The Front Row Society Mark 1

But between trend keyword forecasting and creating content, they still managed to find time to swing by swanky celeb hang out Shoreditch House for drinks with their favourite people: fashion bloggers.

The event, the Front Row Society, organised by the Propellernet team, is an exclusive get together for the crème de la crème of the Fashion industry’s bloggers and Propellernet.

Apart from always enjoying a good old gossip with our favourite fashion bloggers, the Society has been set up with the intention of staying abreast of the online fashion world and for the team here at Propellernet towers to find out what the fashion pack love, hate and how they’re shaping the industry.

The evening’s dinner and debate was private which meant no subject was off limit.

The idea was to gain true insight and to ensure we’re constantly coming up with the coolest ideas and connecting our fashion clients to key influencers in the best way possible. It was also a chance for the bloggers to share ideas and discuss their own plans together.

The Propellernet team was joined by Catwalk Queen, Disney Roller Girl, Fashion Foe Gras, O So You, Fashion Daydreams, The Style PA, FabFrocks, Style Brief and A Fashion A City A Style.

The first event was a success and went off with a bang (or was that the pop of the Prosecco?). Everyone found the evening insightful, inspiring and delicious so we’re keen to keep our date with our fashion friends in the diary! As you have probably realised this is a rather exclusive club, so although it’s unlikely you’ll be receiving an invite from us any time soon we will be sharing some of the insight with you here on the Propellernet blog; keep your eyes peeled for what’s hot and what’s really not in the fashion blogging world.

Next week Isa will be sharing why it’s so important for brands to collaborate rather than sell to bloggers and why unique ideas win with the leading fashion influencers.

They wouldn’t penalise you. They’d just shrug or yawn or somesuch and start smiling at something else instead.

No hard feelings. Just a simple: “It’s not us, it’s you…”

I think a few businesses should be preparing for the cold shoulder of search marketing.

And it will be their fault because, as Anthony Robbins has said:

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

And what have they always done? Well, to be blunt, spam.

Only it wasn’t always spam. It used to be the way to “win”. Only Google started valuing other indicators of authority but some businesses didn’t take the hint, or found themselves organisationally unable to do things differently.

In making his predictions for SEO in 2012, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz said:

“In 2012, I believe Google’s search quality folks will roll out algorithmic changes in how they value low quality links that help them regain pride in their work.

“The embarrassment and quality gap caused by linkspam is egregious and, if left to stand, gives competitors an opening while simultaneously weakening searchers’ trust in Google’s results.

“Just as “content farms” took their hits in 2011, I think link spam’s up for some blows in 2012.”

It might not be a fatal blow but the writing’s on the wall, folks. The revolution will not be televised. It will just happen. And you could be first up against the wall.

It’s time you understood where your authority comes from and how you’ve been building it. If you don’t know you need to ask your agency or internal team.

If they don’t know (or won’t tell) you need to keep asking until then do (and will).

And if it turns out your strategy is reliant on low-level and/or paid link building, then you need to pivot and now.

Or accept the risks and get ready for the conversation when Google dumps you for a newer model.

Or come along to BrightonSEO on Friday 13th April and hear me and Gary Preston starting our private revolution.

The run up to the births was a little hectic - lots going on at work and the impending likelihood of becoming a dad any day, but there was never any pressure on me to work if I needed to be at Brighton hospital.   If it came to it, my colleagues were happy to rally around and cover my work knowing I had more important things to worry about.   My wife went into hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning and the girls arrived early on Thursday, weighing just over 2 pounds each.

A quick email in from my phone explaining the situation and putting on my out-of-office, and I was able to focus on my new family for a few days without worrying about work - unbeknown to me the senior team here had met and each taken some of my work to ensure it all got completed.   None of my work was dropped and I soon received an email offering to fund a dog walker as we were spending nearly all our time at the hospital….cleaning of the house if we didn’t have time….and also a quality frozen food package to ensure we ate well and stayed healthy!

