Impact Media's SEO Blog

It’s been another big day of search engine news with both Google and Microsoft announcing new products. Possibly the biggest of these – certainly in a purist search capacity – was the announcement that, after some time in development and ditching the old Kumo title, Microsoft are almost ready to begin some tentative live tests before switching over to become the default search option on 3rd of June.

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The Parliamentary upheaval caused by the MP’s expenses scandal shows no sign of abating. Using the latest statistics provided by Blogpulse, it’s clear that our elected officials are still getting a pretty rough ride online as well as in Westminster and their constituencies.

If nothing else, this indicates the power that bloggers and professional news sources have. The blanket coverage, with the news represented from all angles and viewpoints, has been merciless. Major stories don’t simply appear and disappear like they may have done previously. Buzz can grow and continue to snowball through the ever-growing online blogging community as illustrated below.

This chart highlights the popularity of the term 'MPs Expenses'

Blogpulse gives a fantastic insight into what is popular at any one moment in time. It shows the peaks and troughs that all topics go through with clear charts and statistics. Anybody can simply search for a specific term or even a selection of different stories to find out exactly what is hot and identify those trends early.

The graphic below shows the relative popularity of three events that may well have people talking in the days to come. This compares the popularity of the terms ‘FA Cup’, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ (both of which reach their final stage on Saturday) and ‘MP’s expenses’, just for a marker. From this we can see that Britain’s Got Talent is head and shoulders above the rest in terms of blog mentions and I think it would be a big surprise if that trend didn’t continue over the weekend too.

Comparative popularity of Britain’s Got Talent, FA Cup & MP’s Expenses

Whilst the results shown above may not be particularly useful to many businesses, it does give a clear indication of what the rest of the world is talking about. Plus you have the opportunity to shape the words searched for to suit your particular sector, there’s no boundaries to who or what can be analysed.

Whilst it can be a passing dalliance of interest and a bit of mischievous fun (see below for the comparisons of Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and talent show finalist Susan Boyle for clarification), understanding where the buzz is before anyone else can give you some real leverage, particularly in the competitive world of blogging.

Gordon Brown lags a long way behind both Boyle & Obama online

The positives and negatives of social media within an office environment have been well documented. Whilst some companies are embracing it as the future (at least in a short-term capacity) of their online marketing strategy, others are chastising it for distracting workers and ruining reputations.

Whilst at polar opposites, both viewpoints can, in some cases, be equally valid. Never has it been so easy for disgruntled (ex) employees to spread vitriolic rage at their (former) employers. Whether deliberate or accidental, this type of corporate disrepute isn’t uncommon. Similarly, the large audience, which can be damaging, can also be a positive thing when it comes to bring in visitors to a website.

Clever campaigns utilising the full scope of today’s social media – Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter et al – have managed to propel companies and individuals to previously unattainable heights. The vast audience to which you are able to reach and the minimal costs involved have made this an extremely attractive proposition for many.

But if you’re planning to use social media for social marketing, should that courtesy also be afforded to employees? Well, the arguments against probably far outweigh the arguments for when it comes to social media being used in the workplace. With Facebook Addiction Disorder becoming a widely recognised ailment, clearly there are people out there who would, given half the chance, abuse the opportunity to use work facilities to satisfy their need to keep up with the social media soap opera.

Whilst they may not be communicating damaging messages that can be traced back to their work, clearly the distraction of having social media easily available could affect concentration and quality of output. This is why a number of companies have either blocked access to these sites or added wording into contracts that will dissuade them through the threat of disciplinary action.

The dozens of stories that have circulated throughout the media in recent years regarding employees getting sacked for their social media activities will undoubtedly make employers even more wary. Whether feigning illness and being caught out, being involved in illegal activities or criticising the company openly, the downfall of workers around the world has been widely publicised. Unfortunately though, there often isn’t a legal precedent to follow in such cases, leaving the company a tough decision on the action to take.

