Twitter announced yesterday at the Internet Week event in New York that they’ll be introducing a brand new advertising product for media and consumer brands.

The new service titled ‘Twitter Amplify‘ will allow advertisers to promote television clips on Twitter. Imagine, sports replays from say the Champions league final accompanied with beer commercials or even a weather forecast being made visible and watchable all through your Twitter feed.

Twitter has been busy testing these media clips and their recent trial included a streamed trailer for the film ‘After Earth’ before showing a fantastic dunk block replay during the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers game.

They’ve also been busy sealing up deals with media partners, those confirmed include the likes of, BBC America, A&E, Conde Nast, Discovery, Fox, Major League Baseball and WWE.

This is a huge boost for companies looking to extend their advertising reach beyond the realms of TV and engage with fans personally through their Twitter feeds. They’re even looking into the possibilities of TV ad targeting which could take things to a whole new level.

This news comes on the back of a busy few months for Twitter as they only recently announced in April their keyword targeting for advertising. This in itself was huge news as it allows advertisers to base their messaging around specific stated interests of their fans and consumers rather than by demographic or geographic data. These targeted keyword ads are set to provide companies with a much higher level of engagement on Twitter.

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‘Twitter Amplify’ Set to Brighten Up Your Feed With Sponsored Video Clips

This week’s internet marketing podcast is based on a talk from April’s BrightonSEO. Berian Reed from Auto Trader talks about automating SEO on large websites. Auto Trader is a big data company with around 11 million users, 1 billion page views every month and 120 million searches just for cars. Not surprisingly, SEO is their biggest traffic driver. Berian gives us some useful tips, tricks and tools about how to make the life of SEO companies easier and how to automate a lot of ‘boring’ stuff in SEO.

Auto Trader

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Automating Elements of SEO – Podcast Episode #210

Penguin first hit in April 2012 and impacted 3.1% of English queries.  The update aimed to tackle the likes of link schemes, other manipulative linking, keyword stuffing and some other over-optimisation techniques.

But is this Penguin 2.0 or 4, since there have already been two updates, in May and October 2012.  Well @dannysullivan questioned this and Matt confirmed that internally they’re calling this 2.0, so it’s looking like a bigger update than the last two.

What’s Coming?

As with every Google update, nobody really knows what’s coming.  However, Matt Cutts has been a little more open than usual and in this GoogleWebmasterHelp video released on Monday, he speaks about targeting advertorials and similar tactics that violate their guidelines.  He also speaks about paid ads that are passing page rank, another sign that they’re cracking down on paid links.  And the one that jumped out at me was the hint at something everyone has been talking about… author rank.

Guest Posting

Since the first Penguin update was released the preferred method of linkbuilding has often been guest posting.  However, this needs to change, depending on what type of guest posting we’re talking about.  This tactic has in many cases, become another spammy technique.  When looking for guest posting opportunities, think about the following:

• Is this a good quality site?
• Is the site relevant?
• Is all of the content on the site from guest bloggers?
• Forget exact match anchor text!
• Do you really want all of your links to be in an author area at the bottom of the page?

This last point in particular is something which Google will look at, if not in this upcoming update, then at some point soon.  The hammering out of guest posts just for the sake of links, is exactly the type of tactic Google will soon clamp down on.

But not all guest posts are bad.  The Econsultancy blog for example has many guest posts but they are all relevant, high quality posts that are great for Econsultancy’s readers.

Simple Tips for the Future

If guest blogging has been your only tactic (and I really hope that’s not the case), you really need to look at some simple and legitimate ways to drive your campaigns forward.

