Manual Link Building and Melbourne server hosting, along with the help of Don’t Panic Projects, had organised a bowling/ networking extravaganza for digital marketers in the area. We thought it was a pretty great idea at the time, and well the night didn’t disappoint.

The stakes were set high, and the selection of the team here at Lakestar McCann was intense (with our CEO even missing out on a chance to compete). We got there, the team was ready. We really had picked the crème de la crème (cough cough).

The scene was set, a trendy new bowling alley in Manchester, a perfect venue for meeting our peers.

The guys at Don’t Panic Projects did a really good job of engaging the “digital marketers” within, encouraging us to tweet and hashtag the event. The big screen TV’s were filled with bowling and marketing related light-hearted hashtag fun, a selection of which are below.

Gareth Hoyle ‏@search_magician17h

Final hour in work then #mancdigibowl time!! Go team @manlinkbuilding

Edwina Chan ‏@chanston_12h

Reppin’ @LakestarMcCann at the #mancdigibowl. Why aren’t the barriers up?

Melbourne Hosting ‏@MelbourneHost11h

Congratulations to the Refinery Group for winning the overall #MancDigiBowl!

The Offsite team, accompanied by Jacqueline, one of our Social Media managers, were pumped and ready to go. We had been nervous all day as to our performance, and  in some people’s cases, that worry was more than justified. Our performance was good, and there really were a couple of dark horses among the team. Both Matt and Simon (two of our Offsite specialists) wiped the floor with the rest of the team- leading the rest of us to the conclusion that we really should have had the bumpers up!

The night was a great way for us link builders to really start embracing the power of social. I was introduced to Vine, which proved popular with my fellow colleagues in the office this morning, as we could all share those little embarrassing moments of bowling balls rolling of the side of lanes.

We are fans of networking here at Lakestar, and we really were impressed with last night’s setup. It’s always good to put names with faces, and we’re looking forward to many more events in the future.

The post Lakestar McCann Does #Mancdigibowl appeared first on Lakestar McCann.

As with all Adwords developments, Google have placed the emphasis very much on user experience, claiming that users should be reached by relevant targeted ads regardless of which device they are using. They have also acknowledged that the lines are continuing to blur between devices, with the continued rise of Tablet usage and new devices such as Mini Tablets entering the market, and in turn Google have opted to blur the lines of their device targeting for campaigns.

They have also cited research which claims that 90% of multi device users move sequentially between screens to complete a task, hence stressing the importance of full device coverage from advertisers.

The benefits to advertisers and agencies from Enhanced Campaigns will be the increased ease of campaign management that they allow – no longer will separate campaigns/accounts need to be created for separate devices, with all devices now being managed through single campaigns.

To some these developments may seem a step back with advertisers in recent years have become more sophisticated in adopting tailored approaches to each device by setting up device dedicated campaigns with tailored bidding strategies, bid scheduling and ad copy.

To an extent, this level of sophistication will still be possible under Enhanced Campaigns, where it will be possible to upweight or downweight bids for Mobile activity between -100% and 300% (although this will be at campaign level only). Advertisers will also be able to opt ads into Mobile coverage only at the tick of a box.

As well as upweighting/downweighting for Mobile devices it will be possible to tweak bids based on location, eg. bidding more for users within half a mile of an advertiser’s store, or downweighting bids during hours when the store is closed.

Perhaps the most controversial development with Enhanced Campaigns is the inability to separate Desktop and Tablet devices in campaign settings. Google claims that user behaviour on these devices is similar enough to warrant not separating them out. This does contradict other case studies which show Tablet use soaring in the evening and that consumers often use Tablets while watching multi-tasking, watching TV etc.

For Click to Download activity it will still be possible to determine which devices ads are served on eg. Android, to ensure the right users are reached, via the medium of a new ‘Digital Content’ ad type. Google Display campaigns will also still be allowed to select which devices they appear on.

With Enhanced Campaigns also come other developments such as more sophisticated Site Links – where advertisers are able to apply links at ad group level, have access to more detailed reporting metrics, and are able to schedule Site Link coverage.

Although Enhanced Campaigns have now been launched they are not yet being enforced, with advertisers being given the option to migrate their campaigns between now and summer, when all existing campaigns will automatically be opted in. This gives advertisers the time and opportunity to migrate existing campaigns without any issues. Google have also released a White Paper to agencies to help guide this migration process.