Once the girls had got through the critical first few days they were being fantastically looked after at the Trevor Mann Baby Unit so I came back to work, postponing my paternity leave until they were able to come home.   But Propellernet understood that I might need to pop up to the hospital for critical appointments with doctors and I was given leeway to do whatever was necessary.   Gradually the girls got more healthy and most importantly, started to get bigger and chubbier!

When they came home mid-November I took my paternity leave and a little holiday to spend some quality time with my newborns.   Statutory paternity is £128 a week, but Propellernet offers 2 weeks paid - not particularly unusual as a lot of companies offer enhanced paternity leave.   But then when I came back I could work 10-4 in the office and do the rest at home which made life easier for the first 4 weeks.   I don’t know of many companies that offer that sort of support.   Of course that wasn’t always practical with client meetings and trying to work at home with screaming kids is tricky but at times, when they were calm, spending more time at home was a fantastic perk.

I’m all out of perks now, but with two girls to sort out in the morning I can sometimes find it pretty tricky to leave.   If two kids are screaming I defy anyone to tell their partner that they’re off to work without getting a mouthful of obscenities!   But again, I needn’t worry - if I’m in at nearer 9:30 than 9 because Abbie or Tia needed a feed before I could leave, no one bats an eyelid.   It works both ways - Propellernet also know that receiving so much means that I’ll happily give more back whenever I can at any time of day (or night, given the girls are virtually nocturnal).

I couldn’t ask for more from an employer and at a stressful time at home, I had little work stress to consider.   As a senior management team we spend dedicated time thinking about how we can improve health and wellbeing for staff knowing that we, and therefore our clients, will feel the benefit through quality of work.   We spend money on it too - 5% of our profits go back into health and wellbeing projects here.   It was great to feel the benefit of some of our health and wellbeing policies so acutely myself - it really makes me appreciate what we’ve got here and I can talk to potential recruits firsthand about how Propellernet’s family friendly policies will help them.   I genuinely feel it’s amazing for an employer to be so supportive - it was my idea to write this post!!

Now all I need Propellernet to do is to provide some kind of bed here.   I’m tired.   Very, very tired.

One day I’m sure.

It’s interesting to see such a huge shift in the industry with brands increasingly not just keeping an eye on bloggers but collaborating with them.

With Bip Ling becoming the new face of Forever 21 and Susie Bubble working on the Topshop ‘Edited Project’, it was only a matter of time before luxury brands came on board too.

The bag has been designed to meet the needs of a busy blogger. The oversized tote has different compartments for a large SLR camera, a spare pair of flat shoes, an IPad and a phone - it’s a bloggers dream bag!

The event was a huge success with a great turn out (more than 100 people) and it was good to see so many familiar faces and fellow bloggers come to support Emily including Disney Roller Girl, Mademoiselle Robot, and Freak Deluxe . It was also great to meet new bloggers Boy meets fashion, Delightful finds and me and Normality and me (who kindly mentioned meeting us in a post on her blog). Everyone seemed very excited to be there.

Going to events and meeting bloggers is what we love to do.  It's all very well sending out press releases and bcc'ing 100 contacts in one hit - based on our experience this approach seldom works with bloggers.

As blogs are much more personal, bloggers write in a subjective manner and operate quite differently to journalists. One of the reasons they are seen as authentic influencers is because they blog about what they love and what interests them.  They influence their readers because they represent everyday people with real budgets, lifestyles and body shapes.

Getting out and about to regularly meet bloggers means we get to know them properly. The more we talk to them and get to know them,  the more  we find out what they're like, what interests them, what brands they love, what brands they hate and most importantly, how they like and don't like to work.

The way we like to work with bloggers is to collaborate with them by contributing to create great unique content for their blogs. Meeting them face-to-face is great because you can pitch ideas, talk about projects and find out what makes them tick rather than expecting them just to write about a new product or cover an event.

