Chrome: Uncircle Inactives+
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dhcfgcecigkknnimiljlbcjmnbeeodhl
This one is pretty self-explanatory, but in essence, if you are getting close to the 5000 limit in the number of people you follow, you may want to cull some of the inactive people out of your circles. This app is a Chrome app and works pretty well, it is a little clunky and not exactly intuitive but it works effectively none the less. I would think this will become useful to those of you out there who are building circles to then promote your business pages to!

Chrome: Google+ Notifications https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/boemmnepglcoinjcdlfcpcbmhiecichi
If you have spent much time on Google+ you will know that interactions are generally higher than the other social networks and that notifications are more prolific, if you want to keep a tab on this whilst you work then this app will indicate in your browser when you have a new notification and also display the number of notifications.

Mozilla: Plus One Button. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/plus-one-button/?src=search
As one might expect, there are not that many apps for Google+ for Mozilla, however this one is quite a useful one. It provides a +1 button on your address bar so that you can +1 a page or site from your browser.

Android: Google+ https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.plus&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5nb29nbGUuYW5kcm9pZC5hcHBzLnBsdXMiXQ..
Here is the link to the Google+ app for Android, it is a pretty feature rich and I in fact think they have done a better job of this than the most recent iterations of the Facebook App for Android. If you are an active G+ person you will probably want to play around with the settings a bit as the notifications coming through all the time can get a bit annoying. Also make sure you choose carefully about whether you want photos from your phone automatically uploaded or not, it gives you the option either way but don’t forget to switch it off if you are likely to be taking photos of things you would prefer to be kept private or there could be some very red faces!

iOS: Google+ http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/google/id447119634?mt=8
I have played with this on the iPad2 for which it wasn’t intended but it works much the same as the Android, so if you have an iPhone then this is the app to use if you want Google+ on your device.

Chrome: Map My Circles for Google+™ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mcfifkeppchbjlepfbepfhjpkhfalcoa  
This one is a bit of fun, it plots all of the G+ users you have added your circles on a Google Map!

Chrome: Extended Share for Google Plus https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oenpjldbckebacipkfbcoppmiflglnib
This one is quite useful as Tweetdeck and other similar 3rd party systems are yet to add Google+. This app adds the ability to share posts within Google+ to other networks, so for instance you have just uploaded a video to Google+ you can then share it with Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to name a few!

The first thing I noticed when started working with this is that the new screen is much easier to read and attractive.  It’s also clearer what’s going on with your sitemaps.

The new layout for sitemaps allows you to see in a graph the number of pages you’ve submitted to Google and the number of pages from this list which have been indexed by Google, allowing you to spot both crawling issues and issues with your sitemap files.

There is now also a separation between the types of content you’ve submitted in your sitemaps.  This will show you the number of videos, images, and news content you’ve submitted in your sitemaps.

The below image shows Google’s example of the new sitemap screen, which shows these new demonstrations of file types and the new graphs.

You can now also test a sitemap before uploading it, allowing you to make sure your sitemap is in the right format. What this test doesn’t do is allow you to see if there are errors on URLs in your sitemap as these won’t be detected in the simple test, but show up once the sitemap has been submitted and has been crawled by Google.

Another change Google have made is simplifying the “Delete” functionality which now deletes your chosen sitemap from all users’ GWT and not just yours.  If you no longer want Google to crawl a sitemap though it’s best to remove it from your server or delete it from the server.

The sitemaps tool in GWT is one I use a lot so it’s worth making sure your sitemap.xml files have been uploaded to this tool and to check them regularly to ensure that there are no issues which could cause issues with your site being crawled or your SEO.

‘Evergreen’ is a word used to describe content that has longevity; that will stay relevant to its target audience for months or even years to come. For brands, it’s a great technique for long-term engagement, complementing fresher content such as industry news or blogs. It’s actually such an effective marketing tool that some of the world’s biggest brands are using it – you just haven’t realised it.

If I said to you that one of Britain’s favourite supermarkets has created an intelligent, creative evergreen content strategy, you might not believe it. It’s true though…

Waitrose

Have you ever finished a daily or weekly shop at Waitrose and stopped to pick up one of its handy recipe cards? If the answer’s yes, then you’ve been slapped across the face by Waitrose’s (very well-thought-though) evergreen content.