But whilst the negative side of social media in the workplace grabs the headlines, the positives are often sadly overlooked.  Marketers everywhere are desperately trying to improve visibility through whatever media is available. Unfortunately, as reported recently on B2B Marketing Online, some are coming unstuck due to the rules that are supposed to prevent employees abusing social media sites at work. The same report, entitled LinkedIn moving up the ranks with marketers, also shows the growing diversity of business networking as part of a social media campaign.

Whilst Facebook still leads the way in terms of popularity, LinkedIn is gaining fast. Designed almost expressly for businesses, this social marketing tool is a simple way to generate links to your site and get a name spread throughout a growing and active community. However and whatever way you choose to utilise social media as a marketing tool, always remember its power – both good and bad.

Even negative accusations can be spun on their head if you get out there and dispel malicious rumours. Being quick on the draw in reacting can minimise potential damage, whether from a poor review or an irate customer.

Undoubtedly having a strong social media presence can be hugely beneficial to any company or website. But clearly defined policies within the workplace need to be set out to avoid the potentially harmful repercussions. Businesses are finally starting to understand the power of this growing media and so are employees; however, a universal mandate as to what is and what isn’t acceptable usage still appears to be some way off.

As far as SEO tools go, link building is pretty high on the list. Incoming and direct links will add credibility to your site – assuming of course, that they are from credible sources – which invariably leads the search engines to sit up and take note.

The aforementioned point on credible sources does need to be flagged up immediately though. Just as in any walk of life, if you hang around with shady characters, regardless of your intentions, inevitably some of that perceived negativity rubs off on you. There are so many spamming directories, many of which may request a payment, that it can be a bit of a minefield. But simply submitting your site left right and centre could cause more problems than it does offer solutions.

A brilliant way to create a number of decent links is to write and publish articles. Wisely, most article submission sites – eZine and Buzzle are probably the most popular – don’t allow you to pepper articles with keywords and HTML code, so you’ll need to be a little smarter than that. Essentially, the back link will often come from the ‘Author’s Bio’ (or equivalent), where you can write a little blurb about yourself, the site and get in that all important embedded link.

Submitting articles not only creates strong links, but if readers find your piece interesting you may find that it is also a good source of direct traffic too. This is reflected in a number of other free posting sites such as Squidoo. Here you have the opportunity to write an informative page about any topic – preferably related to your site and area of expertise – and provide a useful resource; both selfishly for your own site’s SEO but also for the genuinely interested readership.

There are also literally hundreds of business directories where you can also post links that point back to pages of your site; many are free, some are not, but be sure to shop around when locating them to avoid the spammers mentioned earlier in the post. LinkedIn is a particularly reputable business networking tool, allowing users to write a little information about themselves, their company and provide a link; everything you need really to continue pushing that message.

Linking is very much the unseen part of SEO. Whilst you can analyse how many links you have coming in, it’s not always as easy to ascertain what effect they’re having. Without a steady stream of good links to your site though, you may never gain the respect of search engines. The better the quality, the higher the search ranking. It’s not overly complicated, but it’s certainly worth taking the time to research and effort to do it properly.

It’s often not until you’ve actually tried to do copywriting yourself that you realise just how difficult it is. Of course, in essence, it is much the same as any conventional form of writing. However, there are so many additional factors that you have to consider – not least balancing readability with SEO strength – that it is a far more complex skill than some give credit for.

There’s a fine line between a categorical success and a stratospheric disaster; particularly when it comes to marketing your own website. So to help you steer clear of lexical limbo, we’ve put together this list of 5 copywriting faux pas that you should look to avoid:

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To many, Twitter may still seem like the new kid on the block, a quick upstart that is having its five minutes of fame before fading back into obscurity. But it says a lot for their clout, that the innovative real-time search capability they’ve developed has had Google scrambling for a retort.

As reported across many other channels, including WebProNews this morning, Google are having to seriously rethink their search strategy in order to counteract its social media adversary. But is real-time search really worth all the hassle? How many people will actually use such a thing if it was implemented?