After working  on various different projects with  Emily (Fashion Fois Gras), Navaz (Disney Roller Girl), Laetitia (Mademoiselle Robot), Kristin ( Clothes Whisperer) and Marian (Marian Kihogo) we've also learned that every fashion blogger is different -  they have different styles, ways of reporting, favoured brands  and personalities. And it's important to keep this in mind too when thinking about how best to work with them.

To say that bloggers are reshaping the fashion industry is an understatement.

Two years ago brands were struggling to understand why they needed the likes of Style Bubble and Liberty London girl on the front row at their shows. Now bloggers are not only working closely with them but influencing them and designing for them.

The Fashion Foie Gras/Coach collaboration is just the beginning of what is to come as the fashion world finally understands how powerful and relevant the blog sphere is.

Google maintains that its main consideration is to improve the user experience and relevance of the results page and, at first glance, it would seem that this change is one that actually isn’t driven by increasing profits.

How could they possibly benefit from shrinking the advertising space from 11 potential clicks to six?

Well, firstly, Google isn’t doing away with all the ads on the right hand side.

The official announcement said: “Ads that have previously shown to the side of the results may in some cases appear below them.”

We can assume that Google will judge the impact on paid traffic for each keyword, much in the same way that it has assessed the need for a Top three ad box in the first place.

If total paid search click-throughs fall drastically for high-volume terms, you can bet your daily budget that the side ads will be back quicker than you can say ‘first page bid estimate’!

Broadly speaking, the change will further blur the line between natural and sponsored results, as the results page becomes one standardised list- something that extended PPC headlines and sitelinks have already started to do.

The move will also make room for more advanced results - shopping, maps, hotels - what else might Google use the space for? A different form of paid-for advertising?

The impact on advertisers could be profound. Even before the ad space starts disappearing, this news will inevitably cause many Adwords managers to unnecessarily increase their bids to ensure a position at the top of the page.

Beyond that, the CPC for high-volume terms will undoubtedly increase as brands clamber for a coveted top three position.

But what about those whose campaigns rely on generating a large amount of relatively cheap traffic from position four and below? Will Google’s claim that ‘ads at the bottom performed better than side ads in terms of click-through rate’ really ring true?

The actual impact on the cost of traffic remains to be seen but if Google ultimately intends to generate more advertising revenue from considerably less advertising space, it can only be  bad news for smaller brands whose PPC budgets will inevitably start delivering less clicks.

Plus with more advertisers joining AdWords every day as other channels dry up, it’s becoming more apparent than ever that a PPC-only approach is not a sustainable long term strategy for driving traffic.

“It’s complicated.”

I’m sure you’ve heard that a few times, particularly since Facebook launched.

I’ve heard it a few times in the context of agencies and consultants having difficulties detailing the quality of a site’s reputation and the impact of link-building strategies.

But if the vast majority of top natural (earned) positions are highly dependent on the quality and diversity of inbound links and social signals then surely it’s a difficulty worth overcoming?

And, thinking about it, surely it can’t really be that complicated?

Perhaps it’s made complicated because that serves certain interests.

I wonder what many clients would think if they were provided with coverage books detailing links secured, the context of those links, the domain authority of the referring sites etc.

I wonder what many of those coverage books would look like.

I wonder how confident those same clients would be if it was really clear where they were getting links from and how many of them were paid for (even if the client didn’t know they were paid for because the agency hadn’t told them).

I do a lot of wondering.

When Google demoted JC Penney’s site for a number of valuable keywords (after it discovered paid links) I seem to remember that JC Penney said it wasn’t aware of the offending links. I’m guessing someone, somewhere was.

Isn’t it time that people stopped making it complicated?

Isn’t it time we found a way to simply visualise the quality and diversity of links? And flagged those ones that have been paid for? (An increasingly risky investment these days.)

Surely there’s nothing to hide?