The average Waitrose customer, according to a previous advertising strategy put forward by the brand, is “affluent, interested in culture, travel, find foods and wine” – making recipe cards that require sometimes expensive ingredients a stroke of genius from Waitrose. Its average customer has both the money and the inclination to actually make these recipes; a perfect demonstration of effective consumer targeting.

Waitrose isn’t alone in its genius though, as many other brands have hopped on the bandwagon – albeit in very different ways.

Guinness

Capitalising on its reputation for its innovative advertising, Guinness has created a static section on its website dedicated to its past campaigns. ‘The Ads’ gives Guinness lovers a chance to delve into the archives; viewing all the television adverts dating back to the 1950s, as well as print ads created in the 1930s and beyond.

Although it’s always fun to view old advertising, the purpose of this content goes way deeper than that. It’s all about nostalgia. For lovers of the drink, it’s about tapping into that warm, fuzzy feeling they get when they remember an advert from 1960 – say perhaps the first television ad that encouraged them to try a pint of it, or that they remember their parents discussing in the kitchen.

Guinness lovers be warned – if you visit The Ads, it’s going to be emotional. Be warned once more – it’s that emotional connection that’s probably going to send you out to buy a pint of it… thereby putting another £3 in Guinness’ pocket. Clever, huh?

McDonalds

No, I’m not obsessed with food and drink (perhaps just a little bit), but my next example is the A-Z guide from one of the world’s biggest fast food chains.

Even those who aren’t necessarily ‘foodies’ usually show some concern over where their food is coming from. They probably always will, as will the generation after them and the one after that. ‘That’s what makes McDonald’s’ provides, in detail, a breakdown of where its produce comes from; an understated yet highly effective way to engage with the brand’s target audience.

This static section even has the potential to convince non-McDonald’s lovers to try a Big Mac, thanks to its transparent approach. For example, I bet those who scoff at the chain didn’t know that “F is for all our free-range eggs”; or that McDonald’s is doing its part for the planet, claiming “E is for the energy we’re saving each year in our restaurants”.

Sometimes, the simplest approaches are best for customer attraction and retention. In this case, that’s definitely true.

Pixar

Now that you’re getting the hand of this evergreen malarkey, you might know what I’m about to refer to – Pixar’s famed short features. Taking inspiration from big-screen hits like ‘Monsters Inc.’, ‘Up’ and ‘Wall-E’, Pixar’s short films are so clever because of the insights they can offer into a character.

Most people will likely have a favourite Pixar film and by association, a favourite character. Perhaps you’re even so into it that you sigh each time ‘Toy Story’ is over, or your child shouts “Again, again!” when the ‘Ratatouille’ credits run. It’s this feeling that Pixar is tapping into and instead of just letting you watch the film over again to get your fix, it’s giving you that little bit more information… teasing you with just five more minutes of your favourite guy/girl/toy.

You end up wanting even more, more than you did when the original film finished. You’ll continue visiting that section of the Pixar site, hoping to see what new adventures Buzz Lightyear got up to that week, or to see how Ken and Barbie (from ‘Toy Story 3’) are getting on. You’d be hard-pushed to find a better form of long-term engagement.

Coca-Cola

We’re finishing off with the big daddy of content marketing – at the moment, anyway. Coca-Cola has made no secret of its confidence in content as a marketing tool and it has demonstrated this via the diverse range of said content it displays upon its website.

Tackling subjects from health to the environment, sustainability to the Olympics, www.coca-cola.co.uk is a fine example of how flexible a technique evergreen content can be. Video tips from Jessica Ennis’ coach, Toni Minichiello on healthy living sit alongside a how-to guide on living the green lifestyle – courtesy of designer Wayne Hemingway. You can also check out how Coca-Cola keeps its packing sustainable in its PlantBottle™ section, or explore the brand’s long-standing relationship with the Olympic Games.

The key to this particular brand’s success in evergreen content is offering something for every facet of its audience. It’s shareable, too, making it a prime example of evergreen content done right.

