay per Click activity. Craft Christmas campaigns that enable your business, website and products to be found online by the host of people searching for them. Do this with care. Without the right settings/planning/structure, costs can spiral.
Think about:
Audience:
Who is likely to buy your product? Remember, buying habits shift at this time of year – people don’t buy for themselves. They buy for others. You might sell cycle gear? A cycling fanatic might search for “camelbak hump” whilst a cycling fanatics cousin who wouldn’t know a bicycle from a bike pump might type in “gifts for cyclists”.
Think about audience, think about the buyer, think about the intent to purchase.Think about price.
In these troubling economic climes, do what you can to save yourself money and your visitors time:
Pre-qualify your clicks:
Whilst is fantastic to see your visitor numbers on the up, its important to remember that with Pay Per Click; you pay price. Keep your costs as low as they can be, by pre-qualifying your clicks were possible. Give an accurate representation of price’s, delivery dates and the services you offer. Don’t use your ad text character limit to promise the moon on a stick if you can’t deliver it. You’ll accrue the click cost and your potential customer will be disgruntled and unlikely to return.
Although I urge you to air on the side of caution, giving a realistic account of your products and prices, I also admit that it can be useful to entice shoppers to visit with a little innocent encouragement:
While stocks last
Sale ends tonight
Limited Supplies
Last few in stock
Think Delivery
Many of us lack in the organisational department, myself included. Give panic-stricken buyers what they want. Flexile delivery options. If you can deliver fast. Do it. More importantly – Tell people you can in your ad text.
Next Day Guaranteed Delivery!
Buy Today & We Deliver for Xmas
Free Shipping. Christmas Delivery.
Landing Page Optimisation:
As paid search brings in visitors on a Christmas present hunt, its crucial that your landing pages support the christmas messages displayed in search engine results pages. Think about incorporating christmas offers, promotions, delivery schedules into the design of your website so that they are clear for all to see. Make your site feel more current and personalised with content that identifies with the Christmas season, use related products and internal linking to give your visitors a positive user journey.
Google Adwords Sitelinks
As competition in the sponsored search listing heats up, you have to do what you can to set yourself apart. Google Sitelinks offer an excellent opportunity to do this, by giving you an increased level of exposure and the opportunity to link directly to specific pages of your site. Whilst displaying an ad for Christmas Gifts for Dads, you could use sitelinks to promote, Gifts for Dads under £30, Gifts for Dads under £20, and Gifts for Dads under £10. Identify with multiple audiences and appeal to different budget types with one impression catering for multiple audiences.
Google Adwords Product Extensions
Up your visual ante in search engine results pages this Christmas by making use of Adwords Product Extensions. Product extensions enable you to link up the data feed in Google Merchant Centre to your Adwords campaign, meaning that your products can be displayed with the click of a plus box in the sponsored listings. Potential customers with a click glance of the products that are relevant to their search and you receive increased exposure online. Everyone’s a winner.
Think Mobile:
Mobile search is here. Androids and iPhones are transforming the way we search and PPC has to cater for this. People search on the go, on trains, on their lunch hours, whenever there is time to kill. Consider creating separate campaigns for your separate audiences. Do mobile and desktop searchers have the same goals and needs? Although Mobile search is surging, its likely that intent to purchase is higher from a desktop. Make the most out of your budget by creating separate campaigns for mobile and desktop campaigns.
Go Beyond the Big G:
Yes Google soars ahead in terms of UK market share, but Bing and Yahoo are certainly not to be ignored. With lower levels of competition and less saturation, these providers offer the opportunity for low CPC’s and high conversion rates. Look at your Google campaign data, which campaigns perform well? Import them and play about with your keyword settings and bid structures to tap into the search markets on other providers to get a cost competitive edge on your competition.
Budget Settings:
Think about your budget settings. With impressions set to soar, its likely that your current budget settings could hinder your opportunity for increased exposure. If increasing your budget dramatically isn’t an option. Analyse your campaigns, where to you get the best return on investment? Were does budget fall into a black hole? What products have the highest gross profit margin. Use this information to adapt your campaigns to drive up profitable sales and see your ROI boom.
T’is the season.