We’re advocating openness. Join us if you’re interested.

Search engines, social media sites, news sites, etailers… everybody’s at it and with good reason.

Search engines

The search engines are always striving to provide the results that we will want to click on. This is both to provide the best possible user experience possible and also to generate more revenue if that click happens to be on a paid search result.

Google personalised search is an effort to improve relevance. Search engines provide personalised search results by collecting data on our usage and behaviour as well as many other factors such as our location and the device we’re searching on.

Social media sites

Social media sites guess what we’re searching for, who we might want to connect to, who we’re going to want to chat to and see updates from etc. Check out this interesting (and slightly creepy) piece on who Facebook thinks you’re searching for.

Digital media sites

Media sites providing news, articles and video make personalised recommendations they think we will, probably, be interested in.

Online Retailers

Amazon have led the way on retailer personalisation with their suggestions but now it’s easy for all online retailers to provide personalised product recommendations with services like rich relevance.

Almost every other site…

Unless you’ve taken steps to prevent it any site with advertising space could show you personalised ads. Services such as Google Remarketing and Criteo can personalise ads based on the sites you’ve visited and products/services you have looked at.

But is it a good thing?

Now this is where it gets complicated.

My opinion on personalisation varies massively depending on the context, my mood and whether I’m at home or work.

If I do search for “cinema” while at home in Brighton then I probably want to see results from local cinemas.

If I visit a particular site regularly then when I perform a generic search that is relevant to content on that site then I probably want that sites content to appear higher up in the search results.

At work I love the extra dimension personalisation brings to digital marketing and so do many clients (particularly when smart personalisation strategies drive revenue).

So, personalisation is a good thing right?

Well not exactly.

The biggest problem with online personalisation is the cocoon/filter bubble/echo chamber, (whatever you want to call it) that can be created whether you want it to or not.

Most of the time when online we connect and engage with people and content that matches our existing interests, political views and belief structure. Algorithms then use this data to predict what we want to see and filter out the rest.

This creates an endless cycle of only seeing things you like, because you like seeing things like that, so you see will only see things you like (way too many likes in that sentence). And that means no more serendipity (look it up if you don’t know what it means).

There are two main problems with predicting what we are more likely to want. The first is that more likely doesn’t mean it’s what we want all the time.

I might really want to watch an interesting documentary on BBC Four but it’s more likely that I want to watch South Park.

The second reason is sometimes there are things we need to see not just want. I might want to read an article about Frankie Cokeupthenoza getting edited from TV ads but really I should be reading about the Eurozone crisis.

What we need is new ways of categorising.

We also need greater awareness and control over what we see and what gets filtered out.
Not mind reading.

This month, Google announced an update to its ads quality algorithm that increases the weight given to landing page relevance and quality in determining quality score and paid search rankings. This move is preceded by testing in Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

Then and Now:

Before this change, landing page quality was included in quality score but was only viewed as a negative factor. This meant that if you were running poor quality landing pages you might expect to see a low quality score (QS) or that you could see your landing pages rejected altogether.

Either way, having a fantastically relevant, unique and authentic landing page would have had no positive impact on QS.

Now, landing page quality will have a more positive impact on QS weighting it more strongly versus the usual factors of Click Through Rate and Keyword Relevancy.

What Does It Mean?

This means that if your landing pages aren’t in check you could be due a quality score ‘slap’ at some point in the next few weeks; your positions could fall and you could lose positions and traffic to competitors with better quality landing pages.

Also, because your quality score may have dropped versus the competition you’ll have to increase your CPCs to get back to the position that you already held!

What Can You Do?

There’s no magic landing page formula that’s going to guarantee great quality scores but there are elements that are taken into account when Google calculates landing page quality.

Clarity: When they land on your site, users very quickly decide whether they’re going to stay or go. It’s often said that the best effect is achieved by placing the heading on the top left of the page so that the eye catches it first.

