Thursday, March 4, 2010
Google search engine optimisation requirements official review
Dr Search's post yesterday in Google's own official search engine optimisation requirements exposed highlighted Google's own internal research into it's website.
Today I'm examining in greater depth the results of that reserach.
The first observation from the 49 page pdf is that metatags in the form of both the titles and descriptions are key search engine optimisation elements.
The heartening point is that Google admits that roughly 90% of it's own pages could do with improvements in these respects.
Nearly a third of it's pages need headings improvements.
Even it's internal text links- a key algorithmic element of Brin and Page's mathematical calculations, need improvements in a third of it's own pages.
Conversely only a third of it's pictures and logos have correct links.
For the full Google report card, please see: http://www.searchclinic.org/google-seo-report-card.pdf
It is 1.64 Mb in size and in PDF format.
Dr Search at the Search Clinic openly lives by the adage- "Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day, give a man a fishing rod and you will feed him for life."
Yes you can learn and do your own search engine optimisation- but would you rather spend time doing what you do best- building your business or on improving your website?
Labels: Dr Search, Google, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, search engines
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, March 04, 2010
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Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Yahoo- 15 years old today
Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic says Happy 15th Birthday Yahoo! and reproduces this message from their founders.
We want to share our pride, gratitude and excitement on this 15th birthday, with all Yahoo! users (600 million of them), customers and partners. It continues to be an incredible ride for the two of us, as well as for thousands of Yahoo! employees we have had the privilege of working with over the years.
We’ve had the unique opportunity to help create an industry and shape the online world, and will continue to focus on the values that brought us here —working hard, having fun, being passionate about your ideas, believing in each other, and always trying to invent the future. And as we celebrate 15 years today, we are even more excited than ever about what lies ahead, and the potential of Yahoo! and the Internet.
Of course, we didn’t set out to start one of the world’s largest Internet companies or be leading a movement that has changed the world. We were just a couple of Stanford graduate students doing our research (supposedly) while our professor was on sabbatical.
More interesting than our research was our total fascination with the web and all the cool stuff it suddenly made available. But it was incredibly hard to keep track of the thousands of great websites sprouting up everywhere. We thought it would be fun to catalog the sites by developing a simple directory. So all this began with nothing more than a hobby to help other early Internet users.
Amazing things happen when we’re doing what’s fun.
We soon learned a huge lesson just as relevant today as then: change and growth on the Internet happen at warp speed—especially if you’re filling a need. With the proliferation of websites and with hundreds of thousands of people accessing our guide, it was simply impossible for us to continue doing this on our own.
Taking big steps takes belief in yourself—and in others.
After many late nights and a lot of pizza, we decided to take the big leap, turn our hobby into a business, raise money and devote ourselves totally to building a company. This was no sure thing. For example, 15 years ago, we wanted a free service that was ad-supported.
But the conventional wisdom was that our business needed to be subscription-based. Few people thought that advertising could be the key revenue generator for the Internet. Of course, the conventional wisdom was wrong and so today we know that August, 1995, the month our first ad went live, was a critical milestone in the history of Yahoo!, as well as the history of the internet.
Focus on the future: it still looks phenomenal.
Internet growth continues to be simply phenomenal, and we’re nowhere near done. Fifteen years ago, there were 18,000 web sites and fewer than 10 million people globally on the Internet—less than one third of a single percent of the world’s population at the time. Today there are more than 200 million websites with 90,000 created daily. There are estimated to be 1.6 billion people on the internet today—about 25 percent of the world’s population.
These numbers are astonishing, but even more important and more exciting is the impact that the Internet is having on so many people around the world. From socio-economic opportunities to more accessible health care to educating the next generation and beyond, the Internet has changed the way we live, work and learn. It has overcome geographic and political barriers and has made it possible for people to raise their voices as they seek greater economic opportunity and freedom. And Yahoo! has been a leader in enabling these tremendous technological advancements every step of the way.
Let’s aim to be even prouder fifteen years from now than we are today!
All this in just 15 years. Yahoo! has been built by thousands of dedicated employees, hundreds of millions of loyal users and scores of advertisers who envisioned a future that was exciting, challenging and at times daunting. To work in the sandbox that is Yahoo! and the evolution of the Internet is truly amazing.
And yet as fast as the Internet and Yahoo! have grown and as remarkably our lives have changed, we are just at the beginning of this great transformation.
The Internet still has enormous and untapped potential. There are billions of more people we need to drive online, and then provide them with relevant content and opportunities that they’ve never dreamed about before.
We are confident that 15 years from today, we will look back in marvel at how far you, and the Internet have traveled in such a short time. Just as we are doing today.
Jerry Yang and David Filo
Co-Founders & Chief Yahoos
From:
Labels: Dr Search, Search Clinic, search engines, Search Marketing, Yahoo
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, March 02, 2010
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Evil let loose after Google's buzz breaches email privacy
Once again Google has breached millions of peoples' personal privacy- this time with the launch of it's new social networking site Buzz.
The launch of the Buzz networking site has backfired badly
On Tuesday Feb 16th Eva Hibnick, a Harvard law student, opened her Gmail account and saw an offer for Buzz, a new service from Gmail’s owner, Google. She wasn’t interested. “I just clicked ‘No, go to my inbox’,” she said. Within hours she and millions of others realised that sometimes no means yes.
Now Hibnick is taking Google to court, and the search giant is left fighting a rearguard action in the latest skirmish over privacy on the internet.
Hibnick, 24, is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed against Google over the launch of Buzz, a social networking service that lets people bring their online connections together to share status updates, videos and photos.
With 146m users, the sheer size of Gmail instantly catapulted Buzz into the top ranks of social networking sites alongside Facebook and Twitter.