• Mix it up – Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  Your campaigns should consist of various strategies, not just one or two.
• Get your onsite right! – In the past I have worked on some campaigns that were hugely successful from doing onsite optimisation only on an on-going basis.  Too many people seem to neglect their onsite optimisation so they can just focus on links.
• Build a brand – I still see a worrying amount of exact match anchor text.  Work on building a brand and include your linkbuilding in this work.
• Conversion Rate Optimisation – Remember why you’re doing what you’re doing.  You may be trying to increase rankings and traffic but the end goal is to increase conversions.  So is your site doing enough to attract relevant visitors, keep them on the site and ultimately convert them?  As with the onsite optimisation, CRO should be key to your campaign.
• Social integration – Social should be high on your list of priorities.  And I’m talking everything from social profiles to social buttons.  I still see blog after blog with no social buttons whatsoever.  And remember Google+ is only going to get bigger and become more important so don’t ignore it, especially with author rank looking like being more important than ever.
• Make use of your own blog – Make sure you have a blog on your site and use it.  Post quality, useful content and share it.
• Build relationships – Remember, you don’t have to place content on other sites to get links.  Use tools such as Linkdex to find relevant, influential people to build relationships with.  They may write content for you, link in existing, relevant content or simply give you a mention or retweet.  Great, especially if they’re highly influential in that industry.
• Guest posting – “Eh?  Didn’t you say avoid that?”  Well actually, no.  The spammy type of blog posting that’s just for links and going on sites with a flock of other spammers, yes, avoid them.  If you have great content, then approach some great sites, trade magazines, relevant publications etc.

Time to Panic?

Does the announcement of Penguin 2.0 mean it’s time to panic?  Well, that depends on what you’re doing about it.  If you’re sitting back and hoping for the best then yes, I’d probably worry.  By now, everyone should have a clear idea of what their link profile looks like, whether you’ve had a penalty/warning or not.  And if that profile is full of junk, then you should be doing something about it.  There are regular debates about whether to do a manual clean-up of these poor links or to just head straight into a disavow but whatever the choice, something should be done, and soon.

The flow chart below is an example of the steps that can be taken when sorting out a link profile that is just asking for a bite from the Penguin.

Just sitting back and hoping your poor link profile will slip through the Penguin’s net is asking for trouble.  Google’s updates in recent years have shown that being proactive is vital when it comes to search campaigns.  Website owners and SEO’s need to think about protecting their sites for the future and about the tactics they use from now on.  SEO has changed a lot in recent times and the industry must adapt to think less about about ‘links links links’ when it comes to delivering results.

What are your thought/predictions for the upcoming Penguin update?

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Killer Penguin 2 – The long awaited sequel – Coming Soon!

Now I wanted to go over how Universal Analytics actually works. Its brand new code to us all, looking and working completely differently to the previous versions. However, it is possible to de-mystify the code and gain a better understanding of how it works.

First of all let’s have a look at the new code:

The code asynchronously loads the tracking code onto the page. Then a tracker object is created for the web property that was specified with the UA number. Last, but by no means least, the view of the page on which the script was run is recorded!

In a little more detail, the code runs and creates a new global object called ga. Then the library analytics.js is loaded asynchronously onto the page.

Although the JavaScript loads the analytics.js library in an asynchronous manner, the ga function can be used before the library has actually loaded onto the page. When you first start executing methods, each one is added into a “queue”. Then, once the library is fully loaded, the methods queued are carried out.

Although Javascript is still used within this new code all of the methods have changed.

So, if we look in more detail at the second half of the code we can see the “ga” function is used to “create” a default tracker object. The “string” of the UA number is then used to set the tracking id and then the optional “object” configures the domain.

To send a pageview, you get the “ga” function to “send” a method with the “pageview” hit type. This lets the Analytics servers know what page the person is on.

Behind the scenes the “title” and “page” values are set. These can also be overwritten should need be.

That’s the slightly techie side of how the code works, but there’s one other thing that I want to cover in this post. COOKIES! Or should I say cookie, the new Universal code only sets down one cookie.

The new cookie, named “_ga” is mainly to identify the user – the main reason for the new code. This is done through assigning a random number to the user and storing that number in the cookie. The number is then provided in each call to the analytics servers and is used to calculate visit, visitor and campaign metrics. The new cookie lasts for 2 years, although this will once again get pushed back by 2 years each time the user visits the site.

This first party cookie really is the cornerstone to the new code, allowing us to track the user rather than merely the visit.

So that’s it for this tech heavy blog post, I hope that you all now have a better understanding of how the new Universal Analytics code works.

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How Does Universal Analytics Work?

Our very own Digital Insights Manager Matthew Hendry took to the stage this year with his innovative approach to presenting – where he interacted with a video of himself live in front of the BrightonSEO crowd! Matt discussed the various models and stages of innovation and why it’s so important for your business. We chatted to him about what he thought of BrightonSEO this year, whether businesses should encourage innovation and whose responsibility is it within a business to drive innovative practices.

Matthew Hendry Final from Fresh Business Thinking on Vimeo.

