The Adido Digital Blog

Drive Car Buyers to your Dealership

2011-06-27T09:10:00.005+01:00

New and used car dealerships should be turning the concerns about buying a car online into ways to drive footfall to their showroom from their dealership website.

A survey by consumer magazine Which? found there are still many concerns amongst consumers when using the internet to buy a new or used car : not being able to check a car over and resolving problems after delivery are the biggest worries. Internet security and misleading pictures or descriptions are also a cause of anxiety.

Agreement with statements about concerns of buying a car online
Statement	Disagree strongly/slightly	Agree slightly	Agree strongly
Not being able to check over a car in person would be of concern	4%	19%	71%
Would be concerned that I could not physically see car before purchasing	5%	17%	72%
If car delivered with a problem it would be difficult to sort out	6%	33%	50%
The security of financial transactions would be of concern to me	15%	29%	39%
The pictures and description of the car online would not be accurate	15%	37%	23%

Digital marketing company Adido produces websites for car dealerships and has advised clients on the best way to not only present their stock online, but also how to engage with users of their website and encourage them to take the next step by visiting the showroom, booking a test drive or request more information.

Adido’s Sales Director, Gary Seneviratne commented on these findings, “We understand the online market and that for major purchases the consumer is still very wary of completing a transaction on the internet. This is why we work with our clients to use their website to build trust and engage with their customers and make their website visit the first part of an enjoyable purchasing experience and a channel through which the dealership can maintain communication with customers and encourage repeat business.”

5 Ideas to Get You Using Location Based Marketing

2011-06-17T11:47:00.009+01:00

Location based marketing allows a brand to tailor their marketing messages dependant on where a consumer is located when they see any of these marketing messages. Throughout 2011 there has been a lot of talk in the industry about location based marketing and the importance of it. There are lots of opportunities where you can use location based marketing but here are five ideas to get you started!

1. Google Places

Set up your Google Places listing! This should be one of the first things you do when you start marketing your business online as it allows you to be pulled through in universal search results and appear on the Google map. A high volume of users search for local businesses and will click on the map listing before exploring web page results which are returned beneath the map results. With Google Places you can add useful information about your business and any reviews will be pulled through – great when you offer a product or service to your customers or if you have a high volume of positive reviews.

2. Local Directories

Directories will always help you market your business online and improve the SEO value of your site – providing the directories you use are good. Local directories are both user friendly and good for SEO improving the visibility of your website for local searches. Over 20% of search queries relate to something local so this is a must!

3. Facebook Deals

If you have a website then you’re more than likely (if necessary) to have a Facebook page. Whilst setting up a Facebook page is straight forward, maintaining interaction on that page can be tricky. Get involved with Facebook Deals. Facebook Deals has only been around for six months or so but can really help boost customers to your business. The process is much like Foursquare and as more UK users have a Facebook profile over a Foursquare profile, Facebook Deals is more relevant for any UK business. Run offers and promotions to encourage customers to ‘check in’ to your business e.g. check in to Sally’s coffee house and get a free cake with your coffee!

4. Mobile Voucher Apps

Everyone either owns or knows someone who has an iPhone or blackberry, both on which you can download some great voucher apps. Using the GPS which is already installed in the mobile phone these apps scan for vouchers and deals near the mobile phone owner’s location. This is great for encouraging new customers to visit your business!

5. Local Blog

You may write a regular blog about your industry featuring any industry news or announcements which is always useful to have on a website for both the user and SEO. However, having a blog that is dedicated to local content can bring in some great potential customers. This information is both relevant and informative to local users, and you are also widening your reach to include local users who may be interested in your business by not featuring purely industry relevant news. A blog that talks about the local area, your staff and any events you go to adds a personal touch to your business and could give you that edge you need!

These are just some ideas to kick-start you thinking about location based marketing. There are many more location based marketing techniques and ideas that you can use with more being developed each day. The importance of location based marketing can’t be underestimated!

If you're looking to develop location based marketing or general online marketing for your business then contact the digital marketing agency Adido on 0845 260 2343.

New Google SERPs?

2011-06-13T12:22:00.001+01:00

As has been reported by the legendary Mr Beld recently, Google has been trying out many new versions of their results page.

Someone in our office this morning was using Chrome and picked up this new layout for URLs and text. Note the large amounts of white space. We don't like it at all. Do you think it is an improvement?

Top ten tips for writing good online copy

2011-06-08T12:15:00.001+01:00

When writing online copy, it is very important to cater for an online audience who will read your copy very differently to its offline equivalent. At Adido, we write a lot of content for our clients to go on their sites, to be seeded out as PR or to go out as news stories.

This is why we thought we’d share our top ten pointers for writing online copy and stop you from making some very common mistakes!

Always refer to these ten points when writing:

•Avoid the “wall of text”. Break up your copy. 75% of online readers scan rather than read online copy. This why it need to be broken up into headings and subheadings.

•Never ever put light text on a dark background. This is only ever recommended if you actually want to give your reader a blinding headache.

•Summarise your copy in the headings, sub-headings, bolded text and links.

•Make your copy 40% shorter for online mediums – the human eye is not designed to read from a flat bright screen.

•Always summarise vital information in headings, sub-headings, bolded text and links. Never have anything important in the body copy that isn’t signposted this way.

•Consider font and text size. Readers scanning your copy will find Arial or Calibri easier to scan than Times New Roman. This is because Arial and Calibri have rounded edges, easier to read quickly. Your ideal text size is 11 pt.

•Headings should always be understood out of context, imagine a space alien has found your page and is scan reading it (it could happen!). Do your headings tell that alien exactly what your copy is about and what it covers? If not...rework them.

•Rework your sentences. Sentences should only have one comma, hyphen or set of brackets. They should only deal with one issue/subject and be no more than 15-20 words.

•Love your bullet pointed lists. These are easier to read than paragraphs. Always start each point in your list with a quick sentence describing what the point in question is referring to.

•Consider your vocabulary. 40% of people in the UK have a grade D or below in GCSE English so simplify as much as possible if your copy is aimed at the general public. Consider this even if you are writing for a B2B site as you could still have customers who have no knowledge of your industry.

However when writing for very niche markets where lots of jargon is required, feel free to use it! Be aware though that if you are writing for a niche market that you know little about, your audience and the client will see straight through you. Basically, if you can’t walk the walk, definitely don’t talk the talk!

We hope these tips have been useful. For more information on the amazing SEO and PPC work we do for our clients, please visit us at http://www.adido-solutions.com

Click to buy your new car?

2011-05-16T13:52:00.000+01:00

Despite the recent news of Tesco launching its online car sales operation, previous surveys have indicated that the consumer is a long way off solely using the internet to purchase, what is for many the second largest purchase in their life, a new car.

Research by Manheim Auctions has revealed. Despite spending an average of 18 hours online researching a car before they make a purchase, taking the plunge and buying online is still a step too far. Two thirds of motorists admitted they wouldn’t have the confidence to buy online, whilst 25% said that although they’d be happy to find a car and agree a price online, they wouldn’t part with any cash until they’d seen it.

Finding information about a new car appears to be the overwhelming reason car buyers use the internet. With consumers visiting a car website on many occasions to view images, check specifications and prices before actually visiting the dealership to make the purchase. In an exclusive survey, consumer magazine Which? found that 69% of people used the internet when buying their last car – around half to read car reviews, check specs and compare prices.

Today a car dealership website makes a fantastic shop window and a chance to engage with browsing customers like never before. A new consumer survey into car buying habits carried out on autotrader.co.uk has revealed that more than two thirds (70%) of shoppers now use both the internet and mobile site before deciding what vehicle to purchase.

Recent Changes In The World of Facebook

2011-04-12T10:19:00.003+01:00

What Facebook offers businesses has absolutely skyrocketed in the last month or two. It started with them giving more useful and in-depth stats in their insights area, and has ended with the death of FBML.