Relevance: Wherever possible your landing pages need to closely match the keyword that the customer clicked. For example if a user is searching for ‘nike running shoes’ make sure that your landing page is all about Nike running shoes.

Uniqueness: Ask yourself: “what’s different about you versus the competition?”. Google loves good quality, unique content. If your landing page simply repeats product specs that can be found anywhere else on the web, you might benefit from adding some additional content that’s more compelling.

Call To Action: Is it clear what you want the customer to do when they land on your site? Make sure that there’s a clear next step from your landing page to the next part of the process. Also consider how clear the process actually is; does the customer know what to expect at the next stage?

Authenticity: Don’t try and dupe your customers. Google frowns upon suspicious scripts, popups and page redirects. In the most extreme cases this could land you a costly Adwords ban.

Speed: Page load time has been a factor of quality score for a while now but we all know how rubbish it is when a landing page takes ages to load. Make sure your site loads in good time and if its slow, find out why.

If you’re getting all this stuff right you’ll be reaping the benefits of better quality scores and higher ranked ads. Happy days! It’s no coincidence that all of these elements are the key to delivering the best conversion rates too.

Conclusion:

Lazy-linking and poor quality landing pages lead to a bad user-experience and for me success in search is about providing the right answers for the searcher. That means that queries, keywords, ads and landing pages all need to be considered.

This is a positive move from Google; rewarding advertisers that work hard to provide a totally relevant experience for potential customers.

I’m not scared.

We attend the Travel Convention to listen rather than talk (although it was nice to be invited to talk too this time) and here are three areas that got me wound up:

There are far too many senior people that continue to talk about ‘online’ as if it’s something new.

In their defence, some people only just seem to be getting used to computers, nevermind the web. I met one delegate who told me his company had only just (last year) implemented a computerised booking system.  I can’t say I’m too surprised by this, particularly when it comes to some of the smaller agents.

But I was amazed to hear some senior people from big organisations talking about ‘online’ as if it’s a recent thing.

I heard a couple of people talk about prioritising the online opportunity as if this put them ahead of the curve. The truth is that for some businesses it could be a case of too little, too late.

Some big players are engaged in a game of catch-up that I’m not sure they can win - it will be interesting to see how effectively they can compete against the ‘pureplays’ and those that are already innovating.

People are far too focused on channels

I attended Econsultancy’s JUMP event last week and was very taken by a talk from Jonathan Wolf, Bazaarvoice’s Director of Product Strategy, in which he challenged the multichannel mentality.

He talked about how to engage shoppers across every customer touchpoint, moving beyond the multichannel to the omnichannel.

I’m not that interested in the terminology but, looking back, it struck me that the theme of the Convention was ‘game changers’ and that a lot of the focus was on the role of individual channels in facilitating change.

I think the real challenge for the industry as a whole is to better understand customers and how they research and purchase, offline and online. The challenge is to understand the stories that people are creating for themselves using the information the industry provides, and how different channels can contribute to the meaningful whole that is the connected customer.

It feels like travel professionals don’t necessarily need to know more about different technologies.

What they need is help understanding their customers’ journeys  and how best to engage with them.

This isn’t the year of the mobile…

For the foreseeable future, every year will be the year of the mobile.

It’s clear that mobile devices and ways of being are going to be a big part of our collective futures. But I’d like to make something clear: It’s one thing to have a mobile strategy; it’s another to have a mobile site or an app.

I think a lot of people are confused about this.
They’re not making the most of existing online opportunities and yet they’re already worrying about whether they should or should not have a mobile site.

They need not to get distracted.

They need to analyse their data and understand their customers and go from there.

It might be they need a mobile site now. It might not. It depends where your customers are.

It will still be the year of the mobile next year. And the year after.