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How to Turn Your Ideas into Innovation – Matthew Hendry – BrightonSEO Interviews

Long live content! This particular aspect of digital marketing has become such an important asset in helping your brand improve its awareness and positioning online. Sharon Flaherty (Head of Content at Confused.com) explained to us the fine art of creating content as well as letting us know her favourite and most successful types of content.

Sharon Flaherty Final from Fresh Business Thinking on Vimeo.

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Engaging Content – Sharon Flaherty – BrightonSEO Interviews

What a fantastic event – this year’s BrightonSEO was bigger and better than ever. We’d like to thank everyone who attended especially all the speakers for all their brilliant presentations and knowledge sharing. I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview several key speakers, which can all be viewed on our blog as I discussed what they thought of BrightonSEO as well as their thoughts on a variety of aspects within digital marketing including – search, social signals, content, analytics and even journalism. I’d also like to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part in these video interviews.

Brighton SEO from Fresh Business Thinking on Vimeo.

Simon Burslem Final from Fresh Business Thinking on Vimeo.

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A Day at BrightonSEO – Simon Burslem – BrightonSEO Interviews

After Dave Coplin’s (Chief Envisioning Manager at Microsoft) brilliant presentation on the way search is evolving into something much more human, we decided to get his opinions on the future of search and social signals as well as the biggest opportunities that clients can take advantage of moving forward.

Dave Coplin Final from Fresh Business Thinking on Vimeo.

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Future Forward – Dave Coplin – BrightonSEO Interviews

BrightonSEO is great for attracting a wealth of speakers from different industries and we were delighted to have Geoff White (Technology Director at Channel 4 News) on board. He delivered a fantastic talk where he gave away his top tips on how to pitch stories to journalists. We caught up with Geoff and got his insights into how to attract a journalists attention, as well as discussing the combination of SEO and journalism.

Geoff White Final from Fresh Business Thinking on Vimeo.

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How to Pitch to Journalists – Geoff White – BrightonSEO Interviews

At BrightonSEO we caught up with Fresh Egg’s head of insights (Dara Fitzgerald) after he delivered his fantastic presentation about the future of analytics. We discussed what we thought of the event, the recent improvements of GA, Google’s latest platform Universal Analytics as well as integrating other tools with GA.

Dara Fitzgerald from Fresh Business Thinking on Vimeo.

Take a look at his presentation slides:

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The Next Generation of Analytics – Dara Fitzgerald – BrightonSEO Interviews

What a way to open up this years BrightonSEO conference with the ex-Google search quality team members; Fili Wiese, Jonas Weber and Alfredo Pulvirenti. The panel discussion put the ex-Googlers in the hot seat as the crowd asked them to reveal all. We caught up with them to discuss the biggest SEO myth they’ve ever heard, whether SEO’s really do worry too much about Google updates and we also asked them what are the biggest opportunities out there right now to help build brand awareness.

Fili, Alfredo, Jonas Final from Fresh Business Thinking on Vimeo.

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Ask The Ex-Googlers Anything – Fili Wiese, Jonas Weber, Alfredo Pulvirenti – BrightonSEO Interviews

Google has recently released the latest version of its Analytics code, called Universal Analytics. It is currently in open Beta and it completely redefines the way in which we can track users. It also opens up a whole world of possibilities within analysing the data that it provides.

The Google Analytics code, that has become the staple of tracking online, is based on tracking visits to a website. Admittedly, it’s a little more advanced than this and has come a long way from the original Urchin code. However, this new code allows us to significantly improve the data we can collect and has the potential to redefine what we currently see as “tracking online”. This is purely because we can collect so much more information, allowing our insights to move from merely online to providing meaningful data to those throughout the business including, but not limited to, how products are used, the support that’s needed, and great gains in customer retention.

Sounds great, right? But what does all of this actually mean and how’s it going to influence you?

• Well to start with, we can now collect data from any device – this includes the mobile traffic currently coming in (smartphones and tablets) but Universal Analytics can also take account of games consoles and now digital appliances!
• You can track both on and offline data – we are now able to track all customer contact points. Want to know if customers that use the web are also popping along to your brick and mortar shop? We can track that!
• Track what Analytics can’t – if there’s anything that Analytics doesn’t already track then we can set some custom dimensions and metrics, getting you that information!
• Track mobile apps – we are now able to see application specific user data and integrate this with all of the other data being collected. Insights are changing!