Google sent out an email over night covering the changes that they are currently working on including scheduled email reports and PDF exports.

They also updated people on some of the new features which can help with the management and monitoring of your website.

They have now launched the ability to connect internal site search data to goals and ecommerce tracking on your website, allowing you to see how people search for products on your site and how this relates to the number of people purchasing from you or contacting you. This is great for understanding what terms lead to people wanting to purchase from you. If your website has a search functionality on it, this new functionality makes setting up site search tracking in Analytics more useful, so if you’ve not already done so, set this up now.

Google have also improved the breadcrumbs in Analytics to it easier to navigate around Google Analytics and take a step back to the section before.

In Page Analytics, which is the ability to see what links are the most popular on your page with an overlay of pages on your site showing the percentage of visitors who clicked on which links has also been added to the Content section of the report.  This tool is useful for understanding how people are interacting with your website and can be used to monitor the performance of specific pages on your site and how effective the calls to action you have on these pages are.  This can be useful for monitoring the effectiveness of your main site as well as your PPC landing pages.

One of the things I really like about the new version of Analytics is the ease of accessing information about traffic from different sources as by default search engine traffic is split into SEO and PPC from the menu rather than a text link on the page, so it’s now easier to look at the traffic coming through to your website from paid or organic sources.

Google also integrated Webmaster Tools into Analytics last year, allowing you to see the search query data from webmaster tools from within your analytics account. Following the changes to  Search Query Data in Google Webmaster Tools last week, I’m sure I’ll be using this screen more now.

There are also some great Social Media reports in Google Analytics, as Google becomes more focussed on social media as a ranking factor with the launch and promotion of Google+.  I’m sure over the coming months these reports will get more detailed offering a better understanding of how social media is impacting your website.

During this switch over process Google are continuing to make changes to the new interface and are also asking people to complete a quick survey about things you would like to see in Analytics or miss from the old version. As I’ve mentioned before I miss the quick comparison percentages so I’ve already filled in the survey but if there’s something you are looking for or missing you can complete the survey here.

If you haven’t heard of Pinterest, it does what it says on the tin – a virtual pinboard of interesting things. You find something you like, you Pin it to one of your Boards for others to see, comment on and share (or “re-pin”). What’s special about Pinterest from a marketing point of view is how fast it is now attracting attention. (For the purposes of this piece I am capitalising “Pin” and “Board” to highlight the features of Pinterest.)

One reason for that growing interest is because Pinterest offers brand owners several SEO benefits and grow traffic. These ten content marketing ideas will help you to optimise your Pinterest content – not only for SEO but also for social media.

1. Pinterest offers better reporting in Analytics.
Look in your website analytics reports and you will see the websites and pages that referred traffic to you. Facebook referrals do not give you any insight into the actual content that sent people to your site because they go through a script page like “l.php” so the referral path shows you nothing. With Piniterest, however, Analytics will tell you which item of content earned the referral click and allow you to click through and see that item on Pinterest. This allows you to interact with (thank, for example) people who promote your content.

2. Show Pinterest activity on Facebook
Signing into Pinterest with Facebook will link your Facebook timeline to your Pinterest posts. This means your Facebook friends will be able to see your Pinning activity and click through to see your Pins. You can (and should) also cross-promote, occasionally, your Pins on other networks like Twitter, Flickr or even your blog.

3. Add Pin It buttons to your web pages
Pinterest offers two widget buttons. One is a Pin It button, which you embed into your web content. This allows your website visitors to click the button and Pin your content to one of their Boards. The other button is a “Follow me on Pinterest” button, which lets you send people to your collection of Pinboards. This is useful for a personal blog, for example.

4. Excellent backlink building opportunities
Because Pinterest is a massive social network, the domain authority is excellent. Consequently, it will be indexed constantly by search engines. The more items people post on their boards that link to your website, the more your site will benefit not only from traffic but possibly (no guarantee) from rank quality scores too.