There’s no doubting that Google don’t want to get left behind on this issue. Twitter has been gaining a huge following right across the globe, and their numbers as swelling by the day. So if Google wants to maintain its ownership of the search crown, it can’t have another company out innovate it.

Real-time information is usually made up of tiny snippets of information. They’re often produced in conversation or as tweets, with users simply relaying what they see, witness or feel. It can be something as earth shattering as a natural disaster or as simple as a sports result, there’s no finite rule. Traditional news and search outlets tend to take time to create reports and index them fully; this loses some of the immediacy of an event. In real-time, you can find out something in a matter of seconds.

There’s no doubt that this can become an extremely useful resource. But there is also the potential for rumours and subterfuge to take over, particularly in unmoderated forums such as Twitter. If enough people club together to suggest that something earth shattering has happened, then news could immediately spiral out of control.

Recently it was Patrick Swayze’s death that was wrongly reported, wrongly in so far as he is very much still alive. Whilst amongst fans and family this could be potentially distressing, there is obviously the potential for even bigger hoaxes to be played out, particularly if Google join the fold.

Real-time certainly would be a welcome addition, and one that I think Google must and will ultimately make. But there will always be a certain amount of cynicism surrounding the validity of statements, purely as they won’t always come from ‘reputable’ sources. It’s a fine line, but it would certainly could bring search as a whole in to a whole new level of development.

If you’ve got any thoughts on real-time search and whether or not it would be a positive thing for Google to incorporate, let us know, comments are always welcome.

This is the first in a series of reports that we’ll be doing on the digitalisation of traditional media and how huge corporations are having to re-asses marketing strategies in order to tie-in with modern trends. Today’s looks at how API’s could prove to be the future of the printed press.

There’s no doubting that the media landscape is changing. Traditional outlets are being threatened by the all-consuming leviathan that is the Internet. Whilst an ‘adapt to survive’ mentality is being adopted by some, there are still many – including a well documented piece in the Washington Post by Bruce W. Sanford and Bruce D. Brown – who oppose and fear change as vehemently as The Luddites during the Industrial Revolution.

The Digital or Online Revolution, whichever way you wish to term it, has been in full swing for some time now. The epochal shift towards the Internet has undoubtedly taken a lot of established institutions by surprise. Some, however, appear to be accepting and embracing it more than others.

Few established media outlets in the UK have done more to harness the potential positivity of this new medium than The Guardian. Whilst the printed newspaper industry itself is suffering from dwindling sales and reductions in advertising incomes, there is undoubtedly still a place for professional journalism, and probably always will. Whether that place is printed in ink or digitally created on a screen however looks a little more unclear.

Innovation in the Printed Press

The reason why The Guardian – just like the New York Times before them – is leading the way in the British media isn’t because they have a strong social media presence, an inordinately high standard of journalism or are the first with all the breaking news; no, the reason why they’ve stolen a march on the others, is because of their Open Platform system.

Whilst some may argue that the aforementioned factors are equally important, and they may well fulfil all those criteria, it is the API that really puts them head and shoulders above others. By freely releasing archival statistics, reports and other content, The Guardian are getting their content used on sites right across the Web. For example, a Webmaster in Uzbekistan can access their old articles, sift out the data required and share it with their site’s community in an instant; how else would that be possible?

This makes the Internet wide open and allows quality newspaper content – rather than simply hyperlinking – available to anyone, anywhere and at any time. The Open Platform is further complemented by the Data Store. This is an application that allows users to obtain statistical data on pretty much anything; providing an invaluable resource for online users from all walks of life.

The Guardian Take Open Platform APIs to New Levels

Development of The Guardian Open Platform API is ongoing. There are suggestions that current content may well feature far more heavily, with up-to-the-minute news becoming available to the masses. However, since its launch back in March the publicity, concern and defence of an API as a viable future for all print media has been unrelenting. Some still question the sense of simply giving away your news for free; however, I think these doubters are missing the bigger picture.

The Guardian itself sells 346,757 copies a day on average according to their own statistics. The vast majority of these will be solely UK based of course, making their readership only around 0.58% of the entire population. That spread is relatively small, although it should be noted that doesn’t include online statistics for which The Guardian ranks well with.