It is an exciting time within tracking and Analytics. More features are likely to be released by Google, and innovative uses of the tools by SEO companies are sure to follow. Google really seems to have “future-proofed” this code and now we just have to get out there and explore the options it presents!

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What is Universal Analytics?

The impact of this change has started off small with the original release of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) version of search.  As the updates have come in one by one, the snowball that is “(Not Provided)” continues to gain in both size and momentum as it travels down the digital mountainside.

Webmasters are reporting an average of one third of all organic traffic being returned (Not provided), which increases the difficulty in drawing accurate insights from any Analytics data as they can’t always tell what keywords their viewers are coming from.

Apple’s iOS6 Update

While the forums were ablaze with talk about Apple Maps, a bigger issue for webmasters came into effect: Google searches through the Safari search box are going through “Secure search”. To make matters worse rather than being dealt with as “(Not provided)” traffic, all iOS6 traffic is being misread as ‘direct’ traffic.

We would expect the blue line (iOS6 direct traffic) to remain relatively stable with the orange line (iOS5 direct traffic) – however you can see the extent of the misread traffic being listed as direct instead of organic search visits, in some instances losing several hundred searches as direct.

So what can we do?

The digital landscape is in a perpetual state of flux, ever shifting to accommodate the wants and needs of the industry. Successful marketers must be flexible and stay ahead of the game to avoid becoming yesterday’s news.

Brand vs Non-Brand

With the rise of “(Not provided)” obscuring brand vs non-brand reporting and the loss of ‘organic’ traffic due to the iOS6 changes what can be done about this?

First and foremost a shift that should be made is to move away from the distinction between brand and non-brand. A good digital marketing agency is also pushing your online reputation helping to secure branded searches as well.

Reclaiming some data

While this approach is limited in not knowing the exact keyword or any insights into longtail searches, by using secondary dimensions of ‘landing page’ you can make reasonable judgements as to the keyword, if not the keyword set that the search was related to. If a searcher comes through ‘(Not provided)’ and lands on a page about loans, it isn’t an unreasonable leap to assume the search was loan related.

This approach has its obvious drawbacks as it’s a bit more finger to the wind, but setting KPIs to landing pages will help justify these steps.

What key performance indicator to use will naturally vary depending on the client and the client’s goals but one thing is certain, keyword ranking KPIs need to go the way of the dodo.

By focusing on the wrong KPIs you can miss out on the bigger picture wins, which will hurt the only KPI that truly matters: profitability.

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Keyword Ranking KPIs Should Go The Way of the Dodo

RocketSeed

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Email Marketing Through Your Signature – Podcast Episode #209

Content marketing was once again a hot topic of debate at BrightonSEO this year – Sharon Flaherty’s (confused.com) presentation about engaging content was one of the highlights as well as the content marketing roundtable session which took place the day before the conference.

The discussion was for members of digital marketing teams to debate what content marketing is all about. Types of engaging content, budgets, evaluation methods, idea generation were just some of the topics covered. Here’s a list of the key takeaways of what was revealed at the roundtable session.

1. SEO isn’t about links anymore, by building great content brand awareness and traffic should fall into place. 
2. By generating regular quality content you’ll be able to build links naturally.
3. Links are not the be all and end all of digital marketing campaigns – PR has a huge role to play in promoting your business and building awareness.
4. When creating content avoid repetition, try something new and always look for fresh interesting angles.
5. Education is needed within marketing departments to understand that content marketing isn’t just blog posts.
6. Building content campaigns around calendar dates can improve brand awareness around topical events.
7. Be reactive – by issuing rapid response content you’ll be able to build on current events boosting your businesses profile.
8. Remember to always think about the user journey when creating content and try to convert users into leads.
9. Be flexible with your planning for the year to adapt to news stories and trends.
10. The best method when conducting outreach is to be awesome and unique – impress your contacts!

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The State of Content Marketing – #BrightonSEO Roundtable Takeaways

The stage is set for another great BrightonSEO event

BrightonSEO welcomes its 2,500 digital marketing spectators

Ex-googlers panel discussion kicks us off

BrightonSEO is all fun and games – isn’t it Maffo?

Geoff White from Channel 4 news tells us how to pitch to journalists

Dixon Jones from Majestic SEO shows us how to predict the future with dig data

Richard Falconer from LBi discusses the technical side of SEO

time for a bit more fun at BrightonSEO

The BrightonSEO after party begins with a bucking-bronco competition!