Internal Linking and SEO
November 5, 2010
In my previous blog post; How Can I Make My Site Rank Higher, I summarised with a promise, a promise to bring you more information on the importance of Internal Linking as part of your SEO strategy (on the proviso I’d caught up on 40/80 overdue winks)
Turbo charged after plentiful sleep I’m here to shine a little light on how a good internal linking structure can work to not only make your content accessible, but also improve the overall ranking of your website. Hoorah!
Internal Linking Example:
Digitelle thought readers interested in Internal Linking might also want to read about how to increase exposure in Search Engine Results Pages
You can see here i’ve used a hyperlink to another page within my own blog, with descriptive keywords as the anchor text that match the content of the page i’m linking to. Tadaaaa.
Quickly though; let me totally distract you from SEO for the minute and pay internal links another compliment: these lovely little things are excellent for improving the usability of your website. Used correctly, internal links can be used to guide your visitors to content that is highly relevant and of use to them, content that might otherwise sit much deeper in your navigational hierarchy. Use internal links within your content to provide your visitors with additional paths to your websites content and everyone’s a winner.
Back to SEO…
How can Internal Linking help my website rank better?
Get Crawled: Internal Linking can help to make sure that all of your pages are crawled by search engine spiders. Placing internal links within your content enables spiders to roam and identify pages of your site which might have otherwise been hidden from search engines. If a search engine hasn’t detected your page, give it a little help, link to it from other relevant pages of content. The search engine finding your page is the first step on the long and winding road to your target audience finding your page. Give the spiders a helping hand with a little nifty internal linking.
Improving Relevancy of Pages and Keywords: Google adores relevancy and so linking to pages within your website that have been named and crafted with your keywords for SEO with an internal link that used your keywords for SEO in the anchor text is a sure way to shout to the search engines what your pages are about – shout it loud and shout it proud to define your pages, make them crawlable and help search engines deliver them to your target audience.
Spread the Link Juice: We know that External Linking plays a vital role in boosting the rankings of your website, especially were external links come from relevant, authoritative sites and use the right anchor text. What’s wonderful is that Internal Linking can be used to spread the wealth that External Linking generates. Use internal linking to pass on the benefit an external link has brought to a page. By linking from some of the more well performing and popular pages of your website, to deeper level, unknown pages, the “link juice” will be passed on. Link juice, known more formally as PageRank works on a 0-10 scale, 0 being the lowest, and 10 the highest. High PR is most commonly associated with the homepage and largely dependant upon the volume and value of quality external links coming in. Play about with a PageRank Checker tool and asses your page rank, give from the rich to the poor were relevant and create internal links, with carefully crafted anchor text to improve the overall PR of your web pages and ultimately your ranking in search engines.
Internal Linking is largely overlooked and often undervalued. Your website is your digital asset and your content offers you endless opportunities to provide an improved user journey and gain better rankings.
Don’t delay, start internal linking today.
Can’t generate reports in Google Adwords?
September 21, 2010
Having trouble generating your reports in Google Adwords? Finding it impossible? Wanting to throttle the following error message?
We’re sorry, but we’re unable to process this request. Some of the possible reasons for this include:
- Trying to view a report that no longer exists.
- Trying to view a report that doesn’t belong to you.
- Trying to download a report that has not finished running.
Worry not. Reports are still there for the accessing, it’s just the way you access them that’s changed a little.
Google have made some changes to the Adwords interface meaning that the Report Centre is no longer the place to be for reports to see.They have done this by moving key elements from the Report Centre into the Campaigns tab. Meaning campaign management, optimisation and reporting can all be done from the same tab. Making things faster and more simples.
Alas it also means change; which none of us really like all too much now do we?
So what do these changes mean for us and how do we access our reports?
As the Report Centre heads off into retirement, Google gives us the down low on what these changes mean for us pre and post retirement party.
Ideally i’d read, digest, try it out and translate this into some Digitelle branded spiel with what I hope would helpful insights, but i’m busy figuring out how it works and how best I can make use of these changes thrust upon us, so instead i’ll direct you to a trusty source, the Google Adwords Blog for more info.
Happy reading.
An Introduction to PPC Quality Score
September 13, 2010
Quality Score – an introductory diddy on Google’s rather important metric.
Quality Score is; in my belief – the juicy carrot dangled by the bods at Google to urge us to combine tightly linked keywords, with small targeted ad groups, highly relevant ad text and unfalteringly precise landing pages.
