Thu, 31 Jan 2008 by Kerry Dye
As our Managing Director, Matt Hopkins said the other day "Local search is the
Next Big Thing". The curious thing is that whilst everyone agrees it seems to be a slow burn and not a quick one.
Back in July it was reported that the
majority of searches have local intent and then in August that local search is growing faster than traditional search.
The strange thing is that despite Google's
foray into mobile search offerings and Yahoo's
Sponsored Local Search listing availability, ... Read More.
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by Matt Hopkins
Mobile search is the "next big thing" and all search engines are
investing heavily in their technology to deliver search services in
better ways to a mobile/local user.
Yesterday, Google announced the release of an improved mobile search interface for the UK market.
One
of its main features is the ability to remember your location for
certain types of searches. This means that you don't need to add the
location in the search term (e.g. bike shopPortsmouth ). In other
word... Read More.
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by Jayson Munday
When looking at your website, there are several tips you should keep in mind to not only help with you end user satisfaction, but also to keep the search engines happy. These points can generally be done by yourself, without the need for a major shake up of your site, but the benefits from them could really help you out with rankings and conversions.
Look at the content on your site. Now this is one is generally for your visitors, but also keep in mind that in regards to SE... Read More.
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by Cameron Winslow
Too often in the today's world of information technology where everything happens instantly and is spread through various forms of online communication, companies have the challenging task of managing their online brand reputation.
There are constantly issues with various clients brands from a disgruntled customer that decides to post a blog to articles put out by their competitors that now rank for the clients brand name. Very much like the word of mouth spreading years ago wher... Read More.
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Wed, 30 Jan 2008 by Pete Handley
I am constantly working with various different content management systems (CMS). I totted up this morning and over 75% of the websites that I work on use some form of system to manage content on their website, either for adding content to specific pages/areas of the site, or for managing the content of the entire site. These also include shopping carts in my mind - although not a content management system in the strictest sense, they are used to add pages and words to websites so I in this regar... Read More.
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Tue, 29 Jan 2008 by Kerry Dye
Local searchers
might not be the same volume of website traffic as ranking for big terms, but
the users searching locally are using more specific search terms and tend to
convert better as a result.
As Matt mentioned the other day, there is a
lot of experimentation going on in the search engines for increasing relevance
for local searchers. And local online advertising is predicted to grow at 13% per year which means that increasingly, users are turning to local options.
With the incr... Read More.
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Thu, 24 Jan 2008 by Jayson Munday
We've interviewed and analysed more than 35 of the top Australian web hosting companies and have compiled a list of the top 10 that we judge as being the most "search engine friendly".
The web hosting company you use can have an impact on the effectiveness of your search engine optimisation campaign. Its important to assess the web host you select on its search engine "friendliness" as well as on other factors such as price, features, and customer support.
In our... Read More.
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by Cameron Winslow
There is a great 8 minute video that provides various professional opinions from US Marketers on the viability of Online Marketing for 2008 and Beyond: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/18094.asp
In summary, they all agree that online marketing is a viable medium that is definitely here to not only stay but have continued, sustained growth in the future. Fortune 1000 companies no longer integrate search engine marketing as a test program for marketing dollars allocation, bu... Read More.
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Wed, 23 Jan 2008 by Matt Hopkins
Who you link to can have a negative effect on your search engine rankings.
You can't control who links to you, but you should be in control of the sites that you are linking out to. If your web site links to sites that are known to spam the search engines or those in "bad neighbourhoods", then this can have an adverse effect on your rankings.
We've just added an external links report to our seo tools section of our web site which can help you better understa... Read More.
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Tue, 22 Jan 2008 by Cameron Winslow
One of the big buzz words in the US with over 240 million subscribers, is the marketing concept of Mobile marketing. Here in Australia, it hasn't yet caught on to the extent of our North American counterparts. But like most marketing initiatives, it will become more integrated when planning your next years budgets. Australia is in the fortunate position to learn from mistakes overseas in implementation, although I find that this is not always the case.