We also loved all your panda and penguin jokes that you sent on Twitter – the winner of our competition has got 2 tickets for London zoo arriving in the post very soon!

The Winner of Our #BrightonSEO Panda and Penguin Joke Competition is… bit.ly/13hpvgt

— SiteVisibility (@SiteVisibility) April 16, 2013

What a brilliant BrightonSEO! Don’t forget to join us soon for the content marketing show in May.

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#BrightonSEO in images

We had a fantastic time at #brightonseo, it was great to see so many faces there – old and new. The event was the biggest and best yet with around 2,500 attendees, a whole host of amazing speakers spread across the whole of Brighton dome.

As you all know before the event we let everyone know that we’d be running a competition to win tickets to London zoo. We got you all to send in your best panda and penguins jokes throughout the day and we have to say there were some good ones as well as the odd one that would make even those adorable animals cringe.

Here’s a  list of some of our favourites:

During my quest to find an amazing penguin joke I came across this gem of a website..alternativepenguinjokes.tumblr.com#BrightonSEO @sitevisibility

— Rebecca Hesilrige (@BeckyHesilrige) April 12, 2013

@sitevisibility why does a panda wear a fur coat? Because it would look silly in a denim jacket #brightonseo

— Hannah Rainford (@hajane) April 12, 2013

@sitevisibility whats black and white, black and white, black and white? A panda rolling down the hill!

— Bishop’s Move(@BishopsMove_) April 12, 2013

@sitevisibility #brightonseo how do penguins drink their cola? On the rocks

— Emma (@drurington) April 12, 2013

@sitevisibility What’s Black & White with a high Bounce Rate? Kelvin Newman reading a newspaper in Zero G. #brightonSEO

— Chris Marsh (@chrismarsh_uk) April 12, 2013

@sitevisibility Panda Ching-Chong went to Hong Kong, played ping-pong & did a sing-song, what noise did his doorbell make? Buzz #brightonseo

— Waimun Lam (@wlfunky) April 13, 2013

@sitevisibility what’s black and white and has 8 wheels? A rollerskating penguin #brightonseo

— Laura Parsons (@La_parsons) April 12, 2013

But the top one of the day and winner of our #BrightonSEO best panda and penguin joke was…

@sitevisibility Why have all Penguins been left out of the Antarctic world cup team? Because they cause too many penalties! #BrightonSEO

— Chris Simmance (@koozai_chris) April 12, 2013

Congratulations Chris! Your 2 tickets to London zoo will be on their way in the post to you very soon!

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The Winner of Our #BrightonSEO Panda and Penguin Joke Competition is…

Kelvin and Ryan discuss how content generally starts helping people define their problems, gives them a vocabulary to talk about it, and gives them solutions related to different products. Also during the interview Ryan gives us some insights about the different views of what content marketing actually is, how it’s changed over time and what the difference between B2B and B2C content marketing are. He also tells us what he thinks about SlideShare and talks about Marketing Automation.

Velocity Partners

SlideShare  

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Content Marketing – Podcast Episode #208

As SEO’s all know, Google are constantly updating their algorithm with the names of their 2 favourite animals (pandas and penguins)! For some, these updates can cause worry and fear, but you know what they say… laughter is the best medicine.

That’s why in light of the latest panda update we thought we’d give all you wonderful SEO’s a chance to laugh in the face of these furry foe by getting you to share your best panda and penguin jokes over Twitter. (If you can even make them SEO related, well then you’re truly a comedy genius!)

To enter, all you have to do is:

1) Follow @sitevisibility on Twitter

2) Compose your penguin/panda joke

3) Hash tag #BrightonSEO as well as mention @sitevisibility in the tweet and you’ll be entered for a chance to win!

4) Don’t forget to tell your friends to enter!

Tweets can be sent in all throughout the day (April 12th) – this is on the way to, during and also after the conference. You are free to send in as many entries as you wish, so don’t be shy and get involved at this years BrightonSEO! The top entry will be selected on Tuesday 16th April and the winner will be contacted via Twitter and will receive 2 tickets to London Zoo.