5. Remember your keyword strategy
Your website should be optimised to focus on a few core keywords. Your content on Pinterest should reflect this. Google is indexing personal Pinterest accounts but, more importantly, individual Boards. So, a Pinboard called “My shoe shop in Leicester”, full of photos from your shop and product images, would be better than a Board called “My shop”. It’s worth noting, too, that the ALT variables in the IMG tags for each Pin are taken from the description you use.

6. Use words and phrases people look for
Pinterest has a nice search feature. People may search for “cake recipes”, “Thailand resorts”, “classic cars” etc. Don’t just Pin things and say “this is great” or “I like this”. Be descriptive, using words and phrases people type into search.

7. Create a brand channel
This is ideal for retailers, but almost any company can do this. Create a Pinterest account for your brand, using the brand image as the profile pic, then create themed Boards containing product photos – a virtual catalogue that’s there for sharing. Experiment with links from the Pinned items back to the source page and vice versa.

8. A picture paints a thousand words
Your Pin is dominated by the image you choose. Choose an image that has “wow” factor and it is more likely to be re-pinned and commented on. Repeatedly post great images and you will grow a good following.

9. Remember, friends don’t do sales meetings
If you are posting on a personal Pinterest channel, as opposed to a brand channel, remember the 90/10 rule. Make sure only 10% of your content is self-promoting while 90% is great content from other websites or re-pinned content from other people. No one is likely to listen to you for long if you are the guy at the party only interested in selling something.

10. Run a Pinterest competition
Encourage your web users to promote your content on Pinterest. Land’s End did this in the USA very effectively by asking customers to set up their own Land’s End Board on Pinterest, then to pin items to that Board from the Land’s End website. The best Boards won $250 of shopping vouchers.

Content-driven search marketing just got more interesting.

But no-one ever talks about the anguish of the awards evening, and I’m not talking about the possibility of losing your category.

Let’s face it, men have it easy, because black tie is black tie, whereas us girls have to negotiate the minefield of long vs short, strapless vs sleeves, classic vs modern, detailing…fabric…cut…shoes…hair up? Hair down?

ARRRRRGGHHH!

OK, now that I’ve got that rant out of the way, I should say that, despite sartorial purgatory, we are absolutely thrilled to have been shortlisted in The News Business Excellence Awards 2012, sponsored by BAE Systems.

We’ve been shortlisted for our great track record and ten year history as a Hampshire business, a supporter of local businesses and a provider of innovative Content-driven search marketing; SEO, paid search, content and social media marketing services to 200 customers.

We’re competing against seven great local companies, and we look forward to meeting everyone on 10th February.

OK, I’m off to rummage through the wardrobe. Again.

One of the pet peeves I had with this data historically was that the “average position” for keywords on my SEO campaigns was out of sync with what I was seeing.  There are a number of keywords I monitor a lot in the rankings and as such know where these rankings are on a day by day basis and whenever I’ve looked in GWT these average rankings have been considerably lower than the positions I know have been the average position over a given time frame.  This is incredibly annoying when trying to use this data and has previously given me pause when looking at the accuracy of this data.  I also know that other people have looked at this data and been concerned as they were sure that a keyword was doing well in Google only to see this report and think it’s not doing as well as they thought it was.

On the Google Webmaster Central blog yesterday there was an announcement about changes to this report and an explanation about how this used to work and how it works now.

Previously the rankings shown in this report were based on the average ranking for the whole site, this means that if you have multiple rankings for a given keyword your average ranking would be lower than the main ranking you’ve achieved. For example, if your site ranks 3rd for a keyword and also ranks 14th, these two rankings would be combined to show the average ranking for the keywords.

However, from the 25th January 2012 Google will now be showing this average ranking figure based on the top ranking for a keyword, so only your position 3 ranking will be used to create the average ranking.

This will not affect the historical data and so the old method of working out the average ranking will still apply for all reports on searches and keywords which report time frames before the 25th January.  However, from yesterday all the data you will see in GWT will be based on the highest of your rankings, which will then better reflect the positions you see. Great for making sure you don’t have a heart attack when looking at this data as it’s telling you that your average position is 9th when you thought you were 3rd!

Thought I’d share. Thrilling right?

Generally, as a PPC person I used to only click on PPC adverts when I was certain I was going to convert. I’m slowly starting to be more adventurous in clicking around – don’t worry I never bounce.

