Honk if you think 2011 went by in a blur (*honk*).

I know, right?

The main question that has been on my mind, as a Digital Marketer, is what does 2012 have in store for SEO, along with the general field of Online Marketing?

Content

What’s the score?

First things first, I know that content will remain King, although a lot more emphasis will be placed on the ‘freshness’ (thanks to the ‘Freshness Update’ Google applied to its algorithms on 2nd November 2011, which affected approximately 35% of searches) and quality (thanks to the ongoing iterations of Google’s ‘Panda Update’, originally launched in February 2011) of the content.

What can be done?

Make sure you update your site regularly with high quality, insightful, UNIQUE content which contains original analysis. Readers don’t want to see re-hashed articles on your site when they could read the original article in more depth on someone else’s site.  Remove or improve shorter articles because it is better to have one longer, in-depth piece on a topic than two pieces of shorter content virtually saying the same things but in a slightly different way.

Make sure you talk about timely topics as soon as they are relevant, to capture users who want information from your site’s point of view about a trending topic. However, there will be times that you just can’t generate enough original comment about a topic to put out a full article on it – in this case, write a tweet/Facebook post/Google+ post to acknowledge the event and here you will be able to at least express some sort of feeling about the event and what it means to your business. These social media posts may well be pulled by the search engines when someone searches for the topic.

However, bear in mind that search engines will also want to display general or historical information about a topic when it develops and pops up in the news again. Therefore, you need to make sure that your site contains ‘evergreen’ content about all relevant topics for which you want to have ‘expert’ status. ‘Evergreen’ content isn’t as time specific so can be read all year round. An example of this might be a ‘how to’ article on a bank’s website, for example ‘How to open a bank account’.

Authority and Trust

What’s the score?

Search engines want to rank authoritative and trustworthy sites well. This is all part of trying to provide the best user experience to searchers when suggesting potential pages to them in search rankings.

If users click through to your site from the search engine rankings, the search engine would rather the user enjoy the experience (website design is also important here) and stay on the site because it is a huge indication that your site is relevant for the search term that made your site appear.

Authority and trust play huge roles in user experience – who hasn’t gone to a website, seen the first page, screamed in horror in fear that just being on the site is going to end up in the theft of their identity and/or credit card details and clicked the back/close button faster than The Flash? I figured the number would be small.

Users are also looking for indicators that the information they are reading is accurate and that the person who wrote it is somewhat of an expert in their field. Are you more likely to click on an article about interviewing celebrities by ‘Parkinson’ or ‘Joe Bloggs’?

Remember that if a user (is logged into Google) visits your site from the search listings, is horrified by what they see and exits quickly back to the search results, Google registers this ‘speedy exit’ and then displays a ‘block this site from the search results’ link for the user to click on. If the user clicks this link, they won’t see results from your site when they next search using the same term (and it won’t reflect well on your site in Google’s eyes). You will have lost a potential customer and will lose traction with Google, who will likely reduce your rankings as a result.

What can be done?

Make sure that your site is designed well and contains accurate content by people who know what they are talking about. Proof read your content to check for factual and spelling/grammatical errors (I will NEVER buy stuff from sites that have spelling and grammatical errors – if they can’t be bothered to proof their text, how careful are they going to be with my credit card details?).

Give your authors an online presence by using authorship markup to enable Google to list your article along with the author’s name and a picture of him/her. Your readers will start to recognize the author (it’s easier to remember a face than a name) and want to click on their other articles when they see them, especially if they had a great read from the first piece?

If you are an ecommerce site taking payments online, register for industry standard security protocols (e.g. an SSL certificate) and display a badge, on your homepage, to show your users that the credit card information they enter will be safe.

Make sure that your site users can contact you and display contact information prominently. This will help because users will be able to see that they can contact someone who runs the site if they have an issue (and that it’s run by a real person/company and not a fraudster who is going to rip them off) rather than clicking back to the search engine results after 10 seconds.

Social Media

What’s the score?

Social media equals lots of user-generated content (blogs, images, videos). Firstly, search engines love new, fresh, unique content. Secondly, because people are looking for this type of content, search engines want to keep the users happy and want to present this type of content in search listings.