Facebook seem to be taking their relationship with businesses very seriously indeed now, and Facebook business pages are getting more sophisticated as a result. Social plugins are used more widely and the Facebook Open Graph is continuing its quest for online domination at a steady pace. Even to the extent that Google has released its own version of the like button, the Plus One.

We were all just getting the hang of using our business pages as a person when Facebook dropped possibly their most impactful change yet. This of course is the end of FBML and the introduction of iframes as the new way to create bespoke tabs. This means that brands can now use CSS, Javascript and standardised HTML to create even more impressive, rich and engaging pages. Facebook pages are becoming more like websites and through the Open Graph, websites are getting more Facebook functionality and becoming more like Facebook pages. As we keep telling our clients; Facebook is DEFINITELY not going away!

In a move that would really put the cat among the pigeons with Google and the other search engines, there is also talk of Facebook testing a web search box at the top of the site. However as soon as the rumours started circulating Facebook vehemently denied any such testing taking place and suggested that the appearance of this mythical web search box could be the work of malware.

Another possibly controversial development is real time ad targeting.If an advertiser was using real time ad targeting and I posted on my Facebook status “wow I’m tired I could really do with a pick-me up” I could be shown an ad by Red Bull or Starbucks. Real time ad targeting should be pretty interesting if it launches as Sponsored Stories received quite a lot of backlash from the general public due to the invasion of privacy and the use of their status updates to sell products.

Facebook Questions is kind of being tested / has half launched and I’ve already seen it used by a few brands to increase engagement on their pages. It’s pretty effective so I imagine it is here to stay. It can be used by most brands to post questions to their fans and encourage them to share their responses and pose the questions to their friend also.

After the launch and slight fizzling out of Facebook Places, Facebook may soon be enabling people to check in to events. This could prove quite interesting for events and festivals as Facebook do not really give them a bespoke offering at the moment. We’ll wait and see.

At Adido HQ we’ve been getting really excited about F-Commerce. Although this isn’t that new it’s now becoming more accessible for e-commerce brands to get involved with. We’ve sourced some really simple and effective apps for creating an e-commerce site within a Facebook business page and hopefully will start rolling out to our ecommerce and social clients pretty soon.

Adido's digital predictions for 2011

2011-02-03T10:59:00.003Z

Following on from our post before New Year where we reflected on our digital predictions for 2010 in 2009, we've made some digital predictions for 2011 based on what we learnt in 2010. Still with me? The below are predictions made by the whole company which I've filtered down with my own thoughts for your reading delights.

Our list focuses on digital marketing specifically (as this is what is important to increase the value of your company right?) along with a few other technical things which will impact the digital world overall.

1. Google Places become even more important (Local Search)

This will probably be the most important factor for owners of regional business websites in 2011. Google made many changes last year but the ones which probably had the most impact to search marketers were the changes around Google Places. With Google local listings now taking over the whole of the Google results page, the need to be listed high on the local listings has only grown.

There are already numerous sites who have researched the factors that make sites rank well on the local listings, the most notable being David Mihm, but this will be the year that we see more companies start to actually do something to get better local rankings. More companies will ask their web agencies how to get more citations and will also start to get their clients to give testimonials on the local listings.

Expect to lots of work in this area and potentially, and perhaps unsurprisingly, more spam as well.

2. Social meet traditional search
An important announcement was made last year between Facebook and Bing which will mean that Bing will start to show Facebook likes for a whole raft of products and services. Friends with the person you are searching for? Like the new Tron film? Guess what, when your friend searches for it on Bing, they will see your Facebook like in their search results.

For those that use Bing, this will start to make the search / decision engine more social and hopefully give you a better experience. We've yet to see this in full operation in the UK but will be interested to see how this affects user behaviour in the coming year.

3. The rise and rise of Facebook

(image via http://www.39design.co.uk/)

Ask anyone in the online marketing world about Facebook’s growth in 2010 and most of them will say it was big to say the least. Last year Facebook topped the 500m user mark but perhaps more importantly has a huge active user base with over 200m logging in everyday to check their account and update their status. It is these active users, who have made Facebook the most visited site in the US (in front of Google), worth around $50 billion.

Recently Mark Zuckerberg said his vision for Facebook was to get over 1 billion users registered worldwide and for it to be the biggest website in the world. We expect Facebook to grow even more in 2011 and perhaps more importantly roll out more features to keep users logged on for even longer to ensure that all of our activities can be tracked so that more (relevant) advertising can be shown to us.

4. Cloud computing
In the last few years there has been much hype around cloud computing and the ability to access files from anywhere in the world. It has been a long time coming but we are expecting there to be a lot of cloud computing tie ups in the coming year. Although Microsoft Office has features to allow users to link their files to the cloud, it is underutilised although Office365 might change this. Google docs has a hardcore of users but hasn't tipped to become a standard text / file editor for the majority of people yet and Facebook users have been sharing data online and between themselves for a while but not in a traditional sense.

We expect there to be a lot of cloud tie ups in the coming 12 months with some of the bigger platforms and networks starting to push and offer cloud based services. Expect to see more features from Facebook and LinkedIn as they look to find new ways to keep users tied into their platforms.

5. Convergence of screens

(image via http://www.gizmodo.com.au/)

Towards the end of 2010, Google released its own TV box called Google TV. Despite some teething problems, most reviews of it were fairly positive. This coupled with the launch of the iPad and many other tablet devices last year and this year will see many different ways for users to access the internet.

What we will expect to see is user’s expectation rising so that they get the same, or very similar experiences, across all screens. Currently a lot of the larger websites will offer navigation and content in multiple ways depending on the device used. Technology and UI's have improved greatly in the last couple of years which allows designers to be more creative and offer more consistent interfaces and experiences for users. For users of multiple devices they will want to get online and fulfil their tasks quickly and simply and to their previous experiences. To have different experiences with the same brand will become an annoyance and something which users will expect to improve.

6. Improved targeting for advertisers and users
It's our guess that an average web user will have probably been online for over 10 years now. In the early days of the 'push' era of the web, there was little tracking or targeting carried out online. However, towards the end of the noughties, the web became a more collaborative place with users being able to contribute to their favourite sites and help shape them in the ways that they wanted (thank god no one says 'web 2.0' anymore...)

The amount of data that we leave online each year increases year on year and our online footprints get bigger and bigger due to more use of services like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare etc. Due to the growing size of our digital footprints, advertising services and advertisers are able to make use of the billions and billions of pieces of data about us and our behaviour to improve the targeting and returns that are achieved from marketing budgets.

We are expecting more businesses to start to use targeting more and to diversify their online marketing mix to get better returns in these still tough times.

7. The rise and rise of vouchers

When the markets hit their low in 2008, people hit the web in search of a bargain more than ever. A lot of companies had been offering vouchers online for some time but with budgets being squeezed from all areas, searchers cottoned onto the use of vouchers as a way of reducing their costs.

With more people feeling the pinch (rather than it actually making a massive difference) thanks to the recent increase in VAT which isn't going to come down anytime soon, we expect to see more people searching for and using vouchers in the coming 12 months. Groupon, one of the largest discount buying sites in the world was subject to a whopping $6b bid from Google in 2010 and shows how serious large businesses are taking social buying and discount sites, especially with a local focus.

With more people having smart phones and more and more apps being downloaded, we are expecting to see more voucher and discount services being offered and used.

8. Bing will continue to grow steadily
There have been quite a few blogs voicing their concerns about the quality and layout of the Google results pages in the last few months. Google underwent many changes last year to change its layout and to make it ~~more money~~ a better experience for its users. Meanwhile Bing has remained fairly unchanged in comparison, focusing more on specific verticals and offering more interaction on more popular brands or high traffic phrases.

Are users going to jump ship from Google to start using Bing in their millions? No. But we are expecting Bing to eat into Google’s market share in the coming 12 months. Its deal to power Facebook will give it greater exposure to a new audience and will at least mean that many more million people will have actually used Bing.