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Share Your Best Panda & Penguin Jokes at #BrightonSEO to Win Tickets to London Zoo

SES London

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SES London 2013 – Podcast Episode #207

BrightonSEO is back! we’re just a few days away from the event and we can’t wait to see you all there. This year’s conference is bigger than ever with over 2,500 attendees planning on entering through those Brighton dome doors!

If you’re not excited yet then you should be! We’ve got a fantastic list of speakers presenting talks ranging from pitching to journalists to turning your ideas into innovation. The big day is April 12th, but just in case you didn’t know Thursday 11th April is another fun packed day. We’ve got a great big selection of workshops covering topics such as local and mobile SEO, there’s even a highly important penalty recovery one too. After that, there’s a variety of roundtable events where you get to discuss what really matters to you as well as getting to know some other key industry figures.

What’s more we’ve fully taken over the Brighton dome with the conference taking place in the concert hall, the corn exchange as well as the dome studio theatre – fantastic! Go ahead and check the agenda with the full list of talks and times throughout the day. Oh and BrightonSEO wouldn’t be BrightonSEO without an after party would it?

With so much going on I thought i’d share a list of talks that you simply can’t miss!

1) Ask the Ex-Googlers Anything – kicking off the show with a bang, Fili Wiese, Jonas Webber and Alfredo Pulvirenti all previously part of Google’s search quality team take on your questions in a panel discussion. Got a question about search? Don’t be shy and ask away!

2) How to Pitch to Journalists – Geoff White from channel 4 news tells us how to grab a journalists attention and how to understand how they think. This talk will help you understand what stories journalists are after aiding you to get better future coverage for your business.

3) Future Forward – Dave Coplin from Microsoft talks us through the evolution and power of search. Dave will explore the challenges and opportunities facing businesses as we move forward into a more personalised and human approach to search.

4) Engaging Content – Content is big business and a key element to your success online, Sharon Flaherty from confused.com will share her insights into what makes a great content strategy, running through examples of her work to show you how to get your content just right.

5) How to Turn Your Ideas Into Innovation – Our very own digital insights manager, Matthew Hendry will be showing you why innovation is so important within digital marketing as well as analysing the current methodologies of innovation. He’ll give you ideas as to how to improve your digital marketing capabilities.

We can’t wait to see you all at BrightonSEO! Be sure to pop over to our stand to say hi and don’t forget to join us for an evening of entertainment!

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#BrightonSEO – What Not to Miss at This Year’s Show

At this point, it’s fair to assume that everyone has heard about the importance of content marketing lately, and it’s clear that for a digital marketing campaign to be successful, creating interesting and useful unique content has to be a major consideration. We’ve written a few posts about it over the past few months, and we even run a conference dedicated to making the most out of it. So, what do we do to create brilliant content for our clients? Some of our favourite kinds of content are below.

Infographics

There’s been a massive increase in the amount of companies sharing content and information by creating beautiful infographics to promote socially and for other sites and blogs to link to. More than just a simple image with some statistics, infographics can convey a brand’s personality and tone, reaching an audience they might not normally have access to. They give your brand the opportunity to catch the attention of visitors on the site where they’re hosted, which you might not have been able to achieve if you only focused on text based content.

With the growth of mobile internet, smart phones and tablets, people are used to seeing beautiful and eye-catching content wherever they are. Along the same lines, people want useful information that’s presented in an easy to digest, visual, and memorable way. If you’re thinking of producing an infographic, it’s a good idea to create one about a topic that’s related to your brand, if not necessarily directly what you do or sell. For example, you might want to think about creating an infographic of popular honeymoon destinations if you specialise in selling wedding rings.

Printable Resources

Creating something that is useful and will be helpful to your customers or your prospects is a great idea. You’ll be able to remind them of your business and what you can provide them unobtrusively, and your brand will stick in their mind when they are ready to make a purchase. A useful guide, or list will also extend your reach to groups of people who might not normally take advantage of the services you provide or the products you sell.

If you’re a business working in the travel sector, why not create a checklist for a young family travelling together for the first time so that nothing important gets forgotten? You can also create a guide for how to keep children entertained if you are in the travel sector which will help parents to relax whilst travelling.

Surveys

Coming up with unique ideas for creative, interesting and timely content can be a challenge, especially when you have to maintain a voice in your industry. By asking your site visitors and customers for their opinion through a survey, you’ll be able to gain lots of data that will form the basis for a variety of content forms. You can create blog posts and articles based on the insights your respondents provide, and you’ll be able to write press releases if you’ve chosen a topical set of questions. You’ll also be able to use the data as the basis for podcast episodes and infographics, so surveys are definitely a brilliant use of your time.