Social media is a great way to raise awareness of your brand because search engines will display items like Tweets, blogs and YouTube videos in the search listings. If you don’t have a presence in these areas, you won’t be there for search engines to list when the time comes.

Also, if you can get your users to talk about your brand and share content related to it, more people will hear about you and link to you which should increase the likelihood of being listed in relevant search listings.

What can be done?

Engage with your users via social media platforms, especially Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Do this by posting regularly and frequently. Share great deals on social media sites, tell users about your new blogs/other content.

Encourage your readers to follow your social media pages by adding buttons from sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to key pages on your site.

Also, encourage your readers to share your content with their friends/followers by adding Facebook ‘Like’, Google ‘+1’ and Twitter ‘Tweet’ buttons to your content.

Finally, make it easy for readers to share your content on social bookmarking sites by adding buttons for sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and reddit to your content.
What are your thoughts for how to keep up with Digital Marketing in 2012?

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At the beginning of the year it’s always a good time to have a clean out and shed the mountain of useless rubbish you may have accumulated over the previous 12 month period. It can also be a great time to give your website a fresh coat of paint it has been crying out for since 1997.

apple.com 1997

apple.com 2012

Looks aren’t everything I hear you cry, but having a website that is modern and professional in design can help maintain user attention for longer which, will help push your site up the search engine highway.

Ask yourself this when you next visit a website that you may be making a purchase from. Do you trust that company with your credit card details? What worked 10 years ago may not be working for your site today. Modern browsers are smarter and include features which are waiting to be used. Below is a list of some of the latest trends which will be making a big impact in 2012.

Bright and Colourful is Key:

Neutral colours are great for subtle design elements but bright hues of color can really grab a user attention and make a call to action stand out on your site. It can be difficult when selecting the right colours for a website but the general rule of thumb is to keep with no more than three main colours. It is also important that the colours on your website match your current branding otherwise it can make a logo stick out like a sore thumb.

Typography:

Font style is a vital ingredient with any design. They can help to change the meaning and tone of a sentence. It can be a struggle for any web designer when selecting fonts to use on a new design. Generally we are limited to web safe fonts which can be very generic and lacking in character (pardon the pun!). Luckily there are some ways to get around this. There are many free font archives available which offer a wide range of free font styles. Google offers its own version of web fonts which you can download and use in your new design http://www.google.com/webfonts.

Bigger text is better and if you want to get a message across it is always good to increase the font size. There are many good reasons why increasing your font size can make a big impact on the usability of your website. For example at the age of 40, only half the light gets through to the retina as it did at the age of 20.  The following article has put forward a good argument for increasing the size of the body text on a website which I hope will have a big impact in the New Year http://tiny.cc/4f4kh

CSS3 + HTML5

These two have been around for a couple of years now but with the legacy that is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 still on its death rattle it’s been hard for these new features to be used during the building stage of a website. It is said that CSS3 and HTML5 will be big this year and there is plenty of reason why it will be great move in the right direction.

There are many options available including box shadows, animated buttons, multiple backgrounds, rounded corners and transparent images. All these can help to create amazing new website layouts.

Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design refers to the development of a website which changes the contents layout depending upon the size of the screen the user is viewing the site on. Why would this be important to me you may ask yourself. Have you recently viewed a website on a mobile device or tablet? Some sites which are not designed for mobile devices can offer a poor user experience and in some cases will not work at all.  Mobile devices currently hold around a 7 percent share of web traffic, which is set to increase by 17 percent in 2012. This, in turn, will only further increase as we enter faster mobile broadband territory. These are potential users which may not be getting the experience you wish them to have from your current site.

For more information:

http://inspirationfeed.com/articles/design-articles/web-graphic-design-trends-in-2012/

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

http://designmodo.com/responsive-design-examples/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20118380-94/mobile-devices-driving-nearly-7-percent-of-web-traffic/

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You’ve gone to the trouble of setting up your business on various social networks because you know you need to. You’re still not quite sure why it’s important, and you find it hard to measure it’s success, but you regularly post updates because you know you should. And you tell yourself, “What’s the point in having it if I don’t do anything with it?” and you get on and do it.

Now, if you are still struggling to work out the benefits of social media, below are some useful ideas and tools which will help you measure and monitor your social media presence.

