Last week, Google started serving up a new (massive) version of organic site links. Site links are the extra links that you can see beneath search listings in Google SERPs and they're there to provide shortcuts that help people quickly find the information that they're looking for. Site links in one form or another are now commonplace in both paid and natural search results. So far, these 'jumbo' site links are only appearing against branded searches, where Google is pretty certain that the searcher is looking for that site. Whether you're a brand owner, interested in protecting high converting brand traffic, or a reseller that relies on traffic from your product brand terms, it's important to take notice of this change, which has the potential to significantly impact your traffic from natural and paid search. Are they relevant or are they the ones that you want? The first thing to check is whether you're lucky enough to have the new site links enabled. If you are...

Read the rest of this entry »

When you’re talking with your friends, the last thing you’d expect or even want, is for a stranger to come and interrupt you mid sentence by shouting about how great they are. If they did want to join in with your conversation, their best tactic would be hang round in similar places as you, become familiar with your interests and wait for the right moment to politely introduce themselves. Next they should ask a few questions about you and most importantly LISTEN so they can start to understand your likes and dislikes. Then you probably wouldn’t mind if they started offering useful related stories and information in the flow of the conversation. How about they then used all the information they had learnt and threw a party – where the food and music were exactly to your taste. You’d probably go. And you’d probably bring your like minded mates with you. And during the party you’d also probably be happy to listen to the host with an open mind about what they have to...

Read the rest of this entry »

I think you spend far too much time worrying about Google’s algorithm. Not you personally but search professionals generally. Even Google thinks you spend far too much time worrying. "One piece of advice I give to SEO masters is, don't chase after Google's algorithm, chase after your best interpretation of what users want, because that's what Google's chasing after." The above quote is courtesy of Google's Matt Cutts and it's obvious stuff really. Google has something like a 90% share of the UK search market and it would very much like to maintain and even improve on this because, simply put, advertisers follow their customers (and have to pay for the privilege). It's good, old-fashioned economics in action. And it's a good, old-fashioned onsite content opportunity that you can take advantage of. Serving up the results that deliver the compelling and useful content that people want is what will protect and amplify Google's power. And those businesses...

Read the rest of this entry »

Search is evolving. More and more marketers understand that the technical configuration part of SEO, although essential, is not the entirety of any good SEO strategy. But there’s one thing that hasn’t evolved and shows little sign of changing yet – initial contract duration.   It will be interesting to see if this changes as knowledge of SEO best practice becomes widespread within marketing departments. While a contract lasting 12 months may have seemed sensible when companies were focusing almost exclusively on the technical configuration part of SEO, the landscape is completely different now, and yet a typical initial agreement is likely still to be for only 12 months.  There are a number of reasons why I think this will inevitably change, to the benefit of both agency and client: 1. SEO is a creative discipline There is a large amount of creative work required to deliver top-quality SEO, both to deliver authoritative external content and to increase...

Read the rest of this entry »

It's a great end to the week for Propellernet. The sun is shining and we've bagged our second CIMTIG Travel Marketing Award! Last night, the third CIMTIG Travel Marketing Awards took place at the very glamorous and contemporary Ballroom, in the Intercontinental London Park Lane Hotel. Our Travel Team Captain, Rachel and New Biz Director, Stefan attended the awards, which aim to demonstrate marketing excellence in travel, and reward and raise the standards across the industry. With this in mind, it was music to our ears when the crown of 'Best Use of Search Engine Optimisation' was awarded to us (for the second year running!), for our 'Villas in Tuscany' campaign for To Tuscany. The judges were particularly impressed with our "innovative approach" and "impressive search engine positional jumps" for the search term 'villas in Tuscany'. Back in 2010 our 'Flourishing Families Campaign' for Sovereign Luxury Holidays also earned us recognition for innovation in SEO,...

Read the rest of this entry »

The recently reported news that the Office of Fair Trading is looking to prosecute companies who pay bloggers for positive coverage of their products makes interesting news for all of us at Propellernet. Why would anyone offering quality content need to pay for coverage? Our approach has always been to develop content that offers genuine value to our target media, be that amateur bloggers, professional bloggers, or standard online media.  The fact that we use search personas and that we’re specialists in the travel and retail sectors means that we know the key media contacts well and we’re able to determine which sites are right for our clients’ target audience quickly and easily.   From there we use various inputs to determine what content will prove valuable both to our clients’ target audience and to the media that we’re targeting. The result of this approach is that we value good relations with all our key contacts from bloggers to journalists (regularly...

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, so web content is nothing new; people have been creating new content (good and bad) since the birth of the web. But creating exciting, relevant content for your website... now that is a completely different kettle of fish! In the first instalment of ‘Get Creative in 2011’ we gave an introduction to what it is to produce great content for your website. We also discussed ways of using ‘Design SEO’ to benefit your online audience and produce the best content to boost your search possibilities. In part two, we will discuss why the production of smart, creative and well designed content is SO damn important to your brand and how you can squeeze every last drop from it. Read the rest of this entry...

Read the rest of this entry »

With the celebrations of the 1st of January now behind us and with a wealth of ideas for ‘what will be new in 2011’ stated - it is now time to do something big and yes, a little bit clever. Perhaps not as daunting as some would have you believe. Creating new exciting & well designed pieces of content can make all the difference to your search positions. In this blog post I will highlight some great ways of combining graphic design with SEO, a technique that has been used to great acclaim and success in my work with Propellernet. We call it Design SEO and it should change the way you think about content. Read the rest of this entry...

Read the rest of this entry »

Having read a very informative study, conducted by Nielsen, concerning the customer process in the UK online travel market, there were lots of interesting facts and figures which I felt compelled to share with our blog readers! The study took approximately 490 travel sites across all categories, and charted a detailed analysis from January to March on their users’ journey, from searching to purchasing. Being an intern at a search agency with one team focused entirely on the travel sector, the study highlighted some very important facts and I hope to explain them in this post. Let’s start with some basic facts: there are over 28.7 million people in the UK online travel market. Of these people, 22 million use search engines in their customer journey, with 92% of those that purchase using search at some point. That’s a huge number of potential customers that should not be ignored by any travel e-tailer wanting to dominate the industry! Read the rest of this entry...

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a topic that’s not often discussed openly in the SEO community or the online marketing world. Most people who have an SEO strategy in place to drive links to a certain category page, will no doubt understand that the main aim is to improve the position of this keyword. The immediate benefit is obvious, in that as positions improve, so does traffic from this keyword. This post looks beyond this and explores other side benefits, which often get overlooked. Read the rest of this entry...

Read the rest of this entry »