Google have also launched a new section of their website which explains all the new features in detail:

http://www.google.com/adwords/enhancedcampaigns/

The post Google launches Enhanced Campaigns appeared first on Lakestar McCann.

The technology, which is understood to have suffered numerous technical setbacks recently is rumoured to be based around interactive 3D modelling, virtual reality and data management which “will allow companies to share information like never before, wherever they are in the world.”

The buildings which will form part of the first phase of the project will be selected from the 20 developments previously earmarked;  1 New York Street, Number One First Street, Chancery Place, The Hive, Orange at MediaCityUK, Bridgewater Place, Towers, The Peninsula Manchester, Riverside, New Bailey Street, 304,  Booths Park, Knutsford, Citilab, 196 Deansgate and Manchester Science Park.

Sheila Bird Group have previously indicated that  they have been working for ‘a global client’ for over two years, as its UK client design director.  In a statement last year Atul Bansal said: “This is an unbelievably exciting prospect for Manchester, as the first city to have access to this revolutionary technology and the potential is has to transform local businesses and the way they work, individually and together.

“As design director my team and I have had the opportunity to explore new ideas, pushing the boundaries to create a revolutionary concept. All of the spaces will differ both in style and design intent; none of the spaces will have a corporate style.

“There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world.   The walls will be ‘alive’ and ‘Tomorrow’ will drive a new approach to work interactions and conversations.”

• Cisco’s Tomorrow Starts Here Announcement
• Intel’s Tomorrow Project

….  just a co-incidence or are they involved?

The post Project Digital announcement imminent in Manchester? appeared first on Lakestar McCann.

January 2013

Google announces revised Shopping program policies.

Feb 04 2013

Google starts testing in the live environment in the UK.

Google Testing New Format PLA’s

February 13 2013

Official launch day for the raft of changes. Google promises “visually cleaner results for shopping queries”, along with some new commercial formats, with products displayed in a single unit. Enhanced search capabilities will include filters to separate out products by brand or price. Larger images are also promised so that you’ll get a better idea of any product’s main features.

These new paid-for listing formats will be labelled as “Sponsored” and appear in the space currently occupied by AdWords ads.

Google Shopping Goes Global

February 15 2013

Discounts may be available for businesses advertising their products using the new format.

Whereas companies have until now been getting traffic referred to them for free, these visits will now be charged for. But as a trade-off and an incentive to persuade businesses to adopt the new format, they’re being offered a promotional credit of £75 to be applied to their Merchant Centre accounts, provided their account has been open since before December 1 2012.

The credit can be spent on Product Listing Ads placed between February 15 and June 30.

Apply for the credit

Further information - including troubleshooting information to help ensure that you receive the credit you are entitled to.

March 2013

At a date yet to be specified, Google Merchant Centre will issue revised specifications for product feeds. Advertisers need to get moving now, though, especially if they are going by reduced feed specifications for the purpose of showing product listing ads, because these will need to meet the same specs as for full feeds from March.

Summary of attribute requirements – March 2013

Making the migration to Google Product Listing Ads - advice on optimising Merchant Centre feeds for product listing ads.

Google Shopping: Building a better experience Google’s best practice guide includes advice on how to optimise your data. Read this before changing your feed.

April 12 2013

This is the final date for submitting applications for the £75 promotional credit.

By end of Q2  (approx 30th June)

The full changeover is expected to have been implemented – although there hasn’t been notification of an exact date.

Above all else, merchants need to be sure that their Product Listing Ads are ready to run as soon as possible. The discount is only to those merchants who create a Product Listing Ad campaign before 12 April 2013..

The post Google starts testing blended PLA’s in the UK ahead of official launch date appeared first on Lakestar McCann.

Anyone and everyone with access to a computer nowadays is likely to be familiar with the term ‘blogging’. In fact, many of us even have our own blog or contribute to an existing blog, and those who don’t write themselves happily spend hours reading, liking, commenting on and sharing other blogs. If you ask those around you now, I’m sure they’ll be able to reel off a list of friends who have their own blogs. So popular are they, it’s hard to imagine a time when blogging didn’t exist. So how did it all begin and what is it about blogs that’s made everyone jump on the bandwagon?