We expect this to hold some sway with the more social searchers and will help to tip it into a combined market share of 10% in the UK.

9. The year of Video?
Every year people say that it is the year of the something or other. Mobile is the one which usually comes up but video has been mentioned several times for this year and we also think that there will be a big rise video use for website owners. There has also been a trend for some larger brands to start using video as the main navigation and design for their websites, as highlighted by Smashing magazine.

We still think that video is a hugely underutilised channel for most website owners and expect to be offering more video options to our clients. As YouTube continues to get more popular for non-entertainment purposes and videos start to show up more on the Google listings, we expect to see more videos being created.

What will be more important in 2011 is the optimisation of these videos so that they get more views and plays. Video sitemaps, YouTube plays & likes and video descriptions and titles will all be worked on to get better rankings on all platforms.

10. Better stats for digital marketers
Since we started working in digital in 2003, the amount of statistics which are available to us has started to become almost mindboggling. From viewing number of visitors who come onto our a website a month through to viewing the actual visit that someone made in its entirety as a video, our understanding of online behaviour has never been so great.

Yet, conversely, there are still many pieces of the digital puzzle which are missing. Webmasters, SEOers and online marketing managers alike, all need to get better and more granular data from their online activities to help make the most of the online marketing budgets.

We expect the major website analytics tools to get even more comprehensive in 2011. Google are already offering even more information via Google Webmaster tools but we are expecting more from Google Analytics and perhaps an attribution feature being introduced at some point, it is long overdue. For other heavyweight analytics tools (like the ones we use) will go further in showing us the granular detail needed to get the best understanding of online buyers and how to streamline budgets to match their behaviour as best as possible.

Do you agree with our digital predictions? We welcome any comments that you might have!

Our predictions for 2010 - How did we do?

2010-12-01T15:48:00.000Z

As it's the last month of the year, our attentions are rapidly turning to Christmas and the New Year. Around a year ago, we made our digital predictions for 2010 on this blog using our insights into the industry. So, how did we do? Read below to see how close we were...

1. Video will become more widely used on websites
Our first prediction is a bit hard to prove but the general feeling from our clients is that video is an important part of the digital armoury when it comes to online. We've worked with several of our clients to either produce video from scratch (with our partners at White Circle) or do some video optimisation work to maximise video views for our clients. What isn't in doubt is the growth of video overall though. YouTube now have over TWO BILLION views each day which is up 100% on the same time this year. Not bad for a company which isn't even six years old.

How right did we get it? 8 / 10 - Demand for video is still strong and looks set to continue long into 2011.

2. Twitter, Twitter everywhere
We have grown to like Twitter more and more this year. Back in 2009 we were new to Twitter and couldn't really see the point in sending short messages to followers in the Twittersphere. However, more and more people have got on board and actually started to use it in the right ways, the business uses and benefits of the platform are becoming more obvious.

The figures on growth throughout the year are hard to come by at this time, but Twitter certainly did increase its user base worldwide as shown by Compete (the traffic measuring service). Ok, it's not the hockey stick style chart which we'd seen the year before, but nearly 30million users each month isn't that bad. It was also reported back in May that there were 300,000 people joining the Twitterati each day (taking the total registered accounts to over 100m) so this was more evidence of people getting on board.

While sign ups remain strong there is still an underlying trend of people who sign up going missing after a few months (much in the same way happened when people started blogging a few years back). It is estimated only 15% of the 100m users are 'active' in Twitter so when people 'get it' they do spend a lot of time interacting and tweeting with others. One study suggested that Twitter users were more influential than other web users, which again says that if you can get 'in' with your audience on the platform then you can definitely get success.

Will Twitter be as prominent in 2011? Watch this space for our 2011 predictions very soon!

How right did we get it? 6 / 10 - Twitter usage continues to grow but it isn't the all-encompassing platform that we thought it might be a year ago.

3. Real time search is here
Although a true version of real time search isn't quite there yet, there were certainly a lot of developments made by the search engines to edge towards real time search. Google underwent several revamps to 'improve the user experience'. This was to utilise the technical power they have and also to get ahead of Bing in the on-going search war.

Perhaps the biggest change was Google Instant which allowed users to see their search results in real time as they typed. This was a huge change for users and also advertisers as they had to go more 'upstream' in their search phrase selection. Various bits of research were carried out by the SEO gurus to see what affect this had on search behaviour but the stats were somewhat inconclusive in the weeks after launch.

Although both Google and Bing did deals with Twitter last year to use their firehose of data, the integration into the main search results pages has been slow in the main. They both set up dedicated pages to real time search results, pulling in updates from Twitter, MySpace and others, but this has failed to set the search world alight and many users are still confused or unsure of the value of such content.

Where Google and Bing go next with real time search is still unclear. We expect to see Bing roll out a Google Instant type feature next year but what part these social results will play remains to be seen.

How right did we get it? 7 / 10 - Google made big strides towards providing real time results but both Google and Bing have issues about the integration of social content as part of the overall search experience.

4. Personalisation and behavioural targeting will increase
We've seen many more tools become available to help our clients be more specific about the users who they target. Perhaps unsurprisingly the best targeting tools for personalisation and targeting of ads have come from the social networks. Both LinkedIn and Facebook have offered the facility to pin point users to target but in the last year, they've made this easier to get campaigns working. Facebook have used the billions of pieces of data at their disposal to develop a very profitable advertising platform which now generates over $1b billion for the company.

Some of the campaigns which we've run for our clients on the social networks have been very effective at driving awareness and in many cases leads and sales. We expect their to be more growth in this area in the coming year.

Personalisation of content and web experience has been slow on the websites overall although we are trialing some tools to help improve this as part of our own offering. Google has made some changes to the way we see search results by analysing previous searches to adjust its search results based on past behaviour. Since last year, we've seen more prominence of Google's personalised results in our offices which has been both helpful and hindrance (especially for the SEO team!)

How right did we get it? 8 / 10 - Once again Google lead the way in making the user experience more personalised. In addition to this social platforms have allowed advertisers to be much more specific about who they target and when, leading to a better experience for the user and for our clients.

5. The end of last click wins?
Sadly this was one we didn't get that right. The trend in the industry (from our experience dealing with new clients coming over to us) is that this still isn't considered by many agencies. The more forward thinking agencies (like ourselves :) have been onto this for a while but until Google Analytics properly catches up, it will still remain an untapped resource for increased efficiency and cost saving for online marketing.

Google Adwords did roll out a great feature 'Adwords Search Funnels' to help see which paid ads and phrases were clicked on as part of the conversion process which was great to see. Although this is still a beta feature, its usage on the agency side is still unknown. However, as this is restricted to Adwords only, its usage for an overall online marketing campaign isn't very useful.

How right did we get it? 5 / 10 - From our perspective the industry overall still hasn't moved away from the last click wins measurement. Google has rolled out Adwords Search Funnels which is step in the right direction and we expect to see more features added to Google Analytics in 2011.

6. Augmented reality - a reality?
Probably our biggest prediction last year. Did we get it right? Well, not really. As smartphone sales have grown and grown, mobile functionality also increased dramatically in the last year to the point where mobiles are edging towards desktops in terms of features and usefulness. Was augmented reality part of this growth? Not really. Some global brands did start to use AR in some of their campaigns to find new ways to interact with their audience but this wasn't very common.

AR platforms like Layar promised much in 2009 but have failed to grab the attention of the public in the way that some predicted that they might.

How right did we get it? 2 / 10 - Augmented Reality didn't become a reality. Whether it will in the way some predicted remains to be seen (no pun intended :)

7. Brand: Me
We predicted a growth in the number of people wanting to position themselves as their own brands last year. Social platforms like LinkedIn allow for individuals to be their own brands rather than companies. With the downturn in the economy, we expected more people to take their own lead and create their own brands and personalities.