Firstly, and most importantly it needn’t be a chore. It doesn’t need to take hours worth of man power or have huge resources devoted to it. During the course of a few minutes a day you can check your online activity in 5 easy steps. Each of the following will only take 2 or 3 minutes, so give it try. You’ve not really got any excuses!

1) Twitter Conversation

You can use tools like TweetDeck or Twitter Search to monitor conversations about your company in real-time by searching for #(insert your Twitter name), or keywords related to your business.

2) Facebook Stats

Visit your Company Page’s Facebook Insights. This can be found under the page’s main photo if you are an admin for your page. Look at the active users and interaction stats. Monitor wall posts or new discussions and respond accordingly.

3) Google Alerts

Check Google Alerts for your company name, products, directors or brand keywords. It’s easy to set this up, enter your search terms in a Google Alert and select to receive updates as they happen or just once a day. When it’s set up you will be alerted as people blog about your business, products and services – an alert will be sent to your inbox. You can then read the articles and respond/comment as and when appropriate.

4) LinkedIn Questions

Search for questions on LinkedIn that you or members of your company can answer. When you find a relevant question, respond and include a link to your website or a relevant blog post that might be helpful to theaudience.

5) Google Reader

Set up RSS feeds for searches on your company name and industry terms in other social media sites.

Once set up, these will help you to see what’s being said about your business, your products and your services. It will allow you to respond quickly and easily and add comments, and to share your expert opinion and knowledge to other conversations. And perhaps above all, all this activity will move your ‘name’ around the internet, which at the end of the day can only be good for business.

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Unless you have been in hiding without access to any kind of media whatsoever it would have been hard to miss a QR code over the last few years. You will no doubt be aware of the strange looking little collection of black and white squares that adorn advertisements on bus shelters in magazines, shops and even on the television.

These little square blocks are QR codes and are a ways to embed information. QR codes are now used for any number of reasons by businesses and individuals alike. Dan Smigrod has a comprehensive list in his post ‘101 Uses For Quick Response (QR) Codes‘, which includes business cards with imbedded contact information, websites with secret/extra areas, discount codes for products and to release more content on dvd’s.

Wikipedia states “A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) first designed for the automotive industry. More recently, the system has become popular outside of the industry due to its fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be made up of any kind of data (e.g., binary, alphanumeric, or Kanji symbols).The beauty of these codes lies in the fact that they are completely unobtrusive but can provide direct, location specific information when requested.”

A traditional barcode is scanned and directly turned into a series of binary values read from left to right. Examples of these can be found on any product you find any any shop. QR codes allow the information to be read both left and right, but also vertically. This means it can store far more information.

The four squares in each corner (see image above) provide information to the QR reader (you can download an app on any smart phone – for an Android version try QR Reader for Android , for IPhone try QR Reader for iPhone. They give the camera “anchors” in the image so that it can determine its orientation, alignment, and other features.

Many businesses are developing their own QR codes as smartphones become increasingly more popular and people want faster and more direct lines of communication between the products and services that they they’re interested in.

QR codes provide a quick and easy way for consumers and individuals to interact with the world around them and will no doubt continue to grow as medium of conveying information. WDL recognises the importance of new ways to promote your business and can create a unique QR Code for your business or product and add it to your website, your printed materials, or indeed anywhere you want it!

Contact us for more information about QR Codes.

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What are you doing with your marketing? Have you done any recently? If you are struggling with where to start, or even if you already have a marketing department, the best place to focus your attention with any online business is with SEO. If you can pull together a well thought out and implemented SEO campaign, you’ll generate more traffic coming to your website and as a result you’ll engage in more communication with prospective clients.

If you are a business that has a web presence the key thing to remember is the best customer service and most incredible content means nothing if no one can find you.

If you don’t know where to start here’s three ideas to get you going.

1. Site Structure

Search engines need to ‘spider’ your site to rank it and display it in their results. The idea is to make it as easy as possible for them to work out what your site is about and find it’s way around. To help them, make sure that your navigation is not just flash animation and images, it needs readable text, well structured menus and relevant content. Link between pages and use ‘anchor text.’ (use the actual text to link not just phrases like ‘Click Here’ and ‘Read More’.) These little fixes will sometimes have a big effect on your site. Remember this is just the beginning and will need to be reviewed regularly.