The term ‘web-log’ was coined by Jorn Barger, editor of Robot Wisdom in 1997 in an attempt to describe the daily list of links that ‘logged’ his web travels. Two years later, Peter Merholz split the word in two to form we blog in the sidebar of his blog. It didn’t take long for Evan Williams at Pyra Labs to use ‘blog’ as both a noun and a verb, before creating the term ‘blogger’ in connection with Pyra Labs’ Blogger product.

Blogging took a while to catch on before becoming immensely popular overnight. Blog usage spread during 1999 and following years, thanks to the near-simultaneous creation of the first hosted blog tools:

-          Open Diary (1998): online diaries that invited the reader to comment on entries.

-          LiveJournal (1999)

-          Pitas.com (1999): an easier alternative to maintaining news pages on websites.

-          Blogger.com (1999): later purchased by Google in 2003.

Nowadays, due to the continuous rising in popularity of blogging, many people are adding to the blogosphere by creating their own pages on which to record their words for the world to see. This has led to the development of many different blogging platforms, such as WordPresss.com which boasts a whopping 60,328,496 sites around the world and 33.9 million new blog posts each month. Google-owned Blogger.com remains one of the favourites amongst bloggers, whilst platforms such as Sharepoint are less well-known in the UK but commonly used in the USA. Google Trends compared some of the leading blogging platforms with WordPress.com emerging in top position when it comes to web search interest.

So what is it about blogging that makes it such a hit with people of all ages? For a start, having a blog gives the writer a chance to self-publish pretty much whatever they like. So whether you’re hoping to share your wisdom and life-lessons, looking for an outlet for your daily grumbles, or paving the way for your future career as a writer, keeping a blog allows you to do so.

You may wonder why bloggers don’t just stick to the old-school method of keeping a diary. The simple answer is that bloggers enjoy entertaining the notion that their words are having an influence on others. We all crave attention at times, and bloggers realise that a few well-chosen words or phrases can spark a controversial debate.

What’s more, blogging appeals to our constant need for information. We can write a blog post and immediately publish it on the web, whilst simultaneously sharing it with friends on Facebook and tweeting about it on Twitter, boosting our online presence even further when such posts are retweeted, commented on, liked, and shared. This can be really helpful for businesses looking to readdress any negative comments by building positive and relevant content which can then easily be optimised to show higher up the list when a customer types your business into Google.

If you’re hoping to kick-start your career in writing, keeping a blog and writing regular posts will help you to hone your writing skills. You’ll quickly notice that you’ll develop a unique writing style, whilst having great fun. Writing regularly will help you to become a great storyteller, as well as boost the creative side of your brain.

Blogging is also fantastic for shy people, as it allows them to put their thoughts and feelings into words. If you struggle articulating and expressing yourself verbally, why not give writing a go? You’ll probably find that you’re a lot more confident when you write, and seeing others comment positively and ‘like’ your work will only help by giving your self-esteem a much needed boost.

If you’re interested in creating your own blog from scratch, you’ll need to come up with a theme or a general topic for your writing that you can focus on in future posts, otherwise your blog will just end up being a random mish-mash of posts with no obvious connection.

To be a successful blogger, it’s important to write good quality content, so if you’re unsure what to write about and you find yourself sat staring at the blank computer screen, don’t post a blog that day. Only write when you have a clear idea of what to say, and your blogs will be entertaining and have greater meaning.

So what do you think? Is blogging reserved for those who possess an engaging and entertaining writing style, or can anyone become a successful blogger?

The post The history of the blog and why blogging has become so popular appeared first on Lakestar McCann.

5. 

I know we always quote it, but this again goes back to the ancient adage of ‘content is king’ – simply put, content is what makes the web. No matter how well optimised your site may be (which we’ll come onto), it will mean nothing without good content to back it up.

I started in the SEO game as a copywriter in another agency, churning out masses of content on a daily basis, eventually going to the dark side of spinning it. Then Panda stomped its feet all over my work and it became clear that the industry was changing – copywriters now work harder than ever to produce quality pieces, integral to the success of a site.

Whether powering off-site link bait, populating category pages or creating journalistic press releases to promote the brand and inform customers, or just writing about cats, we’d be nowhere without our content.