One of the most import... Read More.
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Fri, 18 Jan 2008 by Kerry Dye
I recently came across a case of a website
design being stolen, where the duplicate site was being used to host affiliate
links.
I am presuming, because the site was a top
10 result in Google for a high traffic keyphrase, that the expectation of the
copier was that the site would rank for the same phrase and thus gain traffic
intended for the original site.
The problem with that sort of masquerade is
that (as anyone with any SEO knowledge knows) the backlinks for a site make up
a pret... Read More.
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by Joe Bursell
I quite like "retro"; I've got a boxfresh pair of black Air Jordan V's, Tetris is still my favourite game and Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture remains brilliant 60plus years on. What these things have in common is that they are still functional and enjoyable, they were created in the past yet people like me still enjoy them today. Clearly this doesn't apply across the board. As the world and it's contents evolve there is a natural order, whereby the dysfunctional is often swept aside ... Read More.
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by Matt Hopkins
Recently, Advertising Age released their Search Marketing Fact Pack for 2007. This is a great document to download and keep by your computer for casual reference as it is jam-packed with little factoids.
One of the sections provides the top industry categories that are getting the most traffic from search. At first, I was pretty surprised by the results and so conducted a straw poll around theVL office to find that we were all were guessing similar industries - travel, news, sport... Read More.
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by Cameron Winslow
There is a fantastic 68 page study called "The Never Ending Frieding Project" that should be required reading for every Corporate, SME, B2B, B2C Marketing Manager globally. This project was commissioned by Isobar and MySpace and has some very powerful findings such as incorporating Social Media Marketing into your Integrated Marketing Strategies can provide increases in your advertising exposure/reach by 70%.
Another interesting statistic from this article comes from this ques... Read More.
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Wed, 16 Jan 2008 by Matt Hopkins
That old adage - jack of all trades, master of none - is true with many things and none more so than with search engine marketing.
Its not an issue of capability. Many web designers have fantastic skills that would also make them great search marketers or optimisers. The same is true of many copywriters, web developers, etc.
The issue is with consistency of approach, experience and the time required to learn and keep up with best practice in one of the fastest changing indus... Read More.
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Tue, 15 Jan 2008 by Kerry Dye
I've previously written about the major update introducing Live Search and about the results we have seen so far.
Because I have been looking closely at the resources provided recently,
I thought I would blog on the ways that you can find out more
information about SEO for MSN and Live Search.
Microsoft has tried hard to make themselves
more accessible for Webmasters. They are still a little lacking when trying to
"self help" - sometimes one source refers you
to another, which refers ... Read More.
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Mon, 14 Jan 2008 by Kerry Dye
This blog is a bit of an update on what has occurred with our Live
Search results since I wrote a blog back last Autumn on the Live Search Recent Changes:
Pete also wrote this one on Live Search Webmaster
Center
- it is working now for me, although the information is light on detail. (Find some reviews of Live Search Webmaster Center here).
Regarding the results we have seen lately
from Live Search here are some bits and pieces.
Sites are still not listed in Live Search
that were no... Read More.
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by Matt Hopkins
Kaizen is a Japanese term that effectively means continuous, incremental improvement. This is a large part of our company ethos and features heavily in how we manage both SEO and PPC campaigns.
The Kaizen philosophy was brought to light during the 1980's when the success of Japanese manufacturing was leading the world in terms of quality. It is part of a larger qualityimprovement process, but the basic notion is that small, incremental improvements are always more successful than la... Read More.
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by Cameron Winslow
Too often new businesses or corporate divisions are more concerned with focus groups, Branding design of logos, and the general "feel" they want to project to the consumer without looking at practical aspects of getting their message to that same target market.
There have been many times that companies have gone through all the steps to determine their Brand name and then come to us for marketing on the web, only to find that the domain names that would convey their determined brand... Read More.