From our perspective we didn't see as many people wanting to create a 'me only' approach to their marketing as we expected but there was still some interested in this approach.

If we'd written this post a few weeks ago we would've scored pretty low on this one. However, just recently LinkedIn announced a BrandYou campaign to help individuals understand how to promote themselves better as experts on LinkedIn! One suspects that they are going to be collecting data on users to then offer better features in this area in the coming year.

How right did we get it? 7 / 10 -Brand Me (or Brand You - whichever you prefer) was on the radar for a lot of business owners and leaders and will even more so in the next 12 months.

8. Website owners will realise that all content is important
We have already discussed how much more video has been in 2010 to website owners. One thing which we've noticed is that new clients are much more interested in discussing all types of content with relation to their online presence. Products, maps listings, YouTube videos, images, PPC listings, news listings - all of these things have been mentioned numerous times in the briefs that we've been given.

Search engines, in particular Google, this year have really changed the way that they present useful results to searchers (especially with regards to maps or 'Places'). These changes are not universal across the board but very specific towards the search which has been made by the user. Search engines analyse user behaviour on certain phrases and then present the most relevant information to the searcher based on previous interactions on the results pages. This is adjusted further based on the individual searchers habits and history.

For those businesses who generate leads and sales online, they've realised that their search campaigns can't be just focused towards getting pages ranked anymore. They have realised any digital assets that they have which can take up first page listings on the results pages is important and are proactively trying to get more of them made and optimised to get better results.

How right did we get it? 8 / 10 - Lots more website owners are aware of how search engines are operating and are starting to react to get maximum results from their online investments.

Phew! It's been a busy year for us and for the industry! We got most of our predictions right in the main and we're a little optimistic in some other areas. We're currently putting together our predictions for 2011 and will be publishing them in the coming week or two.

If you've got any comments to add to our review then please feel free to add them below!

What’s new and exciting in Facebook world this month?

2010-11-29T12:52:00.007Z

Facebook seems to be really ramping up its offering to businesses this month, offering increasingly more to position Facebook as a media source to be taken seriously within an online marketing campaign. There are a couple of notable updates for consumers; firstly messages is getting a re-vamp to make sending and receiving messages a more integrated part of the Facebook experience. Also the new friendships function has launched (albeit very quietly, nobody seems to realise it happened), allowing users to see photos and interactions between themselves and their friends. However if you own a business page, things have been really getting interesting.

News Feed Insights

When logged into a business page you can now view the impressions and clicks for each of your updates on your news feed. And when you go into the Insights tab there is a chart that condenses all the update statistics so you can see which posts are getting the most views and interactions. Very useful to see which type of info triggers the most amount of Facebook activity on your wall.

More detail in Page Insights

Page insights used to be pretty limited and didn’t have a patch on Google insights. But now Facebook are showing some really insightful information about the demographics of your facebook followers. The new gender, age and location breakdowns are all great and make Facebook a really useful information gathering tool on your audience. Activity and Story insights are useful when you have a pretty high level of interaction on your page, but you kind of already know how much interaction you’re getting. These stats will still be useful for agencies presenting reports to clients showing the overall activity on a page. The daily likes and unlikes is really nice to see and will be useful to see where you’re going right / wrong.

There is also a graph showing which media users are viewing when they get to your site, so you can adjust your content accordingly.

Overall these new insights are really great and Facebook is finally sharing the information its gathering and making it useful for brands. What’s good to see is that these graphs and charts are extremely easy to understand so even small business owners will be able to monitor their Facebook activity.

To finish off; some random news in the world of Facebook:

A Church of England bishop has been suspended indefinitely after posting a series of negative comments on Facebook about Prince William and Kate Middleton’s engagement.Pete Broadbent, the bishop of Willesden, wrote that their marriage would last a mere seven years and that their wedding day would be full of “nauseating tosh”.

Facebook have now decided to try and own the trademark for the word “face”. Trademarking gone mad?

The Evolution of Location-based Services

2010-10-31T12:56:00.003Z

Last Friday I was lucky enough to attend NMA’s ‘Location-based services demystified’ conference. Experts from the mobile and marketing industry gave presentations on their views of location-based services, followed by an open discussion with the attendees and panel.

The main idea that came out of the conference is that marketers should be viewing these new location-based services as a way to help their customers get the most from brands. In his presentation, David Fieldhouse from Lucidity Mobile told us that 1 in 4 people in the UK have smart phones and sales of non-smartphones are down 14% year on year. With smartphones opening up the door to location-based technology, brands need to offer a utility; something tangible and valuable to their customers. In this age of austerity most consumers are joining Facebook groups and Foursquare to get a discount, the trust between consumers and brands have lessened and consumers are now asking brands ‘what’s in it for me? What is my loyalty worth to you?’.

Ewan McLeod from Mobile Industry Review has a clear idea of how he wants brands to use the new Smartphone technology; consumers should be able to get what they want from brands, when they want it. A couple of examples:

- You’re standing at the airport waiting for a cab. You go on your smart phone, find a cab company that’s available nearby, chose the type of cab you want and the price, and book it.
- You’re in a part of town you don’t know and you want to find a restaurant for lunch. You go on your phone and find restaurants nearby that have been recommended by your friends and has an offer on.

The last thought is interesting as it highlights peer recommendations. This is something that is going to be very real soon, not least from the partnership between Facebook and Bing. Facebook likes are going to be used by search engines to tailor search results according to how many of your friends recommend them, and this is just going to be the start of peer recommendations.

Ewan believes that although there are a lot of great apps and services out there for consumers, we still have a long way to go and technology needs to be smarter. He feels that some brands should hold back until they have the technology to really deliver something valuable to consumers, rather than wasting their time with unwieldy gadgets.

Florian Lutz from Navteq spoke about the process of checking-in being too much of an effort for consumers and would like to see the process happen automatically (bear in mind privacy and opt-in issues, this is something that needs to be developed). Having an app to find your nearest McDonalds, an app to find your nearest bank, etc, etc is too long-winded. The process needs to be streamlined and also tailored to individual consumers so people can find the service they want in the most efficient way possible. Vouchercloud is an app that shows the direction that we are moving in, it is quick and easy to use and offers a real service.

These ideas may seem fairly dry and practical; Matt Rhodes from Freshnetworks presented the Catchachoo campaign and proved how location-based services can be used to offer something innovative, engaging and fun for consumers. Freshnetworks used Foursquare as a mechanism to generate online and offline PR and get as many of their social media followers as they could to participate in a game that gave them the chance to win a pair of Jimmy Choo trainers as well as freebies in some of the most exclusive locations in London.

With location-based services it is important that brands don’t just rush in and sign up. This is just another tool for brand to use, for some it will the be right choice, for some it won’t. Brands and marketers must work together to determine what their customers want and deliver it in the most effective way.

Top 6 Last Minute Christmas Tips for Ecommerce Sites

2010-10-21T15:38:00.008+01:00

It’s that time of year; the days are getting shorter, the trees are changing colour, the air is becoming cooler – it can only mean one thing– winter is just around the corner. With winter approaching it is crucial to be prepared for the busiest ecommerce season and the ever nearing biggest holiday of the year. Not all shoppers have a regimented present purchasing routine and we all know that one person who buys all their presents on Christmas Eve. These last minute shoppers are looking for instant, great presents and are a type of shopper all ecommerce sites should cater for. Based on this fact, here are six top tips for all ecommerce site owners to bear in mind for those last minute shoppers.

1. Vouchers
Your target market here is shoppers looking for an instant present that requires minimal effort. Vouchers are a great way of increasing your sales and provide the last minute shopper with exactly what they are looking for. E-vouchers are even better as the shopper really does get their voucher instantly, meaning they can then forward this on to the present receiver or print it out and hand it over personally. E-vouchers also help you save on costs in regard to printing, postage and time.