But surely it’s easy, I hear you complain! I for one can attest to it being far more difficult than it looks, but let’s hand over to one of our writers to explain what it’s actually like.

“The most important part of writing content, for me, is getting an idea. Sometimes this just pops into your head, other times you need to research if you’re not familiar with the topic. Even when you’re writing onsite content for a client following a specific brief, you still need to have an outline in your mind of where you want it to go, or it’ll just end up as a rambling mess with no clear structure.

Being a copywriter is tough because you have to find the balance between producing good content, and writing content quickly. Research into the topic is essential and the longer you do the job, the better you get at finding information and translating it into your own words.”

So here’s to you, diligent writers – you make the web what it is.

4. 

So you have fantastic content – what are you going to do with it? It needs to be put to good usage to ensure that it actually has a good reach and provides a benefit to the brand – after all the brand, is what your customer will remember.

It’s over to one of our SEO Account Managers here to explain the finer details of site optimisation, because you know, they’re geniuses –

It’s all very well building good quality backlinks to your website from relevant domains, however if your own site isn’t particularly well optimised all that hard work could be lost. Not only is an optimised website important for the reader in terms of user experience, but search engines will look for certain elements to examine the relevance of each URL.

Just a few of the key on-site factors from a search engine’s perspective include:

Page titles and meta descriptions

Unique page titles offer one of the most effective means to classify a page, and are highly weighted across the major search engines. Adding to this, meta Descriptions are useful for converting Search Engine users into customers, offering an idea of what the site offers before actually clicking it.

Relevant content and in-content linking

Whilst stuffing titles with keywords is most definitely not recommended, it is nonetheless effective to incorporate common search terms into content where relevant. In-content linking to deeper pages within the website ensures that authority is passed effectively across the site.

Canonicalisation

All non-WWW URLs should redirect to their WWW counterpart, thus preventing the indexation of pages through two separate URLs. It will also stop content being tagged by a search engine as “duplicate” (in which case content filters may be applied).

Simply put, the variations of

• http://www.lakestarmccann.com/
• http://www.lakestarmccann.com/index.html
• http://lakestarmccann.com/

will all point to the home page of Lakestar McCann, but only one will be considered canonical, hence why you’ll always redirect to http://www.lakestarmccann.com.

Microformats 

To ensure your organic listings stand out on the search engine results pages, microformats can provide customer ratings (stars) or breadcrumb navigation (allowing more than just 1 link through to your website), again adding credence to meta descriptions and influencing opinions… speaking of which…

3. 

So you have a strong site, an audience and good content – but what do your customers know about you?

Think about it this way – when you search on Google for an item that you wish to, you’re typically going to be presented with 10 results. In all likelihood, you will then use brand familiarity as a reasoning as to where you then purchase the item from – failing that, it could also be based on the aforementioned microformat rating system.

Digital marketing isn’t about trying to trick people to use your site – it’s about ensuring that users have an inherent trust in your brand. Whether this is through social interaction on Facebook and Twitter, providing responses to complaints or just providing unparalleled service, a single person’s opinion can be a very real catalyst for success.

Add to this, a poor company perception is likely to lead to negative site properties, such as poor reviews, complaints on forums… heck, we’ve seen companies that have an auto-complete of adding ‘scam’ or ‘complaints’ when searching for their brand. It’s the very reason that we take pride in brand reputation management at Lakestar McCann.

Finally, think of your end goal – conversion. Who’s going to convert? Your audience. And they need to trust you as a brand, a service provider, and most importantly, as people.

2. 

But of course, you actually need an audience to trust you, and you can’t expect people to just naturally flock to the site. Conventional methods of audience attraction would take the form of television radio advertisements, but in an increasingly digital age, what else can we do?

Naturally, there is the PPC and display element, which effectively introduces brands with a semantic association, promoting available products; however a number of regular internet users have trained themselves to ignore these advertisements. The Google Display Network is one of the most powerful tools in this respect, and combined with a sustained effort with affiliates, you have an impeccable way to encourage an audience.

And if all the factors above are good enough, this newly-introduced audience is far more likely to become repeat-customers and loyal to the brand.

However, looking at this from a more social perspective, a lot of new audience can be accrued simply through word-of-mouth. Naturally, a good reputation is going to encourage people to talk more about the brand, thereby listeners are likely to look the brand up and find out more. Other tactics such as competitions, surveys and a strong social message are sure-fire ways to further increase the fanbase and audience.