As Gmail users were quick to point out, though, they chose to join those networks, while Buzz’s new army was conscripted. The service raided a Gmail user’s contacts book to set up the social network.
The people we contact most frequently are not necessarily those with whom we have the closest relationship. Within hours of the Buzz launch, angry tales were being told of people’s contact details and other information being passed on to the “psychotic” and “abusive ex-husbands”.
Actress Felicia Day, Vi in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, found herself deluged with messages from strangers after posting one message on Buzz. “Buzz things turn up as a message in your inbox? Disabling now. Heart attack,” she wrote. Before Google changed Buzz, some fans would also have been able to see who Day emailed most frequently.
Hibnick and her lawyer claim that information she had a right to consider private had been shared among her Gmail contacts. “I signed up for a private email account, not for a social networking site. They can’t just opt you in,” she said.
“Basically all my email contacts were accessible. Everyone is so shocked that Google would do this.”
Fellow Harvard law student Benjamin Osborn, who is assisting on the case, said the initial problem was that it was not clear what information was being shared and with whom.
Hibnick’s lawyer said Google could face statutory damages of $1,000 per occurrence — a potentially huge sum given Gmail’s size. But he added that the real aim was to force Google to put better checks and balances in place over privacy.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, the watchdog based in Washington DC, has now asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether consumers were harmed and has asked the commission to demand that Google ask Gmail users to sign up for Buzz instead of enrolling them automatically.
Google moved swiftly to contain the crisis last week, dropping the automatic sign-up and offering clearer instructions on how to opt out of the service and keep messages private.
“We made some mistakes and we accept that,” said Peter Barron, Google’s head of communications. “But if you look at the way we responded, I hope people will see that we reacted quickly to those criticisms and made significant improvements.
“These days everyone leaves a data trail, whether it’s from shopping online, using your mobile phone or doing a search. When you use a credit card you are exposing far more about yourself than in an online search but people generally trust credit-card companies not to misuse their data. At Google, users’ trust is all we have. We take privacy very seriously and build privacy features into all our products based on the principles of transparency, choice and user control.
“Those features were and are present in Buzz, but we accept they could have been clearer. Buzz is not about making private information public unless you choose to.”
Don Cruse, a Houston based lawyer, said that what disturbed him most about Buzz was that it was automatic. In a blog he warned clients, and journalists, that they could end up sharing confidential contacts if they used the service. He said Google was “repurposing old data in a way that flouts our expectations of privacy”.
“People have an expectation of privacy with email. There are lots of famous examples of emails making it to people they shouldn’t have reached. But this was not an accident, it was a deliberate change in structure,” he said.
“The big story is that they wanted to set up a social network, something they have failed to do well in the past. The downside is that they have hurt the Gmail brand.”
The Buzz controversy is unlikely to end in epic fines for Google. Last year Facebook paid $9.5m (£6.2m) to settle a similar class-action lawsuit over Beacon, an advertising system that tracked Facebook users’ online activity outside the site and told other users what they had been up to.
Perhaps more damaging is the damage Buzz has done to Google’s image. John Quelch, a Harvard Business School professor, said it faces two problems in any new venture. “First, Google is a hostage to its publicly stated aim to ‘Do no evil’. That definition of evil is open to considerable interpretation. They have to be very careful that this aim isn’t viewed with cynicism rather than respect.”
Second, Quelch said the execution of Google’s search business is so far ahead of its rivals that people had high expectations of any new service. “They rather missed it on Buzz,” he said.
Dr Search suggests that if the financial penalty is a grand apiece that equates to a worst case scenario of a whopping $146,000,000,000 fine. That's equivalent to roughly it's entire shareholder value.
However even greater reputational damage has been done by reminding everyone that despite it's "does no bad" stance Google has past form on the rough and ready treatment of people's data privacy.
And a wake up call to those of you thinking of joining the GoogleWave- where all of your documents and files sit on their servers. Not just your emails.
Interview with Eva Hibnick on Times Online at:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article7034912.eceLabels: Buzz, Dr Search, Facebook, Google, Google Wave, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, February 23, 2010
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Friday, February 19, 2010
HootSuite adds social media CRM functionality
Social media dashboard HootSuite has released an upgraded version boasting social CRM tools for marketers and customer support teams.
Already popular for enabling users to distribute messages across multiple social networks, including Twitter and Facebook, the latest iteration features tools to gather intelligence, manage audiences and track campaigns.
Designed to appeal to marketing departments and customer support teams, HootSuite has announced it will enable users to:
* Know your audience by learning who follows you, and who they are via a ‘Friends and Followers’ chart, and by viewing profiles, influence and activity levels.
* Gather intelligence and discover what outreach tactics work best with customer URL parameters which allow deep analysis in Google Analytics and Omniture
* Answer efficiently by building an archive of stock responses to common customer support queries
* Track success by examining click-through rates on messages, examining time and region breakdowns and reporting as CSV for custom reports or PDF for printing
"In the last update, we added Wordpress, URL previews, and trending topic details, but we didn't rest in the nest," said HootSuite President Ryan Holmes. "With the new version, marketers can hone tactics with deep campaign tracking and reporting tools.
Further, the friends and followers charting features will help everyone build the relationships which make social networking tools so useful."
Dr Search handles a growing number of Twitter, Facebook as well as Google accounts. So the growing idea of one contrilling panel appeals to us.
Labels: Dr Search, Facebook, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, February 19, 2010
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Thursday, February 18, 2010
Social web marketing suggestions
On Tuesday Dr Search posted- Few online shops have social networks media, but the majority of UK shoppers buy from them.