2. Email Past Buyers
If you have a CRM that records which date your customers placed their transactions then most definitely use this to your advantage. Last minute shoppers are often repeat offenders so gathering a list of all your customers who purchased presents last minute in 2009 can be extremely beneficial. Emailing everyone on this list informing them of your products, offers and instant presents can bring back a high conversion rate.

3. Social Media & Viral
There is a higher ratio of men to women in regard to last minute shoppers. Men often get stuck for ideas when buying presents for their other halves, mothers and other female family members, which results in them buying presents last minute. Why not help them out? If you have any products that are very popular among women then advertise them online where the web savvy women can find them. Social media sites are a great way of doing this, whether it’s tweeting your best product on twitter or creating a Facebook page dedicated to female products, you can reap great rewards. Women who socialise on the internet will promote your products by sending links of your tweet or Facebook page to their friends. In turn their other halves will see how huge the interest is in these products and consider buying one for their girlfriend, mother etc. The key point here is to have a fantastic product to start with and a great viral campaign.

4. Christmas Return Policy
Over half of online shoppers abandon the checkout process before completing their transaction. This is due to last second worries of: whether the present is the ‘right one’, what the returns policy is and if there are any hidden charges. It is imperative to combat these worries before they even enter your shoppers head. A last minute shopper is at their last resource and needs that extra encouragement that your product is one they should buy! By advertising in advance and clearly on your site exactly what your returns policy and any delivery charges are, you are more likely to retain customers. Some companies introduce a special Christmas returns policy whereby goods can be returned for free within a number of days after Christmas.

5. Quick Delivery
Last minute shoppers want presents fast and they want them now. Issuing speedy delivery is essential in the last week run up to Christmas. You should plan ahead and predict which of your products will sell the most, make sure you have them in stock and at each designated warehouse. However, do not overestimate – the last thing you want is to be left with a pile of unsold stock. It is a great idea to create a new page on your site for purely quick delivery items. This makes your site user friendly to a last minute shopper and with some nice graphics and interactive boxes you can direct them to this page and aid their fast shopping experience. Being able to ship within 24 hours is vital to last minute shoppers – before promising to do this ensure it is realistically possible for your business.

6. Discount, discount, discount
Since the recession hit every shopper, last minute or not, is looking to save money. Figures from 2009’s Christmas sales indicates that shoppers did not spend as much as was anticipated by suppliers. Offer Christmas discounts to customers, old and new, as an incentive for them to buy your products. This is great if you sell identical products to your competitors. Promotional codes that require customers to buy at least two items encourage shoppers to spend more and discover additional relevant products – this is a great technique if you are looking to boost sales. When you have decided on your promotional codes it is so important to seed them across the web and email them to all your customers. You have to make the code visible across the web and amongst your target market for it to be used.

The Imminent Launch of Google TV

2010-10-21T11:36:00.005+01:00

Not content with being one of the most powerful forces on the internet, Google now wants to take over our television sets.

Google TV is the new way to consume media, letting you access everything on the web. In Google’s words; “Television, meet search engine. Google TV lets you search across every channel, every app, and the entire web, simultaneously.”

There are two ways to get Google TV; through a standalone smart TV by Sony, or through a separate box to use with your current TV by Logitech.These products are set to launch in the next few weeks, so pretty soon we’re going to be getting first-hand experience of what the software can do and how people could use the technology in their day-to-day lives.

In a similar way to the Android phones, Google TV will be on an open platform, meaning that anyone can develop apps and make them accessible on Google TV. In many ways it is a relief that Apple did not come up with this technology first with their ‘everything Apple’ philosophy. Android (Googles own operating platform) is open source and allows developers to create any apps they like.

Something that I find very interesting is the ability on Google TV to watch and browse simultaneously – the fact that this is available shows how people are consuming media now. Being able to shift between different channels and be able to consume different media at the same time is driven largely by consumers who - while viewing - also surf the Web or text and chat. They will no longer continue watching something if they are not engaged as they know there is something better just a click of a mouse away.

SEO
The most interesting aspect of Google TV for SEO is the search bar for watching TV, letting you seamlessly search all of the content on your TV, the web, and apps. It will be interesting to see whether TV programmes and channels will have to carry out PPC and SEO campaigns to compete with each other in the search function, something which will give Google a huge amount of revenue.

According to Google TV, the best websites are being perfected for the web. Does this herald a shift in the way that websites are designed? Google has dropped the bombshell that Google TV will only, at least to begin with, support Droid Sans and Droid Serif font families, although it is possible to embed fonts to allow a wider variety through using Flash. This throws up a whole new ballgame in terms of SEO and the debate as to whether or not Flash is SEO suicide. Search Engine Land have written a really informative article about these design implicatons.

And as with all websites, you need to consider the usability. If your website is not appealing on Google TV when compared to the impact of flash sites, consumers will just find a different one to look at. YouTube have already set up their leanback function, which allows viewers to channel surf YouTube on their regular (Google TV enabled) TV, with Vimeo following with their couch surfing function. Many more websites are set to follow.

Future
Google TV shows that technology developers are sitting up and listening to the ways that people consume media today. I’m wondering whether the rise in mobile technology will mean that Google TVs will be synced with smartphones to allow the same amount of freedom but on the go? With most new technologies, we can only speculate on the effect Google TV will have on offline and online advertising. Only time will tell how widespread and impactful it will be.

Gooo-roundhog day - Why remarketing doesn't work (yet)

2010-10-20T14:30:00.003+01:00

(image via Giantsgab)

One of my favourite films ever is 'Groundhog Day' featuring Bill Murray. In the film, Bills character is stuck in a world where he relives the same day over and over and over again. Each day he wakes up to the same song on the radio, sees the same people and does the same thing. Eventually he realises why he is stuck in this world and begins to change his ways until he eventually gets out his recurring reality.

Very recently I've started to experience the same phenomenon due to an online marketing activity called 'remarketing'.

If you've never heard of it before, the idea behind is a great and powerful one. Simply put, if you visit a website and look at a particular product but don't buy it, remarketing will show you the same product/message on other websites in a bid to draw you back to buy the product which you didn't first time around. The idea has been around online for a long time but has recently started to be rolled out by Google. Due to their enormous reach and ad inventory, they are able to offer this service to all Adwords advertisers when it was only available to the big boys in the past.

The problem with this still relatively new technology is that it is still new and is also VERY ANNOYING. There are a lot of websites who use Google AdSense to place relevant adverts on to theirs to generate extra income. What Google's remarketing product does at the moment though is overload you with the same message and website over and over again regardless of where you are. Punxsutawney Phil would not be happy.

We've recently started an SEO campaign for Post Gold for Cash, a leading provider of cash for gold in the UK. Having visited their website several times while doing some research for them I'd been on their site but not made a conversion (filled in a form). Google knows this. They know that I like the website (due to my many visits) and they also know that I didn't convert. Google wants me to convert because if it does then they will be helping their advertisers who will in turn spend more. (and they are - Google announced $7.3b quaterly results recently)

The big problem is that Google is too keen to show the Post Gold for Cash website message. Over the last few days I've noticed their ads, tailored specifically to me, on dozens of occasions on dozens of sites. Here are just some examples...

As you can see here that regardless of the site that I am on, I still see the same message. And believe me this is the tip of the iceberg! The question of how much a casual surfer needs to see the same message before buying is one which is probably very user dependant. I can see that many users are going to be put off (like me) by seeing the same message and website following them around on the Internet, while others will not even consciously notice it.

I still think that Google and other remarketing providers still have a lot of work to do before it can be really used to its full extent. For example, being able be more selective over the specific websites that your adverts appear and being able to decide how often to show your message over that period. Sometimes you can go over the top and show your adverts too often which will trigger an annoyance rather than a relationship with your potential buyer.

As Google remarketing is still in its early days, we're sure that much more functionality will be added to the service but for now, it's best used with caution.

