Google have always rolled out regular algorithm updates from tiny little ones you’d never notice to big meaty ones that shake things up big time. In recent months the pace of change and rate of updates has been a game changer with updates so varied and frequent they seem to be tripping over each other at times. But what does this actually mean in real terms?

The main message is DON’T PANIC!!

Google is trying to make improvements in the search results to get rid of thin, crappy sites and eliminate the strategies that spammers have used for years to manipulate the search results. This is really good news because the result of this should be to strengthen brands and further promote the sites that deserve to rank well because they have the content that searchers want.

Website owners and SEO companies need to ensure that their strategies and tactics are in line with what Google and searchers want which is:

• awesome content on the website,
• that ranks highly in the search results
• because its very relevant to the search phrase
• and is linked to by a wide variety of authoritative websites
• because the content is awesome
• so when the click through lands you on the correct page
• the visitor has a great user experience

Do you see what the common theme there is? AWESOME CONTENT!! The bottom line is that if you have awesome content on your website it is much easier to rank highly.

What is different about Strategy’s approach?

Our approach is all about quality and awesomeness – with so many client on our pay-on-results models its very much in our interests to ensure we stay ahead of the curve.

Our senior staff audit and review our client’s websites to develop short, medium and long-term strategies for on-page and off-page optimisation. This includes conducting competitor research, keyword research, usability testing and conversion rate optimisation.

Our inhouse Content Development Team is producing vast amounts of high quality creative content for clients including blog posts and guest blogs. These posts are promoted through social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Ideas for creative content and creative link building campaigns are developed through brainstorming sessions. We discuss the ideas with clients who approve the selections and then we set about creating them while also developing a promotion plan.

Our Outreach Team work with our Link Researchers to identify A List Blogs and authoritative websites that publish on topics that are relevant to our clients. They then reach out to these site owners to develop relationships so we can work together to add value to the web.

By identifying the content that people want to read and share we can help our clients create that content and get their message out to the influencers so that our clients become influencers and thought leaders themselves. Its a winning combination but its also hard work and there are no quick wins with hard work!

Our Client Managers have a great understanding of our client’s business objectives so they manage the implementation of the strategy and tactics while reporting results to the client on a regular basis through our online project management system. This transparency and understanding combined with strong, long-term relationships  means we are all motivated to get great results through increased traffic and rankings.

If your site is struggling with the recent Google updates, talk to your SEO company and ensure there is a plan for rectifying any affects you might be experiencing. If you have been hit hard and you are not happy with what your SEO company is telling you then get in touch!

Check out this easy reference list of algorithm updates and what they mean if you want more detail.

Which Google Update Would Win a Cage Fight?

By Doