Every website wants to reach the top of the search results for their chosen target keywords. In an increasingly busy online world, knowledge and understanding of search engine optimisation, or SEO, is important to help make this happen. One tactic which is very beneficial to SEO on any website is to create a blog. Many a digital marketing agency recommends blogging because it fulfils several of the criteria which Google and other search engines reward, such as regular updates and plenty of good quality content. After conducting keyword research, many websites aim to rank highly in search engine results for long tail keywords. These are phrases, several words long, which thousands of people may search for every month but which have very little competition for search engine rankings. Targeting these long tail keywords can be a brilliant way to start making your way to the first page of Google and getting clicks from people's searches. Blogging presents a great opportunity for incorporating some of these keywords in a natural way: no matter what terms you are targeting, there will be a way to use them in your writing which reads well and which is not "keyword stuffed" but rather fulfils the criteria for getting to the much-desired number one spot. Search engines are also increasingly like to return results in their searches which are new and fresh. Static webpages which have not been updated in some time are likely to start losing their rankings and be replaced by newer, and ideally more relevant, content. Creating a blog on your website is a superb way of producing regular updates on your website. Setting yourself a blogging schedule of posting twice a week, for example, is a very effective way of making sure that your site registers updates on a very frequent basis. Finally, every new blog post fills your website with brand-new content. It gives you an opportunity to talk about your specialist area, show off your expertise, and provide relevant and quality information to your readers. Overall, any online marketing agency would recommend providing worthwhile and valuable content for the visitors to your website as the best way to have SEO gains. The better your website is, the more people will share it on social media, link to it from their own blogs and talk about it in the comments section. All of these things will have a positive effect on your search engine rankings.

When it comes to reaching the maximum potential client base for your business there are few more effective ways than through social media. It offers the opportunity to address your target market directly and with minimal cost. One of the easiest ways to implement an integrated social media strategy is through the use of plug-ins. [More]

One of the most common problems online marketers often face is when client’s lump all their web channels together from an overview perspective when measuring ROI. The danger with this is that due to the way user behaviour has evolved in the last few years the lines between web, off-the-page advertising and the high street are blurring. This means that measuring ROI needs to happen on a more finite level to really understand the success of each channel. The reality is that to really understand how your website is performing, you have to segment the channels which drive traffic and revenue. Although this may seem scary for those unfamiliar with statistical analysis, tools like Google Analytics make it simpler than you think, meaning you don’t need to turn yourself into a statistical ninja, just follow by Google Analytics Channel Guide Below: The Main Channels All the main traffic channels in Google Analytics can be reached under the ‘Traffic Sources’ section of Google Analytics. Direct (Visits): What is it: This is when a user types your website address directly into their web browser e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome or Apple Safari Business Context: From a branding point of view: User’s could visit from any channel (e.g. PPC) and not convert but later return via a direct visit and convert, so a sale could be attributed to both channels. From a traditional marketing point of view: A user could see a piece of off-the-page advertising in a national paper and visit your website. Drops or rises in this channel’s performance can be closely linked to the success of your off-the-page marketing, so including this channel in your business analysis can be key. Referrals: What is it: This is any visit that has occurred due to a user clicking a link or banner on another website. Business Context: This is an important channel for monitoring the effect of your relationships with other websites and their success for example: Minor Search Engines such a search.bt.com Affiliate Marketing. E.g. banners on other websites which drive sales and visits Non SEO Related Links. E.g. a post on a forum about a product offer. SEO Related Links. This could include guest posts or website links created on the back of a link building campaign Social Media e.g. Traffic driven via Twitter or Facebook. Paid Search What is it: This covers any website visits driven by paid PPC (pay-per-click) campaign on Google, Yahoo or Bing and includes sponsored adverts place on search engine result pages and display adverts on other websites (e.g. using Google’s Display Network). Business Context: PPC campaigns can require substantial investment to maximise your return, so to really understand this channel it is important that you carry out Brand vs. Non Brand segmentation. This is especially true if you run any significant off-the-page advertising campaigns to so judge the full effect of those campaigns on your bottom line. As with Direct Visits any brand based PPC campaigns and their success or failure can be directly linked to traditional marketing and should be included in analysis of off-the-page marketing activities. Organic Search What is it: Any visit driven by a user clicking on an organic link (non-paid) in search engine result pages, as with paid search it’s important to split brand and non-brand related traffic. Splitting brand related traffic on organic results is a little more difficult, although this easy to follow guide on seomoz.com should help. Business Context: Non Brand organic search traffic can often be directly attributed to any SEO activities that are being carried out and deeper analysis of this channel is often needed to get the best of out of your SEO campaign. Brand Traffic on this channel like direct visits can be driven by both visits which originated from other channels such as a non-brand organic search, non-brand PPC or even referral. Summary So there you have it my guide to getting to grips with what different web channels mean to your business. In my next post I’ll deal with Google Analytics Multi Channel Funnel’s which let you attribute sales to the channel which first drove a visitor to your website rather than the last allowing you to better understand the link between brand and non-brand traffic.