More than two thirds of all UK online shoppers use social media, with Facebook being by far the most popular but half of top online retailers have a minimal or non existent presence social media presence.
When we reported on the findings of a poll among 10,000 visitors to the UK’s top 40 e-commerce websites undertaken by ForeSee Results, an organisation that measures online customer satisfaction.
The main conclusion was get a Facebook page Now!
With follow up suggestions of:
- Make sure you have someone to monitor it and post good, timely information.
- Promote it to your most loyal customers through your regular communications venues (emails, ads,
stores, coupons, etc.).
- Use your Facebook page to post promotions and product information.
Easier said than done admittedly. There are a lot of ins and outs to social media strategy and the right formula will differ for each company. But for those retailers who have a poor to middling presence on Facebook, it’s a good place to start while you figure out how social media plays into your global brand strategy.
However here’s a truly revolutionary idea: DON'T listen to all of these ideas and opinions about what your customers and prospects want based on over 10,000 online shoppers of 40 of the biggest online retailers in the United Kingdom.
Instead ask your own customers what they want.
- Find out what social media sites they frequent.
- Find out whether they want sales or coupons or technical support or product information.
- Find out how satisfied they are with your current social media efforts and
- How likely they are to purchase, return, and recommend your business as a result of your interactions.
There’s a lot about social media and online marketing initiatives that is really hard to work out, but asking customers what they want from you is a truely great marketing initiative.
Labels: Dr Search, Facebook, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, February 18, 2010
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Few online shops have social networks media, but the majority of UK shoppers buy from them
More than two thirds of all UK online shoppers use social media, with Facebook being by far the most popular but half of top online retailers have a minimal or non existent presence social media presence.
These are the findings of a poll among 10,000 visitors to the UK’s top 40 e-commerce undertaken by ForeSee Results, an organisation that measures online customer satisfaction.
The study indicated that of the 69% of online consumers who use social networking sites, about 37% opted to ‘friend’, ‘follow’ or ‘subscribe’ to retailers, with more than half of such respondents doing so in order to learn about their products.
A further 40% did so to learn about special deals, while only 6% used social media primarily to obtain customer support.
About 56% of all online shoppers used Facebook, however, with the figure jumping to a huge 80% if the focus was narrowed to regular social media users.
This would appear to imply that the site is the best place to reach shoppers in both categories, not only because they are there already, but also because it appears that many are keen to hear from chosen brands.
Despite such findings, an unofficial look at the Facebook pages of the top 100 online retailers indicated that a quarter had no official presence and a further quarter had less than 10,000 followers.
In a further note of caution, nearly three quarters of social media fans chose to ‘friend’ or ‘follow’ less than five organisations, with only 4% interacting with more than 20. This means that the majority of online shoppers give very few retailers any air time.
Kevin Entell, vice president of retail strategy at ForSee, said: "Site visitors who also interact with a company on a social media site are more satisfied, more committed to the brand, and more likely to make future purchases from that company."
But there was a chicken and egg situation taking place, he added. "It is likely that customers who are more satisfied and loyal to begin with are the ones who will friend us on Facebook or subscribe to our YouTube channels," Entell said. "However, research shows that when retailers provide rewarding social media experiences, our customers become even more satisfied and loyal."
The results were backed up by another poll from digital marketing agency dotCommerce among 100 UK retailers. It indicated that a mere 42% of UK retailers had a social media presence, with only 12% using more than one site.
Of the retailers using such sites, only 24% had a Facebook presence, while 26% preferred Twitter. They preferred to employ the latter to keep consumers aware of product updates (73%), push out marketing messages (63%) and company news (58%).
Dr Search asks if you one of the three quarters being left behind by the social web marketing growth? If so and you would like some help- please just ask here now!
Labels: Dr Search, Facebook, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter, YouTube
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, February 17, 2010
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Mobile firms unite to offer mobi apps applications
Twenty four of the largest phone operators have banded together to challenge Apple's dominance of mobile apps applications.
The Wholesale Applications Community, as it is known, aims to make it easier for developers to build and sell apps "irrespective of device or technology".
The alliance, which includes Vodafone, China Mobile and Sprint, has access to more than three billion customers.
Analysts said it was an attempt by operators to "regain control of apps".
The app market is currently a lucrative business for mobile firms.
Analysts at Gartner have predicted that spending on the specialist pieces of software will hit $6.2bn (£4bn) this year with the number of downloads rising to 4.5 billion from 2.5 billion last year.
It predicts that downloads will top 21 billion by 2013, yielding almost $30bn.
Apple currently dominates the app market, with more than 3 billion downloaded from its app store in 18 months.
Blackberry, Google, Nokia, Symbian and Microsoft all offer their own app stores.
As a result, developers often have to create different versions of apps and go through separate approval processes for each individual store.
The Wholesale Applications Community aims to overcome this fragmentation by offering a single "open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users".
It aims to develop a common standard for applications in the next 12 months.
As well as the 24 network operators, the work is also supported by hardware manufacturers such as LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, as well as industry body the GSM association.
The consortium's approach to simplify application development and distribution is echoed by software firm Adobe.
The company has announced that it will begin to offer its AIR platform on mobile devices, starting with phones running Google's Android operating system.
AIR is currently available on desktops and allows developers to build desktop applications for services that are more commonly found in the browser.
For example, there are a number of Twitter applications that use AIR. Until now it has been unavailable on smart phones.
The technology could make it easier for developers to create and publish apps that can run on many different platforms at the same time.
Apple has traditionally spurned some Adobe software - such as Flash - on its iPhone.
However, Adobe has now built a tool that allows developers to build an app for phone running AIR and easily publish a slightly different version which should also run on the iPhone.