Google Local - Major changes!

2010-10-13T23:06:00.000+01:00

Googles move into local seemed to go up a level today with their roll out of new local listings which we caught a glimpse of on our of our machines.

There are many features which are bound to be rolled out in the coming months but we think we're the first ones to see this.

Anyone else seen this?

The Launch of new Facebook Groups

2010-10-11T11:00:00.003+01:00

So Facebook have just launched their brand new function, ‘Groups’. But wait a minute, Groups already existed didn’t it? What’s happened here is that the old Groups function has been updated to make it more user-friendly. There are a few new features including being able to chat exclusively within your groups, receiving email notifications when there are updates and a shared notepad where everyone can collectively write and edit notes.

My favourite aspect about it is how easy it is to set up and add links, events and photos. Being able to chat exclusively within that group is very handy, although i’ve heard bad things about how irritating this can get when you’re in a fairly large group. Another thing I really like is how the setup and notifications within that Group stay within that Group, nothing Group-related is posted on your news-feed.

Historically I have found that Facebook launch products without telling people how to use them and then Facebook users have to figure it out for themselves and the original purpose of the function is changed. What I found interesting was that with Groups they suggested how to use the new groups, in this case for a family or a class project:

From doing some research I found that the main issue users have with the new Facebook Groups is again down to privacy. You can be added to any group by default in the same way as you get tagged in photos. Users are getting shirty about being opted into without Facebook asking first. Facebook seem to be very naive here and assume that your Facebook friends wouldn’t opt you into a group you didn’t want to be in. The problem comes with unscrupulous brands try to get people into groups and being able to do so without their permission. An interesting point to make though; If a friend adds you to a group, and you remove yourself from that group, they can’t add you back to that or ANY group in the future and effectively you blacklist them.

Another bug-bear is the irritation factor that comes when a group grows. A user gets more and email notifications and chat updates until they become annoying rather than useful. Facebook could have overcome this by implementing more guidelines for how to use the groups as they would have known this would happen.

What are the implications for businesses?
Not a huge amount. Groups are designed to be most effective when used within a small group of people who know each other fairly well. Businesses already have pages which work very well to share information with a large group of people.

However there are a couple of opportunities for companies to use groups to their advantage:

- Encourage your employees to make / join a group for the purposes of increasing communication, ideas sharing and socialising within the workplace. Can work and brainstorm together in real time without having to be in the office.

- There could be the option to use Facebook Groups for a small focus group for some of your most loyal customers. It could be an easy way to share information and you could offer them exclusive benefits without other customers knowing by keeping the info within the group.

- I think in the future an obvious route for these new Groups would be implementing a shop feature for people to join a group who are buying something together, possibly in a similar way to Groupon. As soon as Facebook currency comes in this could definitely be a reality.

Bing blue coloured search predictions

2010-10-08T09:13:00.000+01:00

I noticed this today on Bing. Does anyone know why the search phrases are coloured blue? Are they from your own search history or from something else?

When you search from an answer on Bing, nothing relevant comes up! Oh dear.

The Impact of Facebook Places

2010-09-27T17:17:00.001+01:00

It’s an exciting time to be in the social media field right now with Facebook Places launching in the UK just over a week ago. We’ve had time to let the dust settle and for consumers to play with the new feature, and now we’re going to investigate what Facebook Places is and means for consumers and businesses.

For Businesses
Facebook Places has huge potential to help businesses. It is imperative that businesses register and claim their business asap. Having the opportunity to wield even a small amount of control over your brand on social networks is a rare opportunity, so businesses must grab it.

Once businesses are registered and people are checking in, then the real fun starts happening. Businesses can send messages to people who are checking in, can alert them to special offers and can reward them for checking in, in a similar way to Foursquare. If businesses have a Facebook business page set up they can link this with their Facebook Business Place, allowing them to add another feather to their integrated campaign bow.

Brand Ambassadors
One of the best things about Facebook Places is the awareness factor. A check-in is broadcast to every single friend via the news feed, and if they had a positive experience that they would like to share with their friends, they’re going to. And we all know that word of mouth is one of the best marketing techniques out there. Brand ambassadors who are proud to talk about your business on social networks are worth gold-dust, so rewarding check-ins can reap huge benefits.

Unearthing hidden gems
The simple act of searching for nearby places brings up a whole raft of local businesses that you may have never knew were there. This is a great opportunity for smaller businesses to gain the advantage over larger businesses who are not in that local area. Foursquare maximises this potential by allowing consumers to add previously unknown businesses to their ‘to do’ list. Something which could be introduced to Facebook Places in the future.
Facebook loves sharing. So maybe there could be ways to recommend certain friends to a place if you think it is relevant to them.

The Future of Facebook Places
About 1.5 million business or other entities already have Facebook Pages to promote products and services (facebook.com). If these businesses are early adopters to Facebook Places as well they are definitely going to be the winners. It’s a very simple process to register your business on Facebook Places, link that to your Facebook Business Page, then start rewarding check-ins. It doesn’t appear that any brands have done this in a big way, but the first one to do so is going to get the awareness of not just consumers but the industry as well.

I think Facebook Places will naturally evolve as more consumers and brands start using it. It seemed like an almost knee-jerk reaction to bring it out once Foursquare and Gowalla starting making waves in the social network scene, and there is a huge amount of potential to turn it into a game in a similar way to Foursquare, making checking-in rewarding and fun. I think if they don’t ramp up Facebook Places people will soon get ‘check-in fatigue’. Blackberry and Android users still don’t have Facebook Places available on their phones, and many people don’t even know it exists or how it works. It seems that only a few early adopters are using the technology, the uptake hasn’t been huge. But the people using it seem to keep using it; they haven’t got bored of it yet. If the concept can grow and evolve then it stands a good chance of making a big impact within the industry and opening lots of new ways for businesses to reach consumers through social media.

An infographic designed by Mark Fidelman comparing the features of the current location-based sites available.

The Adido Team Hit Bournemouth Town to Tackle Cumulus Teambuilding Event

2010-09-17T14:12:00.011+01:00

Last Friday saw the team here at Adido show their most competitive sides as we were split down the middle into two rival teams for our teambuilding day. The event was put on by one of our clients, Cumulus Outdoor Events, who specialise in outdoor teambuilding activities.

The morning started with a brief from our event leader, Tomo, who had us all laughing from the word go – but ensured we still were listening to his concise instructions. We were split randomly into two teams – Team A and Team 1 for arguments sake with both online marketers being mixed with web developers. After a ten minute planning period each team set off from our office at Richmond Hill and into Bournemouth town centre where our challenges awaited.

Adido Team and Tomo our leader

We had to work as a team as soon as our 3 hour time limit begun, deciding which out of the numerous challenges to try and complete. A popular strategy was to do a smaller number of challenges, but focus on the ones with the highest points which coincidentally proved to be the hardest challenges. These included taking a photo of Old Harry from the highest view point, posing as a mannequin for 5 minutes in a shop window and getting the whole team three feet underground.

Pose as a mannequin: Nat

Get the team 3 feet underground: Team A

Some of the challenges were more company and web focused, with a list of questions about company members and history. A favourite challenge was the task of writing a Google rap which had us all in stitches.

The weather was beautiful and we all enjoyed running around in the sunshine from one location to another. Some tasks were set on the beach whilst others involved us running into local shops. Many of the local businesses helped out both teams with item donations, we’d like to thank: The Early Learning Centre, Field & Trek, Bournemouth Sweet Shop, DJ Radio, Bournemouth Marriott Hotel, Bournemouth Steak House and Blacks.

Get the whole team to wear a fireman’s hat: Director’s Alex O and Gary living out their fireman dreams

Pitch a tent: Sarah and Alex T managed this in seconds; packing it away was another story...