Google has recently been accused of over promoting is own service and all too often this comes inform of an image advert for their prime revenue driver Google AdWords. Whatever you think of Google ethics the bottom line of advertising on this scale is that even more businesses will start using their Advert platform and as such there will be more competition for first page positions resulting in means higher CPC (Cost Per Click) bids. So with Google Adwords CPC’s increasing across the board, great ad copy has become more important than ever. Because of this I’ll be exploring the basics of writing a great pay-per-click (PPC) advert in a three part blog post series. In this the first part I’ll provide advice on how to research your advert correctly, I will then cover the fundamentals of writing an effective advert in part 2, concluding with split testing in part 3. Easy Advert Research Advert position and quality are playing are increasing important part in generating a suitable ROI but all too often many advertisers get this aspect of their PPC campaigns wrong and miss out on the all-important click. For many PPC marketing managers’ great ad copywriting is key, the beginnings any successful advert starts with the correct research. We’ve broken down this research process into 3 easy to follow steps: Keyword research:Great ad copy focuses on the most significant keywords in your AdGroup, These keywords will be the main drivers of revenue or conversions, failing that you can use clicks as a metric to define which keywords are important. Competition & Market Research (Who, What and Where):Having a deep understanding of your competition and market is a crucial part of the ad copy writing process as it allows you to create adverts that stand out and target your audience effectively. When analysing your market and competitors you should contemplate the subsequent factors: Who is your audience?Are you targeting expensive luxury products with a long buying cycle or are you targeting the quick sale with low-value, high volume products? Take ‘Office Furniture’, your target audience could be highly price focused SME owners, in this instance you want to focus on call to action and price-focused ad text. Conversely if you marketing luxury products like ‘Design Watches’ a single sentence over both advert description lines may convey your advertising message more effectively. What do competitors' ads look like? What USP (Unique Selling Point) are other advertisers focusing on? Are they focusing on benefits like free delivery or low prices and discounts/sales. Should you be offering the similar USP as other companies it may not be worth mentioning them if all your competitors are doing the same thing. Making your advert standout is key to generating a good click-through rate. When looking at the search result for "office desk" it can be noted that many advertisers are focusing on discounts or just ‘Low Prices’ and none are pushing prices in their adverts. In this example, mentioning the price of your lower-priced office desk item in your ad text may bring better click-through rates than your competitors' by ads helping your advert stand out. Where does your product sit in the market? Is it the cheapest in its market or is it a luxury item? Is it a similar product or service to that of your competitors? Understanding these factors are vital when deciding on whether you can use your product's price as its USP. If your service or product is more expensive when compared to those of competing advertisers then you should not include a price as your USP. Pricing may be a motivating factor, but if your price is not the lowest and your markdown or sale does not provide the greatest financial value to buyer, then opting to promote your other USP’s may result in a better click through rate.

From last night Google finally opened up its social media platform to all of its users by literately pointing it out to any visitor to its home page [More]

Quick blog post on Google new iGoogle link to the days Google Doodle [More]