Dr Search notes that the implications are clear for online businesses if you don't already have a version of your website that is mobile compatible- do so in the next 12 months as your competitors are already.
Labels: Dr Search, mobile marketing, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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Monday, February 15, 2010
Fundamental flaws found in UK's chip and pin security systems
Cambridge University scientists have discovered a fundamental design flaw in the UK's chip and pin credit card readers raising worries that the defects could be exploited to perpetrate fraud on a massive scale.
More than 90% of point-of-sale card transactions in the UK are now conducted using chip-and-pin systems, according to the UK Payments Administration, which represents the interests of payment card companies. In 2008, plastic cards were used to make 7.4 billion purchases, worth a total of £380 billion.
But Cambridge academics have now found a way to trick the system into thinking that the correct pin number has been entered by exploiting the way that remote readers communicate with the main shop terminal.
Flaws in the Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) protocol, which enables chip-and-pin transactions to be validated, means that third party devices can be introduced between the readers and terminals to intercept communications.
Such breaches are known as "man-in-the-middle" attacks and would allow fraudsters to use stolen credit or debit cards by simply entering four zeros. The cards tested were issued by Barclaycard, the Co-op Bank, the Halifax, Bank of Scotland, HSBC and John Lewis.
Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University told the BBC’s Newsnight programme last week: "Chip-and-pin is fundamentally broken. We think this is one of the biggest flaws that we’ve uncovered – that has ever been uncovered – against payment systems, and I’ve been in this business for 25 years."
The researchers, who have already contacted the banks about the problem, said that the programming skills required to build a ‘man-in-the-middle’ device were relatively simple.
But the UK Payments Administration rejected the conclusions found in their paper entitled 'Chip and PIN is Broken'. It said that there was no evidence that such attacks were not happening in UK stores today, although the research would help it to evaluate the direction in which criminals may move.
More than 90% of point-of-sale card transactions in the UK are now conducted using chip-and-pin systems, according to the UK Payments Administration, which represents the interests of payment card companies. In 2008, plastic cards were used to make 7.4 billion purchases, worth a total of £380 billion.
But Cambridge academics have now found a way to trick the system into thinking that the correct pin number has been entered by exploiting the way that remote readers communicate with the main shop terminal.
Flaws in the Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) protocol, which enables chip-and-pin transactions to be validated, means that third party devices can be introduced between the readers and terminals to intercept communications.
Such breaches are known as "man-in-the-middle" attacks and would allow fraudsters to use stolen credit or debit cards by simply entering four zeros. The cards tested were issued by Barclaycard, the Co-op Bank, the Halifax, Bank of Scotland, HSBC and John Lewis.
Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University told the BBC’s Newsnight programme last week: "Chip-and-pin is fundamentally broken. We think this is one of the biggest flaws that we’ve uncovered – that has ever been uncovered – against payment systems, and I’ve been in this business for 25 years."
The researchers, who have already contacted the banks about the problem, said that the programming skills required to build a ‘man-in-the-middle’ device were relatively simple.
But the UK Payments Administration rejected the conclusions found in their paper entitled 'Chip and PIN is Broken'. It said that there was no evidence that such attacks were not happening in UK stores today, although the research would help it to evaluate the direction in which criminals may move.
Dr Search has long known of flaws, not only in the chip and pin process, but more fundementally in the UK banking system.
UK banks have repeatedly failed to state in a UK court of law that their offline systems are 100% secure. So how can an online system be 100% secure? Until such time as the UK banks finally make their systems secure or they admit to errors we suggest that you don't trust your bank.
Labels: Dr Search, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, February 15, 2010
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Friday, February 12, 2010
Dr Search lectures at University of Gloucestershire
Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic yesterday gave a talk to MBA students at the University of Gloucestershire on the subject of Managing Online Customer Relationships for social media marketing.
Dr Search commented- "It's amazing the lack of online marketing knowledge of really intelligent people."
Over a century ago Lord Leverhulme the founder of Unilever worked out that he wasting half of his marketing budget.
The Search Clinic has saved one of our clients over 93% of his pay per click budet- and still get the smae amount of traffic.
If you would like some help with your online marketing, please just click here now- online marketing.
Labels: Dr Search, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, February 12, 2010
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Facebook is the new threat to Google
Facebook is now sending more traffic to US news sites than Google- as the proportion of traffic from Facebook has tripled while that of Google News stayed static.
More people are coming to US news sites via Facebook and other social networking sites such as Twitter – supplanting Google News, which had been one of the primary sources of readers, according to research by the metrics company Hitwise.
During the past year, the proportion of traffic that Facebook sends to US media sites has tripled from around 1.2% to 3.52%, while that sent by Google News has remained roughly static, at around 1.4%, says Heather Hopkins, North America analyst for Hitwise.
The growing power of Facebook also means that publishers which want to demand money from – or alternatively to lock out – Google News because of claims that it "leeches" on their content could do so without fearing a dramatic impact on their reader figures.
With more than 400m users, Facebook forms the newest – and most unexpected – threat to Google, say some analysts.
Last weekend the search engine spent $5m on a TV advert during the Superbowl, puzzling many who do not see a threat from rival search engines such as Microsoft's Bing, which has less than half of its proportion of search queries.
But Hopkins notes in a blogpost for Hitwise that: "Facebook could be a major disruptor to the News and Media category. And with the Wall Street Journal already publishing content to Facebook, perhaps the social network can avoid the run-ins that Google has suffered recently with Rupert Murdoch. We will continue to watch this space."