1. 

And finally, we get onto my favourite aspect (if you hadn’t guessed) – virality. This is not strictly saying that “You need to have viral content”; more that to succeed you actually need to look at what is being widely talked about on the web.

As much as I enjoy reading SEOMoz, searchenginejournal and SEObook, I too think it’s vital to read sites like buzzfeed and reddit, all the while keeping an eye firmly fixed on the Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest-iverses. There’s a very good reason that reddit touts itself to be the ‘front page of the internet’, and simply put, as a source of updates and news it’s quite flawless.

This is strengthened even further when an increasing number of news stories initially trend first on Twitter, considerably earlier than in media outlets and conventional news sites. This may be traced back to an announcement on one news site, but it is this instant sharing that beats other news sources, and often adds greater impact to the actual story attached – heck, an increasing number of news stories are actually about what celebrities have said on Twitter itself.

Social media often dictates what is popular, but we’ve all got too bogged down in numerous efforts to ‘go viral’, when realistically, we should be using what is already viral as leverage for content, and when the opportunity comes along for some ‘killer content’ (such as ‘Dumb Ways To Die’… quite literally), we should put the appropriate amount of time in, to increase the chance to in fact go viral.

Ultimately, looking at the state of the web and its culture is the best way to appeal to your audience, thereby growing your audience, who will naturally generate a buzz and conversation when they see that your brand is a modern and creative force. This in turn will improve the reputation of your brand, encouraging more visits to your site that is supported by quality content, guiding customers to conversion.

And boom, you’ve won the internet.

A big thanks to all the folks at Lakestar McCann for my wonderful time here and to any readers who have stumbled across this blog. I’ll be leaving you in the capable typing hands of Chris, who might actually not just talk about viral stuff all the time! Goodbye for now, all!

The post Five Things You Need To Know About Digital Marketing appeared first on Lakestar McCann.

Ugh, hashtags. Recently voted as word of the year, ‘Hashtag’ has become a prevailing way to figure out what is popular and what is likely to become viral – it would appear that investigating what is currently trending on Twitter often dictate what becomes news.

This can be seen with the recent (and depressing) hashtag #Cut4Bieber, which, whilst purportedly introduced as a joke by infamous imageboard 4chan, has hit news outlets worldwide as an epidemic amongst teens.

However, let’s focus on my personal top five hashtags of 2012 – as with most of my lists, this is not a decisive list and is simply based on what I think has had the most impact, whether for good or bad. So, away we go…

5. #FF

By no means is this a new phenomenon but by ‘eck is it all over Twitter – probably not today though, fortunately. Y’see, some helpeful people like recommending their favourite tweeters to their own followers (which you should totally do for @lakestarmccann), and decided to create their own day for recommending, known as ‘Follow Friday’, hence ‘FF’.

It’s certainly a darn sight better than the hashtags #f4f and #tfb, translating to ‘Follow For Follow’ and ‘Team Follow Back’, providing no benefit to the site other than accruing followers.

4. #Olympics

It seems like ages ago now, but it turns out that this year London played host to a wee little sports event called the Olympics. Initial predictions expected the UK to mess it up somehow, whether through lack of planning, budget or security, but somehow, we pulled it off! And the social media went mad for it.

Thanks to fantastic broadcasting by the BBC (Olympics) and Channel4 (Paralympics), the competing athletes effectively become national icons, and each and every event was facebook-ed, instagram-med and tweeted about. Every variation of hashtag peppered Twitter, from #OpeningCeremony to #ClosingCeremony – likely this is because the Olympics occurred in years that social media absolutely dominated the web, but it was a definitive way to unite viewers and provide unique insights. Good stuff.

3. #Sandy

Fortunately, this was far less important for the UK, as we did not suffer the storm, however our friends at McCann in the USA amongst a plethora of other companies were forced to close offices, electricity was lost, homes were destroyed, and 53 people died. It’s unsurprising then that this was to feature heavily on social media.