However, with millions of sites potentially using The Guardian’s information and including references or links within that, their readership and visibility can only improve on an exponential level. Along with this growing online presence, they can then be assured of increased credibility and ultimately, potentially at least, greater usage of their revenue making outlets, i.e. The Guardian website and the newspaper itself.

Future-proofing Traditional Journalism

It’s a brave step into the new online forum, and one that could well pave the way for others to follow. It should ultimately mean a greater freedom of the printed press, better access to quality news and a viable alternative for institutions that may one day become redundant. It’s a mutually beneficial scheme whereby consumers, websites and of course The Guardian reap the benefits.

Journalism is under fire from all quarters. With professional bloggers, online news and 24 hour television reports, where does the printed press stand moving forward? The Telegraph and The Guardian have been competing tit-for-tat over the title of Britain’s most popular online newspaper in recent times. The Telegraph, as we reported earlier this week in a piece titled ‘Telegraph Dominating Online Breaking News’, has been creating a huge buzz with its successful social media presence and exclusive reporting of the current MP’s expenses scandal; but I’d suggest The Guardian’s API and Data will ultimately prove the more successful over time.

Can you see Open Platform being the future for traditional media? Is this something that you’d want to use yourself in websites? Or, indeed, is print journalism really on its knees at all, can it survive and flourish despite the Internet and not because of it? We’d certainly like to hear your views, so please feel free to post a comment.

There have been a lot of news stories recently that have been commended for their viral marketing capacity. The ‘world’s best job’ competition, won by Briton Ben Southall, proved the power of advertising across a global forum, predominantly through social media.

This week saw another piece of clever self-promotion, with the news that a former model and personal trainer became a junk food addict, causing him to pile on 7 ½ stones in weight. Melbourne resident Paul James did this to better understand his larger clients unique needs; although in truth what he has done, very well, is promote himself and Doherty’s Gym, with news stations throughout the world covering the story.

Today came the revelation that the infamous ‘Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt’ had received a monumental sales boost primarily due to the hundreds of mocking reviews posted on Amazon. The subject of these posts have been circulating throughout the Internet, including blogs, social media and email, helping generate further publicity and increase interest in the product – even if it is a little tongue-in-cheek.

Despite an increase in sales by 2,300%, the makers are understandably far from happy with the amount of negative attention that their garment has garnered. In spite of this, the huge public awareness that viral marketing – whether deliberate, as in the case of the Queensland tourist board, or otherwise – can potentially deliver, is enough to make seasoned marketers sit up and take note.

Unfortunately you can’t usually pre-empt or organise a viral campaign, they just grow organically. Evidently though, extreme originality can be the key to success. This certainly highlights the need to be creative in the modern marketplace. People power will drive any business forward, but it’s up to us as marketing professionals to generate the momentum.

Keeping a keen eye on your sites content has very much come into the public focus over the past couple of weeks. There has been building public anger over Facebook’s acceptance of Holocaust denial pages, in which anti-Semitic discussions are freely passed between users. They have subsequently relented and confirmed the removal of two groups at the beginning of last week, but does social media really have a social conscience?

Craigslist, the American supersite covering adverts for almost anything, last week also had to begrudgingly admit that it would ditch erotic adverts after it was found that these pages were soliciting prostitution, bringing the site a lot of unwelcome attention from the media and the law. All of which has left a dark cloud hanging over social media as a whole.

Any site can fail due to its content. Okay, so if your website contains a few typos, a bit of underwhelming copy and some broken links it isn’t going to have quite the same impact as the above cases; but you need to ensure you are fully aware of what is contained within your pages at all times, otherwise you could end up losing potential customers, or even worse.

This provides a sobering reminder of just how important it is for Webmasters, SEO Marketers and everyone involved in the building and running of a website, to keep on top of content. Facebook and Craigslist are two hugely popular sites and a haven for social marketers everywhere. With millions across the world using them each day, this is a very real wake up call for them to clean up their act.