Murdoch's editors and executives have repeatedly criticised aggregators such Google News, claiming it is leeching off their content by displaying snippets of their work. In the UK, the Murdoch-owned titles have gone as far as blocking access to their sites by Newsnow, a smaller news aggregator.
Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, has argued that publishers should take advantage of the traffic that it sends them – pointing out that it sends about 4bn such links per year.
But Facebook provides the perfect counterweight, where publishers can choose how much of their content they display and view how well it is followed. Sites such as Facebook and increasingly Twitter contribute hundreds of thousands of visits every month to UK sites, according to analysis by the Guardian.
John Minnihan, the founder of the software code respository Freepository, warns that Facebook poses one of the biggest threats to Google on the web. "With recent data showing a large uptick in 'Facebook as home page', [Google] may well indeed need to remind emerging generation who/what it is."
"In that case, the [Superbowl] ad makes some business sense. Whatever the real reason, it has nothing to do with 'sharing video more widely'. If FB dev'ed an integrated web-wide search engine, think about how much traffic would evaporate [from Google] overnite. That's nightmare stuff."
Tellingly, Minnihan's comments were made on Twitter — which Google is rumoured to be trying to compete with in a "social version" of its Gmail webmail product.
Google has already tried – and failed – to create a world-scale social network with its Orkut product, but been obliged instead to purchase access to Twitter's search results to provide real-time insight into what people are talking about.
Facebook's content however lies beyond its reach – and that could be crucial in the forthcoming months as news publishers in the US and UK consider putting up higher paywalls or demanding money from aggregators.
Dr Search found the social media news story on the Guardian's website at:
Labels: bing, Dr Search, Facebook, Google, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, February 10, 2010
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Monday, February 8, 2010
Google closes Blogger support- to save money
So much for Google's vaunted promise to “do good”. Dr Search has recently learnt that in order to cut costs Google will no longer offer support to it's Blogger clients who have the cheek to host their own content on their own servers, like the Search Clinic Blog.
Dr Search wasn't terribly chuffed last year when google's blogger usurped the Search Clinic favicon with their own favicon.
When questioned about this doubtful behaviour by Dr Search google claimed that it was solvable. However blogger's template doesn't actually allow for google's suggested changes.
As a result we started to question google's motives for trying to stealing third party blog content.
This lie has proved the unprofessionalism of google as their latest plans now attest. The balance of the communication with google is reproduced below:
http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/
The full text of the announcement at Blogger Buzz follows:
Last May, we discussed a number of challenges facing Blogger users who relied on FTP to publish their blogs. FTP remains a significant drain on our ability to improve Blogger: only .5% of active blogs are published via FTP — yet the percentage of our engineering resources devoted to supporting FTP vastly exceeds that. On top of this, critical infrastructure that our FTP support relies on at Google will soon become unavailable, which would require that we completely rewrite the code that handles our FTP processing.
Three years ago we launched Custom Domains to give users the simplicity of Blogger, the scalability of Google hosting, and the flexibility of hosting your blog at your own URL. Last year's post discussed the advantages of custom domains over FTP and addressed a number of reasons users have continued to use FTP publishing.
For that reason, we are announcing today that we will no longer support FTP publishing in Blogger after March 26, 2010. We realize that this will not necessarily be welcome news for some users, and we are committed to making the transition as seamless as possible. To that end:
* We are building a migration tool that will walk users through a migration from their current URL to a Blogger-managed URL (either a Custom Domain or a Blogspot URL) that will be available to all users the week of February 22. This tool will handle redirecting traffic from the old URL to the new URL, and will handle the vast majority of situations.
* We will be providing a dedicated blog and help documentation
* Blogger team members will also be available to answer questions on the forum, comments on the blog, and in a few scheduled conference calls once the tool is released.
We have a number of big releases planned in 2010. While we recognize that this decision will frustrate some users, we look forward to showing you the many great things on the way. Thanks for using Blogger.
Regards,
Rick Klau
Blogger Product Manager
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Labels: Dr Search, Google, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, February 08, 2010
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Monday, February 1, 2010
Basic website filenaming structures
Your website's URL structure is an important search engine optimisation factor, so Dr Search thought I’d write a quick post covering some useful guidelines for you to keep in mind when building your website.
Let’s take a look at a typical small business website. While this may not be the case for every business, most sites often have the following pages in common:
* Homepage
* Services/Products Page
* Testimonials Page
* About Us Page
* Contact Us Page
Using the pages above, here’s an example of how to maximize the SEO impact of your URLs.
Homepage (www.example.com)
When choosing your domain name, always try and include your primary keyword somewhere in the name. A good strategy for this is creating a keyword + generic domain name. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword "electrican", you might go for gloucestershireelectrcian.com, cheltenhamelectrician.net, or gloucestershirelighting.com etc.
Services/Products Page (www.example.com/[keyword])
On the page which lists your services or products, use another major keyword as the directory for this page. Using the example above, you might want to create the following pages:
* /electrcian-services
* /electrican-qualifications
Testimonials Page (www.example.com/[keyword]-testimonials)
The testimonials page is another chance for you to include one of your important keywords. Try using the format /[keyword]-testimonials, where keyword represents your business type or industry. Some examples might be:
* /electrician-testimonials
* /gloucestershire-testimonials
* /lighting-testimonials
About Us Page (www.example.com/about-[business name])
The about us page is a chance to make sure your website ranks strongly when customers search for your business name. Using the directory format /about-[businessname] with the business name in Meta tags and body content a good way to achieve this.
Contact Us Page (www.example.com/contact-us-[business name])
For the contact us page I’d recommend sticking with a simple /contact-us [business name] format which is standard across most sites and is easy for customers to remember. You will also get your name in regularly if you have a contact us link at the bottom of every page- as a call to action.