So tell us; which types of content do you think are most successful?

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Which Types of Content Do You Think Are Most Successful?

Kelvin and Natasha talk about the recruitment process and some of the things that work well in recruitment, they also provide some helpful tips that employers, recruiters or indeed candidates can do to find the right person at the right time.

Clockwork Talent

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Recruitment – Podcast Episode #206

Google has been personalising everyone’s searches more and more – with that it’s necessary for us SEO’s to understand the effects of this and why certain search results appear when the conventional rules of SEO don’t apply.

Location

This is a very important issue to consider especially if you’re servicing a local area with your products. Depending on the location of where you’re searching you’ll be receiving different tailored results. For instance, shops which have different locations will feature differently depending on where you’re searching from.

Your location history is also taken into account, this includes smart phone, desktop and laptop searches regardless of the fact if you’ve turned off the location sharing option. Google will look at your previous activity that corresponds to your previous locations and tie that in with its suggestions and ranking results.

Search History

This is also another important bias which personalisation is using to affect search. Your previous search results will be taken into account when performing brand new searches, how so? Well, I decided to do a little test, searching for general car related terms for the first time. Following that, I simply searched for ‘Fiesta’ – here’s Google already putting the pieces together as to what I could possibly mean by this, associating the term with term ‘car’ affecting my search results:

Then, after completing further searches with the term ‘Ford Fiesta’ and filling my brain with information about the product here’s how when I then search for just ‘Ford’ the general manufacturer, Google (thanks to auto-suggest) wants me to head straight away to the ‘Ford Fiesta’ page rather than their other 8 vehicle ranges:

Even search terms which seem completely unrelated can modify the search results and auto-suggestions. When you experiment a little you’ll see the pattern matching that Google is performing and it really is very powerful. Take this as an example, I did some searches related to beer and then a few more related to Indian beers. Now… if I then start searching for say the term ‘Cobra’ I could now actually be thinking of the snake rather than anything else, but Google puts 2 and 2 together and relates my search query to the beer product:

Social Connections

All of your social connections and email contacts can get taken into consideration by Google as they connect all the dots of your personal profile. Connections and social interactions that you perform will have an influence on the content you’re seeing when you search. If you’re sharing content with a friend or commenting on a particular piece of content then Google will store this information and associate you with particular individuals and industries related to your viewed content to affect your search results.

Augmented Personalisation Effects

Search results and rankings can be subject to changes based on the patterns of lots of people. Depending on search trends, Google will consider ranking terms which have recently seen a huge growth in searches despite them perhaps only previously receiving low amounts. An example would be say an SEO conference which runs in different locations but in one particular location (let’s say New York) now receives a much higher amount of interest/ attention. This higher volume of search will cause Google to feature it more prominently within search results.

Global social shares will be affecting the ranking results too. The quality, quantity and trustworthiness of these shares are all factors which are considered regardless of any traditional SEO factors like links built, anchor text etc. which can force re-ranking of terms.

Auto-suggest will take into account your previous searches to suggest topics which you might find interesting. This can be a help for businesses. Local bias gets taken into account so if you were to search for ‘SEO ebook’  in Brighton you’re more likely to be suggested our ebook (ABC’s of SEO) rather than if you were to search for it in say New York. This is due the amount of local searches for the that term which if they occur in a particular region at any point in time can contribute to changes in results and auto-suggest.

Finally, when users associate  brand and incorporate it with a particular term such as ‘SiteVisibility’ and ‘SEO’, auto-suggest and search results have started to be affected by this, as they begin to show your brand for terms which search users are associating you with. We’ve seen this change occuring within anchor text links more and more.

How Should I Adapt to This?

The important thing to take away here is firstly to make sure you’re aware of these effects on people’s searches. Your SEO campaigns need to consider and take into account that not everyone’s searches are the same now. The next thing is to think of how to capitalise on these issues. For example, by building more brand related content and getting your name out there you’ll be able to grow searches to your site to get around searches with several meanings. Build a strong social fan base and make sure your fans are regularly sharing your content, especially using Google+ will help you to capitalise on the Social influence that it’s having on search.

If you’ve noticed other factors affecting personalisation of search results then do share your comments and opinions below.

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