A great deal of these tweets were focused on photographs and powered through Instagram (well over 250,000), effectively feeding a force of ‘citizen journalism’, and showing Facebook that their purchase was a smart move. Sarah Lacy at PandoDaily said of the photos, “Hurricane Sandy…could be Instagram’s big citizen journalism moment”

She adds,

“In theory, Instagram has Twitter’s immediacy, and a broader reach, since it pushes notices out via Twitter, Facebook, Instgram’s own network, and email. Clearly images are the best way to tell a story like this, and Instagram’s whole raison d’être is to make people better photographers. Add to that the storm’s target on urban, hipster, we’re-not-scared New Yorkers, and the time seems as good as any for the revolution to be Instagrammed.”

There are a number of photo highlights on the Instagram blog, as well as on Buzzfeed.

2. #YOLO / #swag

Ugh, just… ugh. Excuse my grumpy old man-ness here, but 2012 seemed to be a year of preening youngsters bragging about their ‘gangsta’ lifestyle and how awesome they were.

#swag was more a focus on how much ‘swagger’ you had, similar to confidence and a cool attitude. I searched ‘swag’ on Google, and apparently it’s “An ornamental festoon of flowers, fruit, and greenery”, which frankly sounds lovely, but I doubt this is what is being tweeted about. Either way, it’s an unbearable expression that hopefully seems to be on its way out…

And in a similar vein, we have YOLO, which is short for ‘You Only Live Once’. Why the acronym? I’ve no idea, but apparently it’s something to do with this Drake fellow. This was quickly picked up on andapplied to tweets that showed a carefree attitude to life.

However, things took a tragic turn when upcoming rapper, Ervin McKinness tweeted about being drunk, speeding and drifting on corners, minutes before his car slammed into a wall, killing him and the four passengers in the car…

Posted at 1.19am on September 2, then followed by another tweet stating, ‘Driving tweeting sipping the cup f*** yolo I’m turning it up.”
Minutes later, the car crashed.

And the already unpopular phrase became even more so.

1. #SOPA

Just kidding.

Introduced in 2011, SOPA or the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ aimed to take any sites that infringed on intellectual property – whilst this would overall provide some kind of benefit to the safety of the web, it would also censor a huge amount of information and entertainment on the internet. Lawrence H Tribe, a Harvard University professor of constitutional law, stated that SOPA would “undermine the openness and free exchange of information at the heart of the Internet.”

In retaliation, sites such as Wikipedia, Reddit, The Oatmeal, Twitter, Newgrounds and even Google staged protests against the movement, thus leading to a massive outpouring of tweets with the hashtag #SOPA.

Google’s SOPA protest

And the outcome? According to the New York Times,

“Wikipedia went black to protest SOPA and more than seven million people signed online petitions, many of which said the bills would “break the Internet.” Congress, overwhelmed by the popular opposition, quickly backpedaled, leaving the legislation to die.”

Woop!

The post The Top Five Hashtags of 2012 appeared first on Lakestar McCann.

Somebody That I Used to Know – Walk off the Earth (Gotye – Cover) - 143,462,704 views

I actually still enjoy this song, but this weird little ditty  was undoubtedly tarnished by the likes of Glee and unbearable covers (that were essentially the same thing as the original), turning it from a surprise worldwide hit to an overplayed annoyance – but way back when in January, we all loved it.

Despite being released in 2011, the song didn’t gain attention until January – an this undoubtedly thanks in part to ‘Walk Off The Earth’s fantastic ‘5 people, 1 guitar’ cover. I think I might actually prefer this to the original.

Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic freefall from 128k’ – Mission Highlights - 31,835,391 views

What’s the easiest way to become viral? Why it’s plummeting from space in a 24 mile jump, of course! Yes, Felix Baumgartner essentially became a human comet, breaking the speed of sound as he made his incredible 834mph fall, and it’s no surprise that people have flocked to this video to see what the fuss was about.

Not really sure how he’s going to top this now… maybe attach a bungee rope?

Dumb Ways To Die - 35,745,545 views

What better way to get your message across than by mutilating cute little cartoons? Created by our friends in McCann Australia, this video quickly gained viral attention thanks to its unexpectedly violent, but well-executed (no pun intended) content and lovely little ditty, also inspiring so so so many covers.

The deliriously catchy song, cutesy morbid animation and overall silliness totally appealed to the YouTube crowd and received widespread press attention and rightly so. Good work chaps!