Milk a cow: Katie and Jo

A challenge worth a high number of points and tackled by both teams was for four people to feed one another yoghurt whilst blindfolded. This was a success, even though some team members forgot to take height into consideration!

When five o’clock came around we headed to a well deserved pint in Sixty Million with our fantastic leader Tomo to relax and total up points. Team A won by a record 17,000 points whilst Team 1 scored 10,000. The competitive atmosphere throughout the day was fantastic and it was great to see both teams efforts had paid off. We have not stopped talking in the office about what a great time we had and all the jokes that have come out of it. We recommend anyone looking to improve their teambuilding skills to take a look at Cumulus’s range of activities here www.cumulusoutdoorevents.co.uk.

How many visits does it take before someone buys on your website?

2010-09-12T22:35:00.000+01:00

As one of the larger agencies in the South, we get access to more website analytics data than most. We also get to use website analytics tools which are out of the reach of others due to price or complexity. We've been using an advanced analytics tool for our clients (and ourselves) since the beginning of the year and have collected data on millions of visits to our clients' sites.

While presenting to a group recently, I mentioned about 'attribution' as an topic of groing importance in online marketing. This phrase is still very new to some but means identifying how successful each of the traffic sources which drive traffic to your website are and then attributing success to them. For most, this isn't possible due to the predominent usage of Google Analytics (GA) and the way that it monitors conversions. When it comes to conversions, GA only looks at the last click which came to your website before your visitor took made an action to buy something or make an enquiry. If someone clicked on an email, PPC ad, banner or anything before they bought from you, you have no idea and hence can't attribute any amount of the conversion value to it.

It can be argued that this method of attributing all of the conversion value to the last click is a valid one (and I'm sure Google would do so as they built their product like this!) but with more and more activity taking place online, and more advertising budgets being allocated in the same way, only looking at the end of the buying process isn't really the way businesses should be looking at their analytics data.

To carry out attribition of website traffic properly we need to see see ALL of the visits which came to a website before an conversion occured so that we can see what role each channel plays in when it comes to selling online. Quite often we see a company name or brand phrase convert very highly and sometimes come to the conclusion that our SEO or PPC campaigns aren't working. When what actually happens is that people get to the website in the first or second instance via our work (SEO, PPC, email, social) but then convert on the company name later on, making it look like SEO and PPC aren't important. In actual fact they are crucial at introducing people to your site, just not converting them, and without our work, their would be much few enquiries!

So, how many visits does it take to get a conversion?
I've decided to get create some 'benchmarks' from the data that we have and share them here so that you can hopefully use them for your own benefit, or at least make you think about how you value your traffic sources.

I've produced some data below from our analytics tool to show the differences between some of the sites we look after.

	Avg Visits Per First Sale	Conversions Year to Date
Website 1	36.08	4482
Website 2	1.47	769
Website 3	1.74	122
Website 4	2.13	21
Website 5	1.43	25
Website 6	2.64	227
Website 7	2.86	83
Website 8	1.69	479
Website 9	2.05	287
Website 10	1.47	1153

Median	1.895	227
Average	5.356	764.8

So what?
One of the things I hear often when I start talking about website analytics is 'That's fascinating, but so what?'. As you can see from this data, it takes roughly two visits to your website before someone makes a conversion. So what does this mean? Well a number of things, which we've listed below;

If you are using Google Analytics, you are only seeing half of the information relating to your conversions. If you use our data as a rough guide, you are not attributing half of your clicks properly. Does your PPC campaign look like it is a waste of time? Thinking about turning of your advertising on Yell.com? If you don't know how your conversions start you could end up turning off the source of a lot of your business.
You need to keep your online marketing active and as visible as possible. While you might have achieved your targets of your SEO rankings, you might decide that turning off your PPC campaign might be a good idea as you've achieved your top rankings. If it takes two visits to get to your site, it might be that one of those clicks came from PPC in the first place. If you don't know this, you might be wiser keeping all activities going until you know for sure.
If you have a database of clients, then email marketing can be a great way to get them back onto your website. Perhaps when they first visited your site they didn't buy from you but signed up for your enewsletter. Perhaps they bought from you along time ago but haven't heard from you since. Getting back in contact with previous customers, is another 'touch point' with them and so hopefully another visit back onto your site. Website marketing can sometimes be a numbers game so the more you can put the numbers in your favour, the better.
How well does your website convert? If you are one of the sites shown here which has pretty instant response (e.g less than 1.5 visits per conversion) then you need to get people to make a conversion as soon as they hit the page. If they don't then your chance has gone. When was the last time you reviewed your website pages with your clients? When did you last update your news? Have you even got conversion goals set up? Getting someone to take a proper look at your website conversion process can make all the difference when it comes to increase the number of conversions (sales) that you get.

We hope that you have found this research useful and can apply some of the findings to your own website. Obviously every website and business is very different so you might not be able to say for sure how your website measures against our numbers but these averages can hopefully be used as a benchmark and something for you to work against.

If you are currently using Google Analytics and would like to know more about conversion attribution and how we do it for our clients, please get in touch with us by sending us a message via our website.

Any comments? We'd love to hear them. below...

Top three free Twitter tools for brand reputation management

2010-08-31T10:13:00.000+01:00

Twitter claim that their users generate 65 million Tweets a day. That’s a lot of conversations happening, and some of these could be discussing your brand, looking for the service you offer and talking about your products.

We’ve had a look at many tools which can be used to monitor brands and phrases on Twitter over the last few months. We’ve listed below what we think are some of the most effective and simple to use tools that that brands can e to monitor conversations related to their brand and product names

Twitter Search

One of the easiest ways to monitor a particular keyword, brand or product name is to conduct a search at Twitter Search. By clicking on the RSS feed for that search query (which is located at the very top of the right sidebar) and add it to your RSS reader you can easily keep track of any keywords, brand name or service that you are interested in almost as fast as they are mentioned on Twitter, as any mention of that keyword or phrase will display directly in your RSS reader instantly! Set up multiple searches and you’ll be off!

Monitter

Monitter lets you “monitter” the Twitter world for a set of keywords and watch what people are saying in real time. Just type three words into the three search boxes displayed on the site’s home page (where it says ‘monitter’ now) and within seconds you’ll start seeing relevant tweets streaming live.

This is a really useful tool to track what people are saying about keywords specific to your brand. You can also specify which location you are interested in. I searched for people tweeting about web design, SEO and online marketing within 50 miles of our Bournemouth office. Within a couple of seconds a tweet came up from someone looking for an SEO specialist, I checked his profile and saw he was in Bournemouth, so then sent a direct tweet to inviting him to give us a call. One possible bit of new business right there!

Twitter Analyzer

Twitter Analyzer is by far the best Twitter App seen in a long while for providing details about your activity on Twitter. It is incredibly comprehensive and shows data on almost everything, including who you follow, who re-tweets your messages, what you’re talking about, how quickly your Twitter network has grown since you’ve been involved, the geographic location of your followers, the volume of your followers who are online at different times of the day, etc.

And don’t forget, you can also find out a huge amount of information about the ins and outs of your competitor’s Twitter accounts as well!

Monitoring your online reputation is incredibly important. These tools allow you to find out who is saying what about your brand as well as how effectively you are managing your Twitter presence. Twitter is a great way for small businesses to strike up conversations with customers and future customers, if you have any success stories yourself or know of any Twitter tools that need to be mentioned, get involved and leave me a comment.

3 ways we think social media will change in 2011

2010-08-27T09:54:00.009+01:00

Social media has seen astonishing growth in recent years, with sites accruing huge numbers of followers in recent years. Just recently Facebook announced it now has a staggering 500 million users registered on the site, an increase of around 150million in only six months. Twitter now has 190 million users and is often referred to as one of the fastest adopted media platforms, these are both followed by Linkedin which has roughly 70million users (June 2010)
So with 2010 seeing such surges in growth across a plethora of social media platforms, what can we expect in 2011, and can it in any way surpass the innovation and continued mass adoption we have seen this year?

