SEO is.... alive!

In this post we're sharing this highly rated presentation to our Digital Marketing 2014 Summit from regular contributor and author of our SEO guide, James Gurd who explained how SEO has evolved and will continue to evolve. Despite the prenouncements by some that "SEO is dead", the evidence is that it still needs to be treated proactively and the latest best practices adopted. Key issues to consider in 2014 are: Content marketing, social and integration into SEO (of course!) More natural search queries prompted by Google's hummingbird and ad promotion of voice activated contextual search Author influence (through Google+ profiles and authorship markup) Specialist developments in technical SEO in particular for international domains Reporting SEO effectiveness given the Growth of Not provided / missing keywords This Slideshare was presented as a webinar by James Gurd, Digital Juggler at the Smart Insights Digital Marketing Priorities…

Survey shows the potential for Pinterest to drive traffic

December 2013 update

Social sign-in and sharing tool Gigya have released their latest social sharing report showing which could be helpful if you're asked that general question - which social network should we focus on?

The new infographic shows the dominance of Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest with Google+ surprisingly limited across consumer sites. It also has specific data on sharing for Ecommerce and publishing sites. Pinterest is even more popular on Ecommerce sites. They have also released a regional breakdown for the first time we think.

We know that social sharing is having an increasing impact on traffic and sales, but which social sharing channels have the biggest impact? Demographic information  on social media is becoming more accessible now through sites including…

A tutorial on creating dark posts - a technique many big brands are now doing newsfeed advertising

Facebook has become quite the place of the dark arts in recent years as brands seek to outdo each other in the advertising wars.

One of the features available to those in the know is the art of the "dark" or "unpublished" post. What this actually means is that the post will not appear on your timeline but can be accessed by anyone with a direct link (or by clicking through from an ad). They are used extensively by advertisers to create copy that then appears as a "Sponsored" piece of content.

A few months back, dark Image posts were the only way advertisers had of getting results into the newsfeed with images that took up a decent amount of real estate. In recent months, links with appropriately sized images have also been rewarded with a decent…

A case study of a campaign to create a a sustainable online presence for a seasonal brand: Christmas Tree World

When Christmas Tree World initially approached us with grand schemes to conquer the artificial Christmas tree market throughout the year, we knew this project was set to be a campaign our entire digital team could sink their teeth into. Christmas Tree World came to us looking for a responsive, animated website re-design and a social media and content plan that would generate B2B interest 52 weeks of the year. As a result, Christmas Tree World proved to be a unique challenge for our digital marketing team, who were duly tasked with generating a campaign that would attract B2B and B2C interest for a late summer re-launch. Aside from building brand awareness and increasing conversions for Christmas 2013, we also had to establish a strategy to ensure Christmas Tree World was well…

The one New Years Resolution you should be making right now

If I said that you could have access to 3,000 Wembley stadiums full of buyers that have the ability to purchase your product and the ability to pay immediately, you'd probably think I'm lying or a looney. But I'm not, this is the reach of the marketplaces like eBay and Amazon, right now, today. In this article I aim to quash a few misconceptions and open your eyes to the obscene power of the marketplaces. And at the end of this article I have one question for you, but for now let's dive in.

A Car boot sale and books?

If you think eBay is a great big car boot sale and Amazon is just for books, then you're wrong, so very wrong. The marketplaces have evolved, they're gaining pace every single day and it's not just…

Facebook pushing quality content to the top on its newsfeed

Value: [rating=3]

Recommended Link: Facebook's Newsfeed changes

This Facebook update should be of particular interest to content marketers since it can potentially help businesses drive more traffic to their site based on their content. Facebook can already be effective in driving traffic given its reach. Indeed, in this update, Facebook announced that average referral traffic from Facebook to media sites has increased by over 170% - almost tripled - in the past year.

Facebook has introduced two new ways to highlight quality content on its newsfeed as it says it can now identify 'high quality articles' that are linked to rather than less newsworthy content such as what it calls 'meme photos'. The main changes within the feed are: 

1. Links to articles display more related articles

Selecting an article on the Facebook…

7 must-check questions for your acquisition strategy

All site owners are looking to reach more prospects, existing customers and raise awareness about their products through a website or other online presence. So, there is plenty of advice on how to increase site traffic through the 6 main online communications channels. Although you can definitely gain improvements in volume of acquisition through optimising how use these channels like SEO, advertising or social media marketing, you may be missing parts of the bigger picture that will make your online marketing more effective. To help you think through how to improve your site traffic, Dave Chaffey and I  have developed these seven key questions to help improve your results. We hope they're helpful - let us know how you find them. You can find more detailed guidance in the Reach section of our RACE digital marketing planning course. This is the first in a short series…

Practical tips to improve AdWords click volume and quality, particularly relevant for B2B and low volume B2C accounts

PPC traffic, in most accounts, have a very uneven distribution between the ad groups. What I find is that usually there are a few ad groups that get lots of traffic and then lots of long tail ad groups that each get a little bit of traffic. This makes ad improvement tricky for the majority of ad groups. In order to improve ads we always run 2 or 3 ads in an ad group to see which one performs best over time and then optimise towards the best performer. So unless the ad groups ads have each had a high number of impressions and clicks then we cannot make a decision on which ad is performing best. Fine for the few high traffic ad groups, but less easy for the majority of the ad groups. This…

Maximise your affiliate recruitment by thinking like your potential affiliate partners

In my last post I talked about the need for affiliate recruitment and why it was important to always be looking at how to grow your affiliate programme, keeping an eye out for new and emerging affiliates. That is all well and good, but how do you find these affiliates and attract them to your programme? I tend to think of affiliate recruitment as having 4 key areas.

1. Differentiation and programme benefits

One of the most important areas for recruitment in my eyes is the need to know why affiliates should promote you. There are many affiliates out there and you might unearth some gems, but if you cannot give them a good reason to promote you over your competitors, why would they?

Think about what sets you apart from your competitors. Do you pay a higher commission? Can you give…

But search and direct visits dominate...

The role of social media in driving visits to transactional sites like retail and travel if often documented. Research on corporate sites is more limited, so in this post we summarise research from a provider of corporate sites. The Investis IQ Insight Audience Q3 2013 analyses 2 million visits across 60 corporate websites and nearly 7 million views per month. They sample includes a range of companies, by size and sector across the FTSE 100, FTSE 250, Small CAP and AIM companies and a small section from Europe. The report highlights where there has been the greatest change over two years, and is aimed at companies who wish to ensure that their 'digital communications reflects the needs of their corporate audience'.

Overall importance of social media

The findings show that social media has the least impact on driving traffic to corporate websites; 54% is driven by search and…