2. Get Inlinks

In an ideal world getting the content right and optimising your site and it’s structure would push it up the search rankings and put you in first position for the search terms that you have optimised your site for. But, it It doesn’t work like that and there are many factors involved in raising your sites profile in search engines. We’re only touching the surface of the complicated algorithms that they use to rank your site. Google and the other big search engines like to rank sites for their popularity as well.

The most popular sites are the ones that have the most votes (inlinks). This is the most time-consuming area of SEO and it needs to be ongoing. You have to contribute to blogs, forums, and message boards relating to your website, write and submit articles, become an expert in your field and actively use social media. In essence you need to contribute something of worth to the internet. If you can do this you will generate inlinks to your site and this in turn will help you rank higher.

As an online business it’s not an option to ignore this, you need to work out if you have the time to do it, or get someone else to do it for you. Doing nothing about it is business suicide.

3. Research Your Competitors

Chances are that you know who your competiotrs are. If you don’t know, then work it out! Study their websites, think about how they are ranking higher than you for certain keywords and phrases, or indeed why they are not ranking as high as you. Check how many links they have to their site (use a backlink checker – there are some resources here www.seorankings.com.) Are they using video? Are they on Facebook? etc.

Keep up the research, or you will never know how to leapfrog your more succesfully placed competitors in the search rankings.

Take some time, give it some thought, use the ideas above to gain a little more insight and act on it.

SEO is complex and relentless, but if you decide to implement and organise your own SEO campaign make sure you do it properly, plan it carefully and stick to the plan. If you don’t have the time or the resources contact us and see how we can help.

 
To see SEO in action type ‘website design colchester’ into Google and see where we appear (no.1 just under the ads…).

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Internet scammers are becoming smarter, ever more complex ways to steal your information are commonplace and making safety and security online is paramount. Last week Facebook launched a new security guide for parents, teens and teachers – the “Guide to Facebook Security”.

The downloadable handbook written by internet security experts Linda McCarthy, Keith Watson and Denise Weldon-Siviy and covers topics such as choosing the best password to make your Facebook account secure; taking back control of a hacked account and avoiding phishing (a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication).

The team at Facebook say “If you’re not using one-time passwords, secure browsing, or even tracking your account activity, this guide shows you how. It even explains why account thieves and malware pushers want your account.”

Top Tips for Staying Secure on Facebook;

• Only Friend people you know.
• Create a good password and use it only for Facebook.
• Don’t share your password.
• Change your password on a regular basis.
• Share your personal information only with people and companies that need it.
• Log into Facebook only ONCE each session. If it looks like Facebook is asking you to log in a second time, skip the links and  directly type www.facebook.com into your browser address bar.
• Use a one-time password when using someone else’s computer. •  Log out of Facebook after using someone else’s computer. •  Use secure browsing whenever possible.  •  Only download Apps from sites you trust.
• Keep your anti-virus software updated.
• Keep your browser and other applications up to date.
• Don’t paste script (code) in your browser address bar.
• Use browser add-ons like Web of Trust and Firefox’s NoScript to keep your account from being hijacked.
• Beware of “goofy” posts from anyone—even Friends. If it looks like something your Friend wouldn’t post, don’t click  on it.
• Scammers might hack your Friends’ accounts and send links from their accounts. Beware of enticing links coming from  your Friends.

You can download your copy from the Facebook Security Page.

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A few weeks we posted a short article, Offline Website Promotion, which included a few obvious yet important tips for promoting your business offline. These included; business cards, promotional gifts and signs. But if you have a vision and mission for your business, a website and some happy customers there is always more you can do make more customers happy. Below are five very simple tips that can help you become more of a prospect for customers.

1. Include contact details on your website

As well as hopefully finding their way round your services and having a look at who you are, you want them to contact you when a potential customer comes to your site. A visitor wants to know that the people they may potentially be dealing with are humans and not just another faceless business with nothing more than a contact form. Include your email, phone and where possible your actual address. It will make you seem more approachable and professional.

Also, include are links to your social media presence, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or whatever your social network of choice, and a map with directions.