Extremely Scary Ghost Elevator Prank in Brazil - 56,090,666 views

Well, this just seems unnecessarily mean – I have to admit if this happened to me I’d most likely panic and freak out entirely. The basic premise is –

• Trap someone (either alone or as a couple) in an elevator
• Cut the lights so they’re already panicked
• Creepy girl dressed as a ghost enters through wall panel
• Lights turn back on
• Ghost girl screams at terrified victim
• Instant YouTube classic… apparently

It’s bad enough that the ghost appears, but why does she have to scream?! Twice! It’s just cruel!

Still, this is an undeniably well-executed prank that most likely left some of the victims with nasty nightmares, but it’s all fun and games, I guess? They later followed up with an elevator corpse prank, which frankly is almost just as bad. Apparently Brazil delights in the traumatised screams of its citizens!

KONY 2012 - 95,961,381 views

Remember when every popular video had a top comment of KONY 2012? That was a pretty odd time for us all – half of us only finding out who he was and the other half wondering why this horrible man had not yet been arrested. It really didn’t take long for #KONY2012 to become an overused hashtag that plagued all social media, unfortunately demeaning the campaign and making it more of a ‘meme’ than anything else. This could also be blamed on the oversimplification of the message, essentially encouraging people to donate without actually knowing what for – maybe simply to follow the trend look ‘cool’.

Turns out that becoming too viral can be of detriment.

Isaac’s Live Lip-Dub Proposal - 17,297,688 views

Aww, this is just… aww. Ridiculously well-organised and adorably performed, this lucky girlfriend got the most incredible proposal. Now, whilst I do genuinely think this is lovely – I’m a bit miffed…

Should I ever want to propose to my partner (don’t worry I don’t think she reads the blog), I know full well it will never be as elaborate as this. Isaac has set the bar far too high that my idea of dangling some fairy lights on a bench will simply look tacky, and for that reason, I both love and hate this video. Plus it’s Bruno Mars, who wears a silly hat.

Catch The Ice Dude (NSFW!) - 23,419,716 views

Never has the adage ‘pride comes before a fall’ rang so true – sadly this fall wasn’t quite what the star of the video expected. Logically when you jump into a frozen pool so you expected to tumble through the fragile ice into the cold, but soft cushion of water…

It does not happen that way.

Fletch & Vaughan: This is what crazy SOUNDS like via txt messaging - 738,030 views

This is an absolute favourite in the office, and although the video isn’t really worth watching, likely explaining the low play count, the audio (from New Zealand’s ‘Fletch and Vaughan Show’) is just… incredible. Taken from the Buzzfeed story ‘This Is What Crazy Looks Like via Text Messaging’ – this epic piece recounts the story of Kevin and JJ.

I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t listened to this as yet, but it’s simply a fantastically acted tragedy of when clinginess goes too far… way way too far. Poor JJ.

Bodyform Responds: The Truth / Dollar Shave Club - 3,597,751 views / 7,966,045 views

Although purely a commercial effort, both of these videos display a deadpan comedic side that likely shocked and attracted viewers. The first video ‘Bodyform Responds: The Truth’ claims to be the MD of Bodyform responding to a Facebook post, and is performed in such a confident and patronising manner that you can’t help but warm to her (also the blue water drink is a fantastic touch). Below is the post in question and the video below that.

Then we move onto one of my favourite viral videos of 2012 – Dollar Shave Club. Whilst this begins as what would appear to be a typical sales pitch, it quickly becomes clear that this is a clever piece of advertising using humour and wit to convey it’s message – it may not be subtle, but it never claims to be, and you’ll find that you instantly love the spokesperson, as well as the dance party at the end.

Gangnam Style – an incredible 1,120,983,232 views

And speaking of dance party, well…. you knew this was coming… Please refer to umpteen other blog posts detailing this and rest assured that we’ll still probably be Gangnam Styling into 2013, though probably ironically. Because that’s cool.

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We have to start with these two giants, as they really did send ripples through the industry. Yes, we are talking about Panda and Penguin. Panda was a much needed rethink from Google, as it really did make a push for fresh, up to date and relevant content. This is what the internet should be about.

And then we had Google Penguin, which was also released in 2012 (April 24^th to be exact), which acted almost like a tag team partner to Panda.