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Fri, 11 Jan 2008 by James Daniels
Google Checkout has been around for a good year now but I'm still rarely seeing online retailers use it. It's highly recommended that all online retailers using Google Adwords should sign up to Google Checkout. The main reason is that the Google Checkout graphic is the only colourful graphic on any Google SERP and reports suggest that CTR can increase by as much as 20%-30% by having this logo displayed next to your ad.
What are you waiting for?
... Read More.
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by Kerry Dye
I came across the SEO Checklist blog when looking for an SEO checker to examine the outbound links from a site. I was very interested in the article Does Linking to Spam Sites Hurt Your Rankings?
Due to the recent parasitic spam-attacks that we discovered last year on our clients' sites, (see the press releases) the answer to this question is not no, as Mariella Moon concludes, but a definite YES.
We have comprehensive proof that our clients' search engine positions suffered as a result - o... Read More.
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Thu, 10 Jan 2008 by Pete Handley
Well, this is one we have all been waiting for here in the Vertical Leap UK office.
Plenty of people are aware of the Wikipedia, whether you are an Internet Marketer like the staff here at VL, or whether if you are a normal searcher. Wikipedia is widely used as an information resource, I even used it when I was doing some initial research for my dissertation when I was at uni - I wasn't able to cite it directly because it was not considered of proven integrity, although I believe there is so... Read More.
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by Kerry Dye
A recent report by Group M demonstrates that they have read their
crystal ball and determined that given current growth patterns in spending on
TV advertising and internet, there will be more spent online by 2009.
There is a good breakdown of the data by
eMarketer and a really nice
analysis of why this should happen in the UK particularly. The TV market in
the UK
certainly seems to be anomalous, which is what is giving rise to the potential
overtaking in spend, compared to the rest of the wor... Read More.
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by Matt Hopkins
If you or your clients have a global or international market, then it can be difficult to understand how your SEO is performing in those countries due to the localisation of search results in Google.
Over the past few years, Google has worked to "regionalise" most of its search results. This means that with each search request, it takes into account which Google domain you are using (e.g. google.co.uk), where you are physically located (usually based on your IP address), any ge... Read More.
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by Cameron Winslow
For a kickoff to your company's 2008 online media marketing strategies and New Year Resolutions, consider how your company is represented in the various social media mediums that are available.
How are you positioned to attract new customers this year and increase conversions?
What are your customers and competitors saying in discussion boards and forums about your brand?
Do you have in-house resources to provide monitoring and rebuttals to unfair statements regarding your c... Read More.
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Wed, 09 Jan 2008 by Matthew Hopkins
To make it easier for our clients and partners to contact us, we've just acquired a new toll free telephone number -- 1 800 390 8520.... Read More.
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by Matt Hopkins
It seems that Google is really experimenting with their local business ads to better understand the Local Search user and how they utilise search.
In the past few weeks, I've seen full addresses appear for businesses in the sponsored listings (PPC) section of the SERPs (as you can see in this example):
I've also seen Google playing with the placement of their Local Business OneBox by moving it within the search results and not just at the top as this screen shot clearly shows:
It is ver... Read More.
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Mon, 07 Jan 2008 by Joe Bursell
I've noticed more and more postings about how best to avoid seeing affiliate search results appearing when you're looking for something.
Initially I couldn't see why it was a topic worth blogging about, but then I realized that I'm one of those uptight anally-retentive searchers that usually stuff their search terms with operators. Not a day goes by that I don't use at least three or four insite:'s or filetype:'s when I'm Googling.
However most people don't bother with operators, so when &q... Read More.
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by Joe Bursell
Update:
In December last year I blogged about a bug I found in Google's local search. The issue was that a search for "brighton hotels" was bringing back results for Brighton in Massachusetts USA, rather than UK focused results.
In interest of fairness I thought I'd go back and re-check the search, and it looks to have been fixed:
"brighton hotels"
... Read More.
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Fri, 04 Jan 2008 by James Daniels
In Google's quest to take over the marketing world, their next venture is called Google Print Ads. The Times newspaper has reported that the service would employ a method similar to an auction. Customers/Businesses would be able to choose a newspaper online through Google and place a bid for advertising space. The bids that are made through Google Print Ads would be on a day-to-day and page-by-page basis.