Assuming that you already have an English language .com site, there are a number of things that you need to consider before making the international plunge, outside of the extremely obvious such as the appeal of your products to an international audience.   If you’re a retail business, then you’ll need to consider:

• Whether the size of your business and the potential opportunity justifies a local language site
• Changes probably required to your customer database to take into account international addresses
• Local hosting of foreign language sites
• Whether you have or need an in-market sales/marketing team and whether you work to a centralised search strategy
• Multi-lingual customer service queries
• Consistency of international analytics
• International tax issues
• Returns legislation

…to name but a few

But having got your head around all the logistics, how do you go about increasing search volume to your local market site?

Local market PPC isn’t simply a case of launching a translated version of your English language account. Researching keywords and writing effective ad copy requires a human touch. If you opt for automated tools you run the risk of missing out on vital keywords or your ads looking unnatural in the SERP. This is even the case when launching in English speaking markets where words could have different meanings or spellings that could make a massive difference. Using a very crude example, the word ‘Sneakers’ generates 6,600 UK searches a month but in the USA it’s 40,500 - there will be examples like this for your market.   And when optimising PPC, without local language fluency how can anyone be expected to optimise ad copy effectively, decide which negative keywords to include, or make any sense of a search query report?
And SEO?

I would argue that there are no agencies around that offer full international SEO.   Why?   Because there are very few agencies that are offering authentic SEO in the UK, so you can count on one hand the number of agencies who can even consider a “yes” with hand on heart when asked if they could offer full authentic international SEO.   What many agencies offer internationally, including Propellernet, is the “configure” and sometimes the “create” parts of SEO that ensure that the site is capable of ranking at some level for key terms.   But what about the “cultivate” part of international SEO that Propellernet has led the search market in the UK on?

To cultivate authority to your site successfully you need PR professionals who know the relevant online media contacts, both professional and bloggers, individually.   And you need to be developing long-term relationships with them so that you can offer the style of content that works for their audience, which involves speaking to them day-to-day and, ideally - where geography allows - regularly meeting them face-to-face.   Where geography makes that difficult, the use of collaborative technologies to avoid the time and expense of meeting face-to-face can be really useful.   Cultivating media contacts at its best utilises a sector specialism or otherwise the regularity of contact is so minimal that it’s much harder to build up relationships.   So our sector-specialism ensures we get a greater number of quality links than generalist competitors in the UK, pushing SERPs up and maximising ROI.

Given what a best practice search agency looks like, with the full range of technical and analytical skills complimented by experienced online PR specialists, do you think there’s any that deliver full international SEO?   If there are I’d love to hear about them because to my knowledge there aren’t any offering the “cultivate” part of SEO, just plenty offering to configure sites and do some hygiene link building in relevant directories or paid for placements.   That’s not authentic natural search, that’s just part of it.   And when Jack, Nikki and Gary attended SMX in Seattle in June, there appeared to be lots who talked about authentic link building, but none with the ability to deliver it.

We recently answered an international SEO RFI that had questions in it about what technology could be used to check that paid for links didn’t get taken down.   That sums up our concerns at Propellernet about international SEO.   Why monitor whether some low quality paid for link is live when you could spend money on generating authentic coverage which drives far better quality links, increases awareness of brand and product, offers something useful to potential customers, and drives incremental sales?   And the recent rollout of the Panda update globally (with the exception of Chinese, Japanese and Korean), which has benefited the clients of the very few authentic link builders like Propellernet in the UK, will only increase the need for authentic content and link building for all international sites.

Unless there’s an agency out there who are keeping it secret, there’s no-one offering international SEO with in-market PR professionals cultivating authority for international sites, backed up by technical and analytical expertise.   As we’re one of the very few who have cracked it in the UK, you won’t be surprised to hear that Propellernet are moving with our clients into international SEO, starting with Australia, where ecommerce is expected to grow at 11%+ in each of the next 3 years, partly as a result of the rollout of the National Broadband Network.   And also the US, a market that has just announced a 14% lift in ecommerce YoY to $37.5bn, despite a flagging economy.

Watch this space!