Something like this, I imagine

Whilst panda tackled the onsite issues of spammy, low quality websites (poor, old content), Penguin went to work behind the scenes, penalising sites, which displayed unnatural back linking profile, and what we like to call “dodgy” linking.

Penguin came as a real shock to many website owners, some of who lost a great deal of business. For the good of SEO, Penguin was a blessing, forcing the industry to become a lot more transparent, showing black hat SEO’s, that their work would be penalised, and that quick fixes will come back to haunt you.

Those who were penalised by Google had two options – clean up or face the consequences. Simply put, Google took a tough un-waivering approach to web spam.

2012 also saw a move to address the problem of exact match domains. It was becoming apparent that these sites were still ranking highly in the SERPS even if they had low quality content, and a poor backlink profile. Matt Cutts, and the team at Google HQ decided enough was enough, and announced to the world in September, that Exact Match Domains would be “looked into further”.

Google also changed its position in terms of customer interaction in 2012 – as many of us know, Google used to be a very secretive, “keep themselves to themselves” bunch, and to some extent they still are. However, over the last year, Goole has become more vocal, sending more messages, and penalty notices than ever before.

In 2 months alone (Jan & Feb) Google sent 700,000 emails via analytics. Compared to the whole of 2010, where Google sent just 15,000 emails, this is a great increase. What does this mean for us though, well, it means that we get a little glimpse into the workings of Google. We now know for sure what Google does not like (thanks to the penalty notices).

A little known update that was rolled out as one of five hundred “improvements” by Google came as music to my ears earlier this year.  The web spam team had been working on a way to remove parked domains from the SERPS – but this wasn’t quite as smooth as initially hoped.

All in all, thanks to the Google folks, maybe 2013 will mean, richer websites, with better content, and a much improved user experience. That’s what we’re all hoping for anyway, and the results so far are promising. So next year, let’s say sayonara to spam once and for all.

The post The SEO of 2012 in a Nutshell appeared first on Lakestar McCann.

First up is MajesticSEO. Supposedly the “Largest link intelligence database on the planet”, Majestic has a massive index and is updated on a daily basis. This is a great tool for really looking at the nitty gritty of a website’s link profile. Practically anything want to know including most valuable links, anchor text distribution (something that has been particularly relevant this year), linking domains and loads more can be found using MajesticSEO. It also has a powerful API, which allows you to create your own bespoke tools using Majestic’s index. Majestic may not be the prettiest backlink analysis tool out there, but it’s certainly one of the most powerful.

Which brings nicely on to another link analysis tool well known among SEOs the world over; Open Site Explorer. Open Site explorer has a substantial index – with 78 billion URLs and 917 trillion links – although it’s not as large, or updated as regularly updated as Majestic’s. Many SEOs place more trust in Open Site Explorers metrics than Majestic’s. It’s often worth using both tools to get the best of both worlds.

Another indexing tool worth mentioning is Ahrefs. Once again, this is similar to Open Site Explorer, and Majestic, with many of the same features. The thing I love about Ahrefs is the presentation of the dashboard and how all of the information is well laid out and easy to access. Another great feature of Ahrefs is the keyword checker, although that is unfortunately being decommissioned on the 11^th of January.

Next up is the old faithful – SEOmoz toolbar. This is a must have in the office and uses Open Site Explorer’s statistics to show page and domain authority of potential linking sites. This allows you to quickly get an idea of the quality of a site you might be thinking of targeting for a link. Another great feature of the SEOmoz toolbar is the link checking tool. This feature allows you to see if a link is followed, non-followed or an internal link. The toolbar also gives us a quick overview of the number of links pointing to the site we are looking at. It’s a great way of getting a quick comparison between sites and seeing if a site ranks approximately “where it should” in the SERPs. As always, the metrics are to be taken with a pinch of salt but are always worth looking at.

Last, but by no means least in our countdown of SEO tools is Link Detective. This is an interesting one – Link Detective claims to analyse a website’s backlinks and categorise them into different types of websites. It works surprisingly well – in my experience it usually manages to categorise around 40-50% of links which doesn’t sound like much but it can be quite useful for quickly spotting a certain type of link in a link profile. What I really like about this tool though is the potential it shows for where SEO tools could go in the future…

So there you have it. Our list is by no means exhaustive, and we all use a host of great tools, but we all need to have some secrets. Happy optimising!

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