If you have a contact form, make sure it includes everything you are going to need from the visitor – their contact details and what they are contacting you about.

Ultimately you want any visitor to feel welcome and wanted. You want them to engage with your business in a way that makes it easy for you to engage with them.

2. Answer the phone

This may sound ridiculous to those of you who answer your phone every time it rings. But there are many businesses who don’t; there may be good reasons why they can’t answer the phone every time it rings. However, nobody likes to leave a message unless they absolutely have to and the chances are that a potential prospect will go cold by the time you contact them back.

If possible make sure you answer the call quickly, sound like you care and take notes. You should attempt to get their name, address, telephone number, email address, information about their business, the date of the call, how they found out about you and what services they are interested in, and log the information somewhere – preferably a good CRM system.

Remember to listen to the caller and let the conversation flow naturally, even if all you want is the answers to the above. Before the call has ended ensure that the next steps have been outlined and that the caller knows what to expect; whether it’s an email or another call.

3. Best practice email communication

Once you are communicating with a new prospect take the time to write an email that is professional and polite. Be sure to avoid vast cavernous passages of text which would put any one off reading it.

• Break it down into subheadings or shorter paragraphs.
• Make sure that you identify the main points and actions clearly.
• Stick to the subject as far as possible and don’t ramble.
• Include a call to action – what do you want the recipient to do? What will happen next?

4. Dress appropriately

First impressions do count. Make sure that you look the part when meeting customers for the first time and indeed every time you meet them after. As a rule you should always dress higher rather than lower. Dirty old jeans and comfortable t-shirts are fine for the office as long as you are not going to come into contact with anyone other than your colleagues.

The people you meet make a judgment about who you are in the first 30 seconds of meeting you. Think about your own thought process when you meet someone for the first time. Make sure you make a winning first impression. Dress appropriately. It’ll help to build your confidence as well as instilling confidence in whomever you are meeting.

5. Write professional quotes.

Take your time and write a quote that includes what you’ll do, how long it will take and what it would cost. Don’t forget to include terms and legal information as well. Bear in mind how you would wish to be quoted. What details would you want to see in a quote? If the quote is too high you probably won’t hear back, too low and you might not look like a great prospect. Think about getting the balance right.

As with the Offline Website Promotion tips these do seem obvious and for many of us, common sense. However they are a reminder to always strive to be at the top of your game.

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As most of you will be aware Google recently launched Google Plus, Google’s competitor to Facebook. As with Facebook and Twitter, you can follow people. In Facebook you have Friends, Twitter, Followers and with Google+ there are Circles. In your profile, you can see how many people a person has in their circle and how many people have added them to their circle. Some people don’t like others knowing this information, so this is how you manage it.

First, you need to go to your profile.

1. Click on Edit Profile.

2. On the left side, you will see “In ..your name.. circles”

3. Click on globe symbol to edit.

4. This brings up an options box

5. If you want to show people in all circles, then select the box (put a tick in it).

6. If you want to show people who have added you to circles, then select the box as above.

7. If you want to stop all of the circle counts from showing publicly, then un-tick both boxes.

Many of you will have no problem with letting people know who’s in your circles, others may not be so keen, either way you now have the option.

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Have you ever wondered ‘how does Google work?’ If the answer is yes, then look no further. This rather splendid infographic that Lloyd (our apprentice) found at www.ppcblog.com the other day should help.

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Recently our Business Administrator Natalie, had some issues with losing her saved tabs in her Firefox and Chrome browsers.  If you don’t know Natalie this kind of problem can often result in the stamping of feet, the muttering of swear words (nice ones) and in worst cases, shouting at Craig, who according to Natalie, is “responsible for anything to do with computers.”

Anyway, this time on the instruction of Elliot – whose ears were hurting – she embarked on some research to find a fix to her problem. Thankfully it didn’t take long to discover a solution as she quickly came across ‘Tabcloud’ – a browser tab and session manager that allows you save groups of open tabs to access later. With Tabclouds for both Firefox and Chrome, Natalie’s nightmare was over (phew!).

We just thought we’d let you know as Natalie has calmed down now and peace has been restored – so it must be good. Check it out for yourself – http://chrometabcloud.appspot.com

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