Following Stefan's blog post on grading retailers for search visibility last month, I wanted to go into a bit more detail about the validity of click through rate data for positions on the first page of Google.  Over the past 4 years the statistics that have been referenced, when talking about the amount of clicks a certain position receives, come from an AOL data leak in 2006: Position 1 – 42% Position 2 – 12% Position 3 – 9% Position 4 – 6% Position 5 – 5% These statistics are a bit outdated and do not give a true reflection of the current search behaviour of someone using Google on their search journey. This is because the search results page and user behaviour has changed a lot over the past 4 years, with the brand new Google Instant showing results as you type and universal search incorporating an array of results including maps, news, images, videos and many more.  Most of the available statistics on CTRs also do not take into account the impact of paid...

Read the rest of this entry »

This week saw myself and Stu Bowker presenting on behalf of Propellernet at the MDHub 100 SEO & Google tools seminar, at the Sussex County Cricket ground. Our presentation gave a basic overview of SEO, exploring some link building tactics and the role good online PR can play. We also touched upon the power of conversion optimisation and detailed lots of free tools available to get you started. One of the key themes that came out of the session was that Google wants to provide the most relevant search results to users, offering the best user experience possible, encouraging searchers to come back time and time again. So how does Google decide who gets the top spot and ensure results stay relevant...? Well Google's search algorithm looks at a host of factors, but particularly important ones include good and relevant on page content mentioning the keywords you are targeting, as well as relevant and authoritative external links to that content. Read the rest of this entry...

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s face it, we all love Christmas. It’s a great time of year where we reflect on the year just gone, eat mince pies, watch the Queen’s speech, listen to The Pogues on the wireless (oops DAB Digital Radio) and laugh at Grandad as he drops his false teeth in the dog’s food bowl and farts as he bends over to pick them up. However, the build up to this festive event (Christmas, not Grandad’s farting), is a frenzy of activity for retailers as they fight for customers both on and off the high street. Christmas shopping online is becoming a growing trend. I for one plan on buying most of my presents online from the comfort of my own warm home, away from the crazed masses on the wet and blustery high street. But with so much choice online, how am I supposed to choose one e-tailer over another? Here’s a few tips to help online retailers stand out from the crowd and get those all important extra sales. Read the rest of this entry...

Read the rest of this entry »

Currently the internet is served by 21 gTLDs (Generic Top Level Domains) including .com, .org and .net to name a few. But 2010 sees ICANN (the not-for-profit organisation tasked with coordinating the internet’s naming system) opening up the internet naming system further with the introduction of new TLDs. So in theory, soon you will be able to have .anythingyoulike. The reason for making this change, as stated in a recent press release on ICANN’s website, is to promote and encourage innovation and offer people more choice. And it seems support online is growing for new TLDs with sites like www.supportnewtlds.com set up supporting ICANN’s 2010 plans. I’m sure most people reading this have at some point in their lives spent countless hours trying to come up with a clever and easy to remember .com or .co.uk URL that reflects your business, blog or website, which hasn’t already been snapped up years ago. .Com domain names often come at a premium and many of the more...

Read the rest of this entry »

Over recent weeks, the SEO community has been commenting furiously at Matt Cutts’ revelations on the relationship between nofollow attributes and PageRank sculpting with regard to SEO strategy. At the SMX conference, Cutts proclaimed the notion that sculpting internal link structure using the rel=nofollow attribute causes PageRank to evaporate. To illustrate this principle, in Matt's blog, he uses the example of a page with 10 ‘PageRank points”, and 10 outgoing links, with 5 of these nofollowed. Originally the 5 followed links would receive 2 points each. This has now changed, Cutts explains “More than a year ago, Google changed how the PageRank flows so that the 5 links without nofollow would flow 1 point of PageRank each.” The upshot of this has meant widespread confusion, with an entire community of professionals divided on what to make of this news. We see posts from SEOs explaining frantic removal of nofollow attributes in fear of frittering away PageRank, and...

Read the rest of this entry »

We are increasingly aware of how customers are looking to get the best price for the best product, but how can us online marketers ensure that we reach these potential purchasers and get under the skin of what really motivates their buying habits? We need to go back to basics and forget about the traditional demographics which have influenced marketing campaigns for years. Of course age, sex, income and marital status are important but what you really need to think about is who are your target customers, what influences their spending decisions and which sites do they visit during their spending journey? Its time to get personal and the answer lies in creating personas... Personas are fictional characters. They take on identities and represent your customers by their buying trends and search habits. The persona will put a human face to data and create something that can seem real and familiar. Ideal online customers are no longer just ABC1’s, they are individuals sat in...

Read the rest of this entry »

It's a myth that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is ridiculously difficult and for the professionals only. Anyone who can build a website has the ability to implement basic SEO recommendations to make sure their site is optimised for both the search engines, as well as for site visitors from a usability point of view. Below are 10 recommendations which should be given some thought when building a website; however it's surprising how many of these basic recommendations are ignored despite many of them simply being best practice for making a website as user-friendly as possible. 1)    Title tags and meta descriptions Every page on the site should have its own unique title tag set which accurately describe the page's content using the most relevant keywords (ideally those that you want the page to rank for). The meta description tag also gives you the chance to write a longer summary, and while search engine ranking algorithms pay little attention to this, it is still shown...

Read the rest of this entry »

Whether your search marketing campaigns are managed in-house or outsourced to a specialist agency, there are many useful tools you should be aware of, some of which I will be exploring in this post. Keyword research is the most important element to get right in your search strategy, way before looking at website architecture, internal linking or URL structure. Keywords are the foundation of your paid search campaign and key to natural search. Below is a list of some keyword research tools you should be considering. Keyword research tools Google UK keyword research tool Useful for determining the traffic volume for your target keywords, helping you decide which keywords to target. It also gives approximate search volumes for broad, phrase and exact match searches, volume trends and advertiser competition. Read the rest of this entry...

Read the rest of this entry »

Propellernet's super-duper online PR team has done it again with another great piece of online PR work for one of our clients King & Allen (bespoke suit makers). Seeing as the doom and gloom of the recession is all everyone is talking about at the moment, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to put a positive spin on it with an article and video interview appearing on the Telegraph's online Business & Finance section about 'how to dress for the recession'. You no longer need to trek down to Savile Row for a bespoke suit which could cost you in excess of £2,000 when you could make your way down to King & Allen and get yourself a top quality, made to measure suit at a more affordable price. Read the rest of this entry...

Read the rest of this entry »