The Importance of Location
We saw foursquare launch in March 2009 but it was 2010 that saw this website and app experience huge success. As of March 2010 Foursquare reported 725,000 users, with a growth rate of around 100,000 every two weeks for the prior month. And only a few weeks ago on 19th August 2010 we saw Facebook launch their rival, ‘Facebook Places’, their geolocation check-in service which works on a similar premise to Foursquare by allowing their users to share their current locations with friends, enabling them to see who is nearby. We predict that this extension of the already globally adopted Facebook will massively increase the use of location based social media, and as accessibility increases we will see 2011 be the year of the Facebook and Foursquare show down. Although it’s interesting to note that on the launch day of Facebook places Foursquare recorded a record number of new signups, could this be a sign that Facebook places will not be the death of Foursquare but the making of it? Definitely one to watch in 2011.

Picture from: www.tnooz.com

Money Money Money

Well online currency that is. It’s already been suggested that Facebook are planning the launch of Facebook credits, their own payment method that would see them scooping a percentage of revenue for products sold within the games and apps on the site. Currently these apps use other payment methods such as Paypal, but we predict that in 2011 there will be a great focus on Facebook increasing revenue from current users, as they reach saturation point and the number of new users gradually beings to decrease.

I heard from a little birdie
Promoted tweets were launched in April of 2010 and we predict that as we move into 2011 that these will be rolled out and be available to the masses. With the growth rate Twitter has seen, why wouldn’t businesses want to capitalise on this? And with many companies becoming more Twitter savvy and using the platform in ingenious ways to reach prospective customers, this will add another string to any online marketing strategy; could promoted tweets be the social media equivalent of pay per click ads?

Google operators and their impact on SEO

2010-08-12T09:42:00.004+01:00

It’s not only experts that use the Google advanced search operators on a daily basis to help cut down on returned search results, now everyday users are also integrating these into their searches. Google returns hundreds of thousands, if not millions of results for any given search term and most people don’t often go past the first three pages of these, so why not use any tools available to make these results more specific? This is where the Google Advanced search operators come in. These advanced operators enable you to search in a much more detailed manor enabling you to get much more precise results.

Bing have recently capitalised on this insight with their television advertising campaign which focuses on ‘information overload’ and how their SERP attempt to overcome this problem, and recently Google have introduced yet more ways of searching. These cut the amount of results given and leave those that are returned being much more tailored, making searching quicker and easier. Some of the search commands that Google supports are as follows:

Related :domain – this will list websites that are similar or related to the domain given. This could be an extremely useful tool for finding websites to contact for relevant link exchanges. To make this work you don’t need to use the http:// bit at the front.

- (and +) - this will remove pages that contain the given term from results, for example south Africa – world cup will show all pages containing the words ‘south africa’ but NOT those related to the world cup.

Allintitle:search term – this ensures that results are very accurate to you search term as the title will have to contain all words you search. This one is highly useful for SEO purposes as it can help find related sites to help with you link building efforts as it is a clear indicator of the importance of using keywords in your titles. This is very useful when you are searching for a specific or specialised product and know exactly what you want, such as the example given below.

Phonebook:name – this is a new command and can bring up a list of phone numbers for people with that name who you search for. You might be a little shocked by the amount of information so readily available! Although only currently available for US numbers this could be a useful tool for getting in touch with people of interest, for example bloggers or online experts.

Type of document: You can also search for documents on Google, and one of the newest operators that they have introduced enables you to search for document by type – search term:document/presentation.spreadsheet etc. A great way to cut down you time spent researching and finding the content that you want.

With more and more people adapting their searches as the internet becomes overloaded with an increasing amount of information it seems that these advanced search operators may be the way forward, not only for industry professionals but also for simple searches. And if you’ve got any more that you find useful we would love to hear about them.

How to Get yourself Listed on Bing

2010-07-12T09:46:00.005+01:00

Everyone is well aware of the global giant that is Google and for 89.2% in the UK it is the only search engine you use. However there have been some recent changes to the UK market share for search engines. Google has recently seen a drop to their UK market share from 90.8% to 89.2% within one month (January to February 2010). Although this seems like only a small decrease, it is the equivalent to Ask.com’s market share and bigger than that of AOL.

With this decrease it was Yahoo and Bing which benefitted, Bing now reaching a market share of 3.8%. Although this is a small market share it still shows great opportunity for online marketers and the need to work on good rankings on all three search engines in order to reach the maximum amount of people.

Local listings seem to be one of the best ways to achieve good rankings as both Google and Bing use a similar map set up as the top hit for most location business searches.

There has been some confusion in the best way to achieve a local listing on Bing as they currently have a local business centre, very similar to Google’s, however this is only for US websites. Bing were previously using information for their local listings generated by Multi Map, however this has now been replaced with a brand new service. My 118 Information is now working in partnership with Bing to provide both precise and relevant information for Bing’s local listing results.

In order to create a Bing local listing for your business you should firstly log on to their search page to find your business address.

Once you have located it on the map, My 118 information will ask for your business details and the contact number for the ‘Senior Decision Maker’. From the information provided, My 118 Information will then call your business to verify the information provided in person and voila – you will have a nice shiny local listing on Bing!

There are a few teething problems with the system and it may take up to 2 weeks for the verification call, however it is worth taking a bit of time over this in order to have your business listed on the map ranking number one. We experienced a big delay in getting our listing activated and had to reapply for our application several times before we started to show up!

Google Adwords shows competitors performances

2010-06-28T15:43:00.006+01:00

Google has recently announced a new “Analyze competition” feature onto the side panel, under Opportunities within Google Adwords. At the moment the feature is limited to the UK, however, it is soon to be rolled out further. This tool allows you to see how you are performing in comparison to your competitors, as suggested by the name.
You will be able to see how you are performing compared to other advertisers in the same category. It uses categories from your products to your services keywords to give a perspective on how well your competitors are doing in each category. The data shown is refreshed every 2 weeks, so that data shown is always up to date.

The tool will allow you to see whether you are performing above, below or on par with your competitors. All the data displayed is anonymous as the data is aggregated and averaged, so you will not be able to compare individual activities. The data will be shown in a simple bar graph of your individual performance compared to the average performance of competitors. Hovering over the data in the 'Competitive Range' column will enable to view more details such as the size of your competitive range, the mean performance levels. Adwords will never reveal information about the advertiser’s identity

Added Value
By being able to see competitors performance it can show you exactly what you need to change to be more efficient, is exactly what ‘Analyze Competition’ offers. By seeing how your competitors are doing it can give you that little extra motivation to change your keywords choice and review their budgets to ensure that you are on top.

Key Benefits
There are many advantages to having some competitive data on the Adwords tool. The feature can help you to understand if your performance is up to the same standard of other advertisers in the same categories. By doing this it also point out where your performance can be improved through optimization changes. Finally, the feature allows you to explore new opportunities to grow your account, therefore becoming more competitive in your market.

Alternatives to Analyze Competitors
An alternative to Google Adwords Analyze competitors feature is called SpyFu. This alternative has two main features. One allows you to see what traffic keywords are getting and the other, more importantly, shows what keywords your competitors are going after. This allows you to see which keywords are likely to perform well.

Summary
This new ‘Analyze competitors’ feature on Adwords now gives you a unique way of viewing your advertising ecosystem. It predominantly allows you to make more optimized decisions based on your market performance. This is yet another piece of information which will allow you to focus your keywords further.
To make the most out of the ‘Analyze Competitors’ feature you can click on the ‘Explore Ideas’ button to see some automated ideas for your campaign. By using the ‘Analyze Competitors’ feature you will be able to easily analyze against your competitors enabling you to focus on aspects of your campaign that need improving. Just like other aspects under the Opportunities tab, ‘Analyze Competition’ will uncover new ways for you to improve your Adwords performance.