Whilst URL structuring is no magic bullet for search negine optimisation, following the above guidelines is a good way to build a solid foundation.
Let’s take a look at a typical small business website. While this may not be the case for every business, most sites often have the following pages in common:
* Homepage
* Services/Products Page
* Testimonials Page
* About Us Page
* Contact Us Page
Using the pages above, here’s an example of how to maximize the SEO impact of your URLs.
Homepage (www.example.com)
When choosing your domain name, always try and include your primary keyword somewhere in the name. A good strategy for this is creating a keyword + generic domain name. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword "electrican", you might go for gloucestershireelectrcian.com, cheltenhamelectrician.net, or gloucestershirelighting.com etc.
Services/Products Page (www.example.com/[keyword])
On the page which lists your services or products, use another major keyword as the directory for this page. Using the example above, you might want to create the following pages:
* /electrcian-services
* /electrican-qualifications
Testimonials Page (www.example.com/[keyword]-testimonials)
The testimonials page is another chance for you to include one of your important keywords. Try using the format /[keyword]-testimonials, where keyword represents your business type or industry. Some examples might be:
* /electrician-testimonials
* /gloucestershire-testimonials
* /lighting-testimonials
About Us Page (www.example.com/about-[business name])
The about us page is a chance to make sure your website ranks strongly when customers search for your business name. Using the directory format /about-[businessname] with the business name in Meta tags and body content a good way to achieve this.
Contact Us Page (www.example.com/contact-us-[business name])
For the contact us page I’d recommend sticking with a simple /contact-us [business name] format which is standard across most sites and is easy for customers to remember. You will also get your name in regularly if you have a contact us link at the bottom of every page- as a call to action.
Whilst URL structuring is no magic bullet for search negine optimisation, following the above guidelines is a good way to build a solid foundation.
If you’ve got any other URL advice, please let the Search Clinic know in the comments box below!
Labels: Dr Search, online marketing, Search Clinic, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO Services
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, February 01, 2010
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Thursday, January 28, 2010
How to grow a forum online- the right and wrong way to go
Growing online forums should be simple, however some people make it harder to be succesfull.
Dr Search recently come across this guide from FeverBee Richard Millington on the Right and Wrong way to develop a community:
Do you think the person that created this forum really had a clue what s/he was doing? Nobody will participate in a forum that looks this empty.
There are a few lessons here:
1) When you launch a new forum you begin with just one subject/topic. As the forum grows and it becomes clear that you need more than one place, you create another topic.
2) Don’t try to predict what your community will talk about in advance. This is what leads to empty forums like those above. Just respond to what they talk about – and put an influential member on that topic in charge of that section.
If your members talk about obscure widgets from china a lot, create a separate forum for it with someone who speaks about the topic the most in charge of moderation.
3) It’s really hard to be the first person to create the topic. So when you do create the second forum you transfer relevant existing threads (and if you have any, you don’t need the forum) from the old forum to the new forum.
p.s. This is my favourite example of a terrible online community.
Thanks to Richard Millington
Labels: Dr Search, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, January 28, 2010
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Larry Page and Sergey Brin Google's founders to sell shares
According to an SEC filing late last week, Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin “each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares” — over a period of five years.
This is not a reaction to any particular development in the market or perception of the outlook for Google; rather this is part of a plan to diversify their portfolios over time.
According to the filing:
According to the filing:
" These pre-arranged stock trading plans were adopted in order to allow Larry and Sergey to sell a portion of their Google stock over time as part of their respective long term strategies for individual asset diversification and liquidity . Using these plans, they can gradually diversify their investment portfolios and can spread stock trades out over an extended period of time to reduce market impact ."
Larry and Sergey currently hold approximately 57.7 million shares of Class B common stock, which represents approximately 18% of Google’s outstanding capital stock and approximately 59% of the voting power of Google’s outstanding capital stock.
Under the terms of these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, and as a part of a five year diversification plan, Larry and Sergey each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares. If Larry and Sergey complete all the planned sales under these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, they would continue to collectively own approximately 47.7 million shares, which would represent approximately 15% of Google’s outstanding capital stock and approximately 48% of the voting power of Google’s outstanding capital stock (assuming no other sales and conversions of Google capital stock occur).
Google has a dual class stock structure, consisting of Class A and Class B stock. Currently Brin and Page control about 59% of the Class B stock, but a minority of all outstanding shares. Class A shares have one vote each and Class B shares each control 10 votes.
At the end of the five year diversification term specified in the SEC filing, the two co-founders would own 47.7% of Class B shares. And together with CEO Eric Schmidt they would still own more than 50% of the Class B shares.
There have been unsuccessful efforts in the past to equalize the voting power of all shareholders.
One could argue that this dual-class stock structure enables Google to do things like stand up to the Chinese government, against the dominant logic of the market and potential objections of Class A shareholders (especially institutional shareholders). Indeed, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has criticized the move as “irrational.”
With the closing price tonight at $542 (£338) if the full 10 million shares were sold today they would generate around £3.40 billion in cash. However they would still have stock holdings worth approximately another £30 billion.
Google has a dual class stock structure, consisting of Class A and Class B stock. Currently Brin and Page control about 59% of the Class B stock, but a minority of all outstanding shares. Class A shares have one vote each and Class B shares each control 10 votes.
At the end of the five year diversification term specified in the SEC filing, the two co-founders would own 47.7% of Class B shares. And together with CEO Eric Schmidt they would still own more than 50% of the Class B shares.
There have been unsuccessful efforts in the past to equalize the voting power of all shareholders.