Negative publicity such as this will do nothing to dispel the notion among some people that social media is having a negative impact on the Internet and even society as a whole. There are however, still a lot of positive applications for social media, so while these stories are damaging, no doubt they should also help improve standards in the future.

Pay Per Click or PPC is a fast growing method of producing dramatic results for your business by advertising your products or services online. These are just some of the benefits:

• Precision: In a results oriented culture, being able to precisely target interested customers and clients is vital. The efficacy of PPC has been particularly demonstrated through the precision that the ads offer the advertiser. PPC allows greater control over who arrives at your website and through which keywords. This level of control is important to ensure that the correct customers are targeted.
• Budget Control: PPC allows complete control over what you spend on advertising. Campaigns can be arranged with a daily budget and this can be increased or reduced depending upon changes in your business.
• Ease of Measurement: Measuring the success of your advertising campaigns is very easy with PPC. Pay Per Click systems come with the type of tools that allow the advertiser to analyse the success of their online ads. By creating specific landing pages for each different ad, you can see how effective the ads are at driving traffic towards your site. The analytical systems will also allow you to directly measure the conversion rate of specific ads from ad to sale.
• Geo-Targeting: The ability for the advertiser to geo-target specific locations is one of the greatest benefits of PPC. By choosing precisely where in the world you want ads to appear, you can increase your global marketing or decrease your costs. Unfortunately there are still companies across the world advertising their services in countries where customers cannot buy them. Whilst this might expand the presence of the global brand, it is also a waste of valuable finances during this difficult economic period.
• Speed of Execution: Each aspect of PPC is quick to set up and execute. You should always write the ads in advance, but the actual mechanical creation time is very short. Once created, the ads can be up and earning you money within minutes. What’s more, in terms of speed, the time taken from click to sale has been drastically reduced to potentially a matter of minutes. Traditional advertising on television or in the newspaper simply cannot compete on any level with the efficacy of PPC.
• Capture Visitors: One of the strengths of PPC is its power to capture visitors. Someone searching for your keywords will be attracted to a well-written PPC ad. Once you’ve got that person to click your ad, you can use your website to help them make whatever decision you require.
• Boosting Brand Awareness: PPC is a successful way of increasing brand awareness. The complete control the advertiser has over the entire process allows them to easily promote their brand. Not only is each ad a potential sale, but even those users that do not click the ad are aware of the brand without the advertiser spending any money.

Pay per click is an exceptionally successful way to increase qualified traffic to your website but is only one part of a fully integrated marketing mix.

The Internet has completely changed the way that customers look for and get what they want. It has also changed where they search for and where they buy goods and services. Consequently, those businesses that wish to remain profitable are changing their marketing methods to respond to this transformation in their customer’s buying habits.

Traditional forms of marketing such as newspaper and television advertising, direct mail and cold calling simply do not integrate well with the powerful medium of the Internet and have become less and less effective as a result.

One of the most beneficial ways that the Internet has changed marketing is the dramatic reduction in cost. With direct mail for instance, someone has to be paid to produce the materials that are sent out. This involves designing, writing, editing and printing costs. It’s an expensive way of connecting with a limited number of potential customers and its difficult to measure the success of direct mail. In comparison, email marketing can be performed by anyone with rudimentary marketing skills and a computer.

In the past, a company in Southampton could not easily market their products/services to potential customers in Australia without great cost. Yet the Internet has no geographic boundaries and whatever marketing is prepared for Hampshire can easily be tailored for Queensland. Internet marketers can target customers anywhere in the world and anyone with a computer can respond to their advertising/marketing and purchase goods or services with the click of a button.

With the vast increase in popularity of the Internet, the speed of marketing has changed. Customers can be immediately responding to advertisements that were posted only seconds ago. These adverts can be changed with equal speed to respond to need.

The Internet is driven by information or content. The more high quality content you can provide a potential customer with, the greater your credibility and the increased chances that they will spend their money with you. Both building and web-based businesses need to address this issue and provide potential clients with the information they need to make the decision to buy from you. Again, the production of content is time consuming but not a costly activity, allowing companies of different scales to compete with each other.