Bidders would offer the price they are willing to pay for the ads, and newspaper p... Read More.
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by Pete Handley
Many companies are now regularly writing a blog, and Joe talked yesterday about the SEO Benefits of a Company Blog. Once you have that blog, you have to decide what you want to write that blog about. Are you ever stuck for ideas on what to write?
At times it seems that there are a never ending amount of topics to choose from, sometimes there can be lots going on in your industry, whilst at other times it can seem that there is nothing new to write about without just rehashing what everyone els... Read More.
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by Jayson Munday
I read an intersting article by David Morgan regarding "Knol", Google's new Wikipedia like website. He gives an interesting insight into why the site is being launched.
http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1200
... Read More.
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by Cameron Winslow
There was an interesting article on search behaviour from a study released in the last United States Summer. Here are a few statistical examples given in an article with the link to the article provided below:
three out of four (72 percent) Americans report experiencing a degree of "search engine fatigue" (i.e., they're regularly becoming frustrated during searches) and wishing they had a more comprehensive and quick way to find the information they're looking for online... Read More.
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Thu, 03 Jan 2008 by Bill Greer
Just where will the savvy marketer be allocating budget this year? Could 2008 present an opportunity to take advantage of an increasing trend for your audience to make the internet their first port of call when looking for the goods and services you sell without the need to increase your overall budget?
January is always a long, cold month, but from a business point of view 2008 looks about as inviting as a return trip on a Virgin train.
Retailers are already slashing costs after a disma... Read More.
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by Kerry Dye
The latest version of the Google Toolbar has introduced advanced handling for 404 errors. This involves realising that the page is not going to load, and giving you alternate content in that situation. For a "File not Found" that includes giving you links to alternative places you might want to go:
Other activities include showing you the cached version of the page if the site is down and suggestions for mistyped URLs. All of which are designed to improve the we... Read More.
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by Joe Bursell
Here are some questions that website owners often puzzle over when the notion of a company blog is suggested:
1. Why would I go to the trouble of writing yet more content for my already populated website?
2. Why should I create a website and then still have the hassle of finding new and interesting things to publish to it?
3. Why, after I've invested time and money in building my website, am I advised to keep tweaking and changing it- wasn't it good enough in the first place?
To answer thes... Read More.
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by Matt Hopkins
There are a lot of unscrupulous companies out there offering phony or weak SEO services and ultimately ripping off their clients. For those of us who are trying to contribute to making this industry professional and ethical, it is a source of great frustration.
I came across this posting on Search Engine Watch today - highlighting the arrest of the CEO of one of the more infamous SEO companies - TrafficPower. This is one of the few search marketing companies that has been &qu... Read More.
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by Jayson Munday
Well, once again the new year is here and it is time again for companies to look at their marketing strategies and analyse their marketing approach. This year will see a lot of advancements in a lot of fields - especially in the online world, but one thing I can pretty much gaurantee you is that SEO will still take time to see results.
Unlike other forms of marketing and advertising, SEO can be a slow process before you will gain the desired results - especially for new websit... Read More.
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Wed, 02 Jan 2008 by Matt Hopkins
There's been lots of discussion about universal search (aka "blended" search) results in Google over the past several months but I rarely see a true example of its use. I guess that I perform a lot of B2B type of searches and the blended search concept is currently moretargeted at the consumer. But last week, I was searching for information on the new Will Smith movie - I Am Legend - and was presented with a classic example of universal search.
As you can see, there are seve... Read More.
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by Cameron Winslow
Online Marketing is not only essential for businesses to win new business, but has also been embraced as crucial in winning elections both here in Australia and abroad.
The United States Presidential candidates have all incorporated various online marketing strategies with varying degrees of success. Just as we saw in Australia the Kevin 07 campaign do a fairly good job of incorporating online marketing in Kevin Rudd's successful bid for Prime Minister, we even experienced the normally ... Read More.
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