One could argue that this dual-class stock structure enables Google to do things like stand up to the Chinese government, against the dominant logic of the market and potential objections of Class A shareholders (especially institutional shareholders). Indeed, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has criticized the move as “irrational.”
With the closing price tonight at $542 (£338) if the full 10 million shares were sold today they would generate around £3.40 billion in cash. However they would still have stock holdings worth approximately another £30 billion.
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, January 26, 2010
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Friday, January 22, 2010
The importance of Twitter
Dr Search has been fairly reserved over our coverage of Twitter this year. However, Ricky Gervais's recent experience of the social media has raised both his and Twitter's profile.
Ricky Gervais, who, after just 6 tweets, anounced that he was quitting the service:
"I just don’t get it I’m afraid. I’m sure it’s fun as a networking device for teenagers but there’s something a bit undignified about adults using it. Particularly celebrities who seem to be showing off by talking to each other in public."
"If I want to tell a friend, famous or otherwise what I had to eat this morning, I’ll text them. And since I don’t need to make new virtual friends, it seemed a bit pointless to be honest."
Dr Search agrees with his point about celebrities, and feel that the way many have jumped on the Twitter-wagon, building their own profiles in the process, can be slightly nauseating.
Especially when so many of them simply bring their broadcast mindset to a dialogue based communications tool.
But his suggestion that Twitter is simply somewhere for teenagers to share what they had for breakfast is so very wide of the mark that it demands consideration.
The idea that Twitter is simply a glorified version of Facebook’s updates, used for nothing other than posting inane titbits from people’s lives, is not an uncommon one, and one that many share. But it also betrays a complete lack of understanding of what Twitter offers. As Gervais himself says, he just doesn’t get it.
In essence, Twitter is just a tool for communicating with others, nothing more, nothing less.
But then again, so is a phone. Would people say “I’m not going to use a phone, if I want to talk to my mates, I’ll do it in person”? Of course they wouldn’t. Because a phone is only as interesting as the things it’s being used for.
Need to check whether a store has an item in stock? Use a phone. Need to connect with friends and relatives on the other side of the world? Use a phone. Now swap the word phone for Twitter and you start to see quite how wrong Gervais is.
For just as a phone is an endlessly versatile tool, one that made distance a thing of the past- and which is now driving the Internet into previously impenetrable areas, such as rural India and Sub-Saharan Africa. Twitter is only limited by its users’ inventiveness.
It can be used to source information, crowdsource investigative journalism, raise money for charity, connect with like-minded peers and, yes, occasionally tell people what you had for breakfast. It’s proving to be a valuable tool for individuals, entrepreneurs, businesses, both small and large, politicians, charities and even historical buildings.
Of course this doesn’t mean that Twitter will be right for everyone or even every brand. But writing it off as a waste of time is like throwing away your phone because you don’t like being cold-called.
Like a phone Twitter allows one to one conversation. However you also have the opportunity to use a speaker phone to reachmany more poeple.
Additionally Twitter's focused niche role allows one to find the target market so accurately by segmenting one message directly.
All in all Mr Grevais's observations about Twitter have a certain semblance to his "dancing". Unusual and excruciating, but also entertaining.
Labels: Dr Search, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, January 22, 2010
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Thursday, January 21, 2010
Bad customer service costing billions of Pounds in lost revenue
Another study reveals the shocking cost of poor customer service- this time it's Dr Search's alma mater- Oxford Brookes University who delivers the damning verdict on poor service standards.
Its survey suggests that three out of four people have switched at least one product or service in the last two years due to poor service.
Its survey suggests that three out of four people have switched at least one product or service in the last two years due to poor service.
And the University's Professor Merlin Stone estimates that if the study is reflective of the entire population, firms could have lost up to 20 million good customers, costing them around £3.39 billion.
More than one in five people blamed poor customer service for switching to other firms in areas including finance, telecoms and utilities.
Lifestyle firm WhiteConcierge, which commissioned the study, said the findings suggested that more than 30 consumers were signing up with different companies every minute of the day.
The report found that the worst affected sectors for losing customers over the past two years were motor insurance, electricity and home insurance.
Organisations have to work harder than ever to keep their best customers. Consumers have become increasingly demanding and discerning, and with the rise of price comparison websites for example, it is now much easier to compare and switch products.
Jonathan Breeze, managing director of WhiteConcierge, said: "Price is undoubtedly one important factor for causing people to change providers but many companies cannot compete on this at the moment. As our research findings show, issues surrounding customer service experiences are also key and can be addressed more readily."
The findings have come as no surprise to the CRM community. In the recent tough economic times, service may have been one of the many cutbacks made across the breadth of the organisation. However, service is precisely what will keep current customers and continue to attract new ones.
Much has been made of the birth of 'Generation Y'-ers – those who multi-task throughout life and communicate with organisations via a multitude of channels. This should strongly underline the need for businesses to reassess their service provision.
The findings have come as no surprise to the CRM community. In the recent tough economic times, service may have been one of the many cutbacks made across the breadth of the organisation. However, service is precisely what will keep current customers and continue to attract new ones.
Much has been made of the birth of 'Generation Y'-ers – those who multi-task throughout life and communicate with organisations via a multitude of channels. This should strongly underline the need for businesses to reassess their service provision.
This young demographic’s demand is for more, not less, personalised and tailored services, fully utilising technology to deliver robust services. Organisations that are providing and delivering robust services win; there is no second place.
Dr Search concludes by suggesting that although price is always a decision making factor- service is becoming increasingly important.
Labels: Dr Search, online marketing, Search Marketing, Top Tips
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, January 21, 2010
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Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Website Marketing budget guide- the real costs of online marketing
Online Marketing cost guide by Dr Search. Although we at the Search Clinic are pretty open about our services- both what we offer and how much it's going to cost you, when we found this recent post at INeedHits we thought that we would repeat it as a third party independent guide for your benefit.