But Rachel I hear you cry, why should you click on PPC adverts?

Relevancy.

Aforementioned article ‘what I read’ mentioned about landing pages being chosen specifically for the search query in mind. Excellent point.

I manage a large ecommerce account and they stock over 13 million products. I have multiple campaigns and adverts, each advert has a landing page (obviously) which I have sourced through their search function and categories. Much better than just the generic home page and assuming they have the patience to look through everything.Guess what? It works.

Why else? Still on relevancy. If you are looking for something quite specific, you can, if someone has written the advert well enough, find what you want quicker than if you went another route.  PPC’ers want you to find what you’re after!

Why else?

Offers.

I searched on a well-known skin care brand, on their brand term. PPC Advert. In the advert it had a sitelink advertising a promotion, think it was spend £30 and get XX as a ‘free’ gift.

Free you say?

Went organically to the website to see what I wanted but I couldn’t find any mention of this freebie. Even opened a new tab and had a p-e-r-u-s-e.

Hmm. So, I went back to Google and performed the brand name search again. This time I clicked on the PPC sitelink and found the special offer landing page. URL confirmed it was a PPC dedicated landing page.

This just seemed a bit odd to me.

So the company are paying for your click and then giving you stuff for free. If it was on a more competitive keyword I would understand – you need an edge, but for a brand term… It seemed a bit unfair it was just on PPC – you know they want you; they came through on your Brand! Also as a sitelink, may not always run.

So PPC side, aside the student gene kicked in and obviously went through the PPC route. Brought it. Got the t-shirt – It wasn’t a T shirt but you know.

But now, I am being remarketed to with even better offers, more free stuff and discount codes. Before this turns into a remarketing moan, just going to say ‘Cap it. Minus people who have brought from your remarketing.

But yes. Offers exclusive to PPC traffic.

Why else should you click on it? Reviews.

If it’s a company you haven’t ever dealt with those little Stars indicate a review. Click on it and see what they are about. Gain some confidence in who you are giving your money to. If the reviews describe it as ‘Rubbish’ then maybe just leave it.

If your still ‘nah’ try this website out. 

Ecommerce SEO has many elements to it to ensure that you are covering all of your bases.  The below covers some of the things you will need to consider.

Full on page optimisation needs to be done. Like a static website you need to make sure that your website has unique title tags, meta descriptions and things like a working robots.txt and sitemap.xml file.

Make sure you have a unique product page for each of your products and that this is optimised well as above.  One thing to look out for on some ecommerce platforms is the creation of multiple URLs for each product.  For example if you have a Bargains section on your website make sure that when products are added to the Bargain category their URL doesn’t change.  So if you sell packets of 50 Vitamin C tablets and your product URL is ww.yoursite.co.uk/products/vitamins/vitamin-c-50s.html when you add this product to the Bargain section the URL should stay like this and not move or duplicate as www.yoursite.co.uk/products/bargains/vitamin-c-50s.html as this either creates a duplicate listing or confuses the search engines as your products keep moving.

You need to review how your ecommerce platform shows product listing pages.  If you have lots of products in a category then it is likely that your listing page will be split into a number of pages to show all of the results.  If this is the case you need to make sure that each page of results has a unique title tag and meta description and not the same one across pages 1, 2 and 3.  It’s also worth considering the layout and design of these product listing pages as Joe discussed in his blog about Product Grids earlier this month.

As Content Driven search marketing becomes more important to the search engines you need to make sure that all of your product landing and product detail pages have unique content on them.  Your Category and Product descriptions are useful for providing the search engines relevancy for the keywords you are targeting but are also important in helping your customers decide to buy from you.

Adding product reviews can also help potential customers make a purchase.  When you have reviews on your website you can code these reviews so that they show up in the Google SERPs making your search results look more engaging.  User Generated content is also a great way to add regular content to the site which will be unique and impartial. Adding the ability for people who have bought from you to review the products is also a good way to encourage people to come back to your website as these customer reviews add an element of trust to your product listings.  There are many ways which you can encourage people to write reviews including offering a free gift, discount or entry into a free prize draw.

Another important element of your online product promotion is promoting your products on the Google Merchant Centre.  Here you can upload your products into the shopping results Google serves in the SERPs giving people another way to find your products and buy.

Social media is great for helping to promote your products and the social buttons such as Twitter and Facebook can be placed on your product pages to encourage people to share each great item to their friends.   This can help not only get more sales but increase your brand awareness.

Remember to set up ecommerce tracking in your Google Analytics to track both visitors and sales on your website so that you can track what’s working.

The internet has reached such a large percentage of the world’s population that it’s not uncommon to hear mentions within the mainstream news and media. Certainly the BBC’s Technology news pages are often littered with mentions of Google, Facebook and other well known online brands.

With the Internet so frequently mentioned in the mainstream news, you may have heard mention of SOPA and PIPA – however quite a few people I’ve spoken to are still unsure what these are or what all the fuss is about. Put simply, there are understandable concerns by the world’s biggest media producers about piracy; movies, music and TV shows have all been heavily distributed online and it’s increasingly easy to download pretty much any film you’ve ever heard of without paying for it. SOPA (Stop internet Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) are bills going through congress in the US. If passed, the principle is that a US copyright holder would be able to demand your entire website be taken down if it’s thought to contain or link to any pirated material. If your website were outside of the US then the copyright holder could instead order Google and other search engines drop it from their search results which would be the end of your search marketing in the States.

Whilst protecting copyright and intellectual rights is important, many people have objected to the bill on the grounds it lacks sufficient detail. They have major concerns that this lack of detail will allow the system to become heavily abused, destroying many of the freedoms we currently enjoy online.

So, let’s get some examples of why people are worried: most websites have news and blog pages featuring the ability to leave a comment. It’s been suggested that under SOPA and PIPA, if someone were to leave a comment on your website with a link pointing to a site containing copyrighted content, the copyright holder could request your site be removed (if it’s in the US) or dropped from US search results if outside.  The appeal procedure is unclear and it’s websites could be offline for weeks or months even if they’ve done nothing wrong, which could severely damage any business operating online. It’s also thought that competitors could take advantage of such laws and sabotage websites on a whim.

Another example: you notice one of your products in the background of a popular American TV show so you post a blog containing either a link to the clip on YouTube. Could the copyright owner could potentially protest at this and demand your website be taken off air?

Whilst this initially only affects people with an audience in the US, there are concerns that if this went ahead in America similar, systems would be adopted in other countries, including the UK.

The reactions to this scheme have been divided; content owners support the bill whilst, as part of an internet blackout, The Wikimedia Foundation closed the English language version of its website for twenty-four hours, Google blacked out their logo on their pages in the US,  Mozilla altered the Firefox start-up page and many other websites also added their support in different ways. Eighteen senators changed their position as a result. By contrast, Rupert Murdoch generated controversy by claiming on Twitter that Google supports piracy by streaming media and making money by advertising off the back of this.

Murdoch, of course, has revealed his views of Google before when he accused the search giant of breaking copyright when they aggregated news stories. Either way, both SOPA and PIPA in their current forms already appear to have been dealt a major blow when President Obama stated he would not be supporting them.

Despite this, with online piracy growing it’s extremely likely that alternative systems will be devised or these proposals revised should SOPA and PIPA be rejected.  Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has already claimed to have been working with political leaders for a number of months to help produce a better proposal.

If you’d like to hear a short discussion regarding SOPA, Radio 4’s The Media Show discussed this with Emma Barnett, the Digital Media Editor of The Telegraph. I highly recommend listening to this via the BBC iPlayer – you jump straight to the relevant part of the programme by jumping forward to the fourteen minute mark.

Even if PIPA and SOPA are rejected by congress as suspected, it’s unlikely this will be the last we hear of them even if they return in another guise. Hopefully the next time we hear of them they will have been revised ensure businesses receive as much protection as the copyright owners. Either way, although UK readers may believe these changes won’t affect them because they’re happening across the pond, this isn’t the case. It’s important to keep up to date with the latest developments as similar laws will most likely be enforced in the UK once they’ve been instated in the US.