Through social marketing, word of mouth or buzz is instantly created around products and brands. Again, social marketing is a low-cost/high benefit method of marketing online. Traditional marketing cannot possibly compete with the efficacy of Internet marketing for speed, accuracy of qualified leads and low costs.

Traditional marketing has been badly affected by the change to Internet Marketing. One only has to see how the commercial television stations have incurred massive debts associated with rapidly decreasing advertising revenue.

In the past 12 months, the traditional marketing department has all but died. Any company that wants to succeed in the new Internet-changed marketplace must create an integrated approach, a strategy for marketing that fuses together limited traditional methods with the multi-faceted approaches of Internet marketing.

In the past, Internet marketing has been ignored, labeled a ‘fad’, a phase that will eventually pass. Those businesses that do not want to disappear in the global recession can’t afford to share this outdated viewpoint.

Google have just announced that their AdWords Search Query Report has been improved and will no longer contain the dreaded “Other Unique Queries“.

We’ve long advocated using the search query report to improve AdWords campaign performance and this will now make it an absolute must use for any advertiser interested in saving money and improving their ROI.

With these enhancements, expect to see longer keyword lists but remember, the devil is in the detail. Use with Excel and apply filters to spot negative keywords as well as fresh opportunities to expand your campaign.

…at least that’s what Biz Stone, one of the co-founders of Twitter had to say at a recent conference.

He said “There are a few reasons why we’re not pursuing advertising; one is, it’s just not quite as interesting to us.”

This is refreshing in the social landscape where many of the social media properties can’t seem to think beyond advertising when it comes to generating revenues.

Obviously, Twitter needs to find streams of income and it’ll be interesting to see what strategies they pursue. With the rising popularity of this microblogging platform, I’m sure they’re not short of innovative ideas.

Not for the first time, and probably not the last, at around 10:45 this morning Google.com went down. Understandably that represents something of an issue for many people, not least search specialists.

Once again though, the Twitter tweets lit up with concerned Google users almost instantaneously enquiring about the issue.

Google Down Announced on Twitter

This not only highlights the fallibility of the world’s most popular search engine, but also the increasing diversity with which the world shares information and news. Fortunately Google remained down for only 15 minutes, although the consternation was evident – at least amongst Twitter users – and was doubtless fuelled by those who use it as their go-to source for information and statistics.

Search itself doesn’t stand still. When something happens to the leading source, be it an ecommerce, business or search site, there are almost always alternatives available. Those desperate to find content online still have the option to use Ask, MSN, Yahoo (as highlighted by one of the Twitterati on the above example, albeit slightly tongue in cheek) or any of the smaller search engines out there.

This, perhaps more than anything else, highlights the need to have a variety of sources when it comes to information gathering. Over reliance on one source can leave you high and dry, particularly in the turbulent world of the Internet.

The MPs may not be having the best of times with the current expenses scandals, which appear to be shadowing them throughout the halls of Westminster; but that certainly doesn’t seem to be the case for for everyone.

The big winner out of all of this appears to be the online media outlets who are reporting the news, most notably The Telegraph. Hitwise today announced that the Telegraph has received 1 in every 756 UK page views over the past week.

That is quite a staggering statistic, particularly when you consider the diversity of pages that people search for and the number of competitors they have for the limelight. With a 23.64% share of all the search terms associated with ‘MPs Expenses’ it isn’t exactly a monopoly (in fact it represents a drop a little over  7% from the previous week), but it certainly shows that someone at the Telegraph is doing their homework when it comes to SEO.

Although it should be noted that this isn’t the first time that The Telegraph have made the headlines rather than writing them in recent days. Last week it was reported that they pulled in 75,000 visitors a day from social media. This is primarily down to their strong presence on Twitter; however, with it accounting for 8% of their total visits, something is certainly working.

Once again though this ably highlights the need to have content that is relevant to the stories of the moment, have an expert writing team and generate a strong social media presence.