Whether you’re just starting out, or re-evaluating your website strategy, it’s important for you to get your plan and budget right.
The rule “Build it and they will come” rarely works in the online space. For you to be successful with your website marketing strategy – you need to have a solid plan and be realistic about the real costs of doing it properly.
Too many business owners spend £1000’s on getting a fancy website developed, only to find they have no money left to promote it.
One of our sales guys uses this analogy
“It’s like building a shopping mall in the desert. Without the budget to promote it – who’s going to find it?”
“It’s like building a shopping mall in the desert. Without the budget to promote it – who’s going to find it?”
So to help you get your website design and marketing budget right – here’s a quick guide to what you need and the approximate costs to do it properly.
- 1. The website: Development/Design & Maintenance
The development of a website has many variables. Accordingly the costs can vary significantly depending on factors such as whether its static or dynamic, whether it includes a shopping cart, is the design bespoke or templated etc, etc, etc.
The reality is that websites can vary from £1000 – £50,000, and 90% of the time, you get what you pay for.
If it’s really cheap, it’s likely that there won’t be much functionality and it’ll use a template. The flip side of that is that if it’s too expensive – ask yourself whether you “really” need all the bells and whistles.
And most importantly – shop around. Draft a detailed requirements document and then check with a few website designers/developers to get the best price.
Also, don’t forget to budget for hosting and maintenance. Websites need to be updated in terms of content and systems (e.g. cms) regularly, and without hosting - you wont appear anywhere.
- 2. SEO – Search Engine Optimization
The simple truth is that the majority of website traffic comes from search engines and directories. Most of our clients see upwards of 60% of traffic coming from search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. While the organic search engine traffic is free (no click costs), you do need to invest in a professional SEO program to ensure you’re maximizing this free search engine traffic.
SEO campaigns again vary significantly. To hire an industry leading SEO consultant can cost as much as $1000 per hour.
Here’s a guide on SEO pricing that Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz posted 2 years ago. As you can imagine – prices have grown since then…but it serves as a guide for the premium end of the scale:
| Service | Low End | Mid Range | High End |
| Site Review + Consulting | $500 | $2,500 | $10,000 |
| Hands-On Editing of Pages/Code | $2,000 | $10,000 | $50,000 |
| Manual Link Building Campaign | $500 | $5,000 | $20,000 |
| Keyword Research Package | $100 | $500 | $2,000 |
| Monthly Retainer for Ongoing SEO | $2,500 | $7,500 | $20,000+ |
Professional SEO is an investment. If you’re in business for the long haul, you’d be crazy not to allocate a decent proportion of your initial online budget on SEO – (or if your budget is tight, then study hard and invest the many hours needed to do it yourself).
To get started with an SEO campaign (fully managed by an experienced SEO professional) that’s going to generate serious ranking and traffic results – you should be looking to pay at least £500 per month - minimum.
- 3. PPC – Google AdWords and Other Search Advertising
As with all things, you’re probably looking for some quick wins in terms of traffic and results from your website. This is where PPC (pay per click) Search Engine Advertising (e.g. Google AdWords) helps.
With a well setup Google AdWords campaign, you can have highly targeted visitors delivered to your website almost instantly. It’s a great way to ensure you’re still getting a return on your website investment while your SEO and other strategies take effect.
Professional PPC campaigns, depending on your industry and how much traffic you need, can cost as little as $200 per month and the sky is the limit. But be aware that with cheaper campaigns, you’ll find most of your investment is going into the setup and management – rather than the media (click costs) – which makes it hard to generate decent ROI.
A serious PPC campaign for a small business should start at approx £500…and depending on your goals – go up from there.
- 4. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a very cost effective way of generating traffic for your website. With most affiliate networks offering CPA models (cost per acquisition) – it allows you to generate traffic that you only pay for when the visitor converts (makes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter, submits a query).
The challenge with affiliate networks is that they take time to be effective and the best networks are often very selective as to who they promote.
Most decent networks will charge a small set up fee ($500-1000 upwards) and then take a commission on every sale or acquisition. Some of the larger ones will also charge a monthly management fees to help you optimize your campaigns.
Most publishers will be looking for between 10% - 30% commission on sales, or a decent bonus for lead/enquiry based programs.
- 5. Social media, Email marketing & Ad Networks
There’s a range of other website promotion opportunities such as Social Media, Email marketing and Ad Networks.
With Social Media, it’s definitely an area that small businesses should be getting involved with, but remember; it’s not a fit for every business and Social media is like SEO - it’s an investment and normally takes a while to generate good results.
There are plenty of other ways to drive more traffic to your site, but in reality – the areas mentioned above will be your main traffic sources.
So with that in mind – you can now get a much clearer and more realistic picture of what it costs to get serious results online. Even if we use the lower end of these costs as a guide, small business owners should be looking at
| Cost Guide | |
| Website Development | £1000+ |
| Hosting & Maintenance | £120+ |
| SEO - 6mth program | £3000 |
| Search Advertising (PPC) - 6mths | £1200 |
| Affiliate Marketing | Depends on Program |
| Others | Depends on Tactics |
| TOTAL | £5000+ |
Now that’s only a starting guide, and as I’ve mentioned previously - the cheapest options aren’t always the best in terms of results and generating good ROI.
So if you’re starting a new website project - you can see there’s more to consider than just the website design costs. If you want your new website in 2010 to be a success - be realistic when doing your planning and budgeting!
Labels: Adwords, Dr Search, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO Services, social media websites, social web marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, January 20, 2010
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