Not so many moons ago yet a lifetime away in www years, Paid Search was less algorithmic and more capitalistic; meaning the companies with the buck, inevitably got the bang. More money meant preferred rankings and increased exposure.
Google Adwords made the move to determine its ranking factors with a quite simple formula which considered your Click Through Rate multiplied by your Cost Per Click (CTR×CPC). But with CPC having such heavy weighting in this formula, there was still room for the money to over power substance, meaning it might not always be the ads constructed with TLC that got the to the top spot, instead the high CPC’s still had opportunity to dominate SERP’s.
Something had to change. Step forward Quality Score.
Google’s Quality Score is a numerical factor associated to each of the keywords within your campaign. Each time one of your keywords triggers an ad impression, your score is calculated, quality score ranges from 1-10, 10 being the magic number we’re all aiming for.
Put simply; the higher your quality score, the higher you are likely to rank and the less you are likely to pay.
But what factors make up Quality Score?
- Keyword Relevance – is every keyword within your ad group relevant?
- Ad Text Relevance – do your keywords and ad creative work together?
- Historical Click Through Data – Google considers historical performance data of your campaign, display URL’s, keywords and ad text
- Landing Pages – is your landing page high quality and relevant to your keywords, ad text & visitors?
- Geographical Performance – how do you fare in the area you’re targeting?
- The Great Unknown – Google includes several other “relevancy factors” in its Quality Score algorithm. What they are nobody knows.
Despite the great unknown of the other relevancy factors and the different ways Quality Score can be used to determine your ads position or calculate estimate bids for first page ranking, what can be seen quite clearly here is the huge rewards to be reaped for well crafted and fully optimised campaigns. Follow a few basic principles and the reward of high Quality Score can be yours for the taking:
- group your keywords very tightly
- craft increadibly specific ad groups
- construct compelling and creative ad text
- include descriptively accurate keywords in your display urls
- drive traffic to tightly targeted landing pages
Go forth and prosper.
Google Instant – The Search Before You Type
September 8, 2010
Abracadabra – Google’s most current version of its search engine “Google Instant” is upon us.
Google Instant searches before you’ve even typed in what you’re searching for. Not via telepathy (although that’s probably not far off) instead by dissecting and analysing what you’ve typed so far as an indication of what you’re looking for. Producing search engine results before we have even finished typing.
Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search and Usability at Google has explained some of the reasoning behind Google’s move to Google Instant, stating that the average search lasts 25 seconds, this is made up of:
- 9 Seconds – typing
- 1 Second – query reaching Google and being returned
- 15 Seconds – consideration of SERP’s before the user clicks
However, with Google Instant comes the era of change. Super speed just got speedier and the 25 second search is no more. With its new functionality, Google has reduced is search time to 5 seconds. A whopping 80% reduction. Impressive. But how does it work?
The clue is in the name:
It is Instant: Results will now change as you type. The new interface in dynamic, depending on how you choose to populate the search bar.
It turns Grey: Google delivers the search it thinks you may want in a lovely shade of grey, If the shade of grey matches what you are looking for and Google got it right, you just need to look at the immediate search results
If not then scroll: Scroll through the search bar and its and its list of predictions, as you scroll whats listed in SERP’s will change dynamically, add to your search query if need be and continue to scroll, with search engine results changing before your eyes.
Google Instant’s predictions are real-time, streaming results in a way that is interactive and responsive, it’s the introduction of a “search before you type” philosophy.
With the higher beings and bods at Google boasting its benefits of speed and usability its a pond filled with murky water for SEO’s and PPC’ers.
As Google Instant now displays paid search ads without the necessity of the user hitting the search button, ads are displayed based on the predicted search. What is possibly going to change is our perception of an impression, what now registers as an impression is an “action to choose a query (for example presses the Enter key or clicks on the Search button) clicks on a link on the results page, or stops typing for 3 or more seconds”.
With SEO the fight for the top spots is going to be heating up, with less necessity to search beyond the first page as Google now does the searching for us. Some people worry its going to be the death of SEO but the same can probably said for every Google update. The new Google interface can certainly change elements of SEO, and indeed user/search behaviour. As users can now search more thoroughly and quicker, this will have to be reflected in our search strategies. Perhaps the long tail will get longer, perhaps users will adapt searches as SERP’s revolve below them? Second guessing this is half the battle, whats worth remembering is the importance of high quality, relevant content. It is always going to be needed, it is alwas going to be essential and and will continue to be indexed.
For now you have to be signed into your Google Account to enjoy/debate/explore the Google Instant experience and worry not folks, if Instant isnt you’re cup of coffee, there’s always the ability to opt out.
Play about with it, dip your toe in the predictive search sea and see if you get what you’re looking for.
Enjoy.
Get SERPilicious
September 5, 2010
SERP’s – Search Engine Results Pages – bread and butter to businesses and SEO’s alike.
The prime positions listed in Search Engine Results pages can absorb as much as 50% of the traffic generating the SERP.
It’s a stat that can’t be ignored, instead it should be embraced. Embraced with energy, love and effort in a quest for dominance of SERP’s.
Universal Search has opened up opportunities for brands and business to bombard users of search engines with their presence, singing and dancing in front of users through a whole variety of methods.
A little more about Universal Search:
The average Search Engine Results Page contains anything from 10 to 40 listings. These listings are composed of organic, paid, maps, video, news, shopping and images. Understanding how to tap into these opportunities is vital for improved performance and increased visitor numbers for your website. Why rank once, when you can rank twice, thrice, quadrice?
Consider some of the following to improve your exposure in the vast sea that is the SERP.
MAP IT OUT:
Google’s Local business listings are free and available for any business with an address through Google Places. With competition in the SERP’s heating up through Google Maps its vital that other players shouldn’t be forgotten about, consider Yahoo Local and Bing Local to guide visitors to your services, products and website.
OPTIMISE FOR LOCAL SEARCH:
Offices nationwide? Perhaps you’re global? Consider targeted landing pages, delivering content and information that is relevant to visitors from that location. Consider submitting your site to local search engines and some of the smaller local directories.
GET LISTED ON GOOGLE SHOPPING:
Upload your products to Google’s free Merchant Centre using a data feed or Google’s API. Use relevant and targeted keywords that complement your search strategy in product titles and descriptions. Keep your feeds updated regularly and use high quality images that will attract users to your website.
VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR:
Optimise for Video Search. When displayed in SERP’s videos are eye-catching and dominate attention, especially if you’re ranking on the same page elsewhere. Whats more, video’s aren’t just useful for dominating SERP’s, used on site they’re terrific little tools in terms of generating attention, showcasing products, bringing down bounce rates and adding more multi to your on page media. Bearing this in mind it’s absolutely vital that you place as much effort in optimising the meta tags,descriptions and titles of your video as you do your website pages. Upload to YouTube, upload on your social media pages, let the online world know that you have a video and you want it to be seen and remember to tell Google too – with the creation of a video xml site map.
IMAGE IS EVERYTHING:
Universal search introduces images on our SERP’s, increase visibility of your products, brand and business by optimising your images. Take advantage of ALT text, describing each of your images with relevant keywords, consider your search strategy, consider your images, explore the potential to expand your sites image bank and how this might open up your ability to be found online. Include your keywords in the name of your image files and use content to surround your image with content that is targeted and will appeal to your audience.
GET BITTEN BY THE SOCIAL BUG:
Social media madness is taking over the world and thankfully Search Engines are indexing the goings on of the 500 million Facebook users and Tweeters Twittering 50 million Tweets per day. Whats more; this indexing is real-time, giving publishers up to date, of the minute visibility on Search Engines. Get active in social media spaces. Update content regularly. Enable users to share your content and spread the word of your business, brand and services with Like Buttons and Re-tweets. Real time results often rank at the top of Search Engine Results pages. Optimise your content and improve your visibility by engaging with your audience on a social level.
BLOGGING ON THE BRAIN:
Search engines love blog content. Blogging software is readily available and free as a bird (Thank You WordPress) whats more is that they come with a site structure that search engines love, which means they tend to naturally attract Search Engine traffic. Content is king, so get creating. Pack your blog with content that will appeal to your audience, make it keyword rich and search engine friendly bearing link bait in mind. Gain attention, attract links and use keyword targeting to rank in SERP’s alongside your videos, images, shopping results and social media pages.
Its food for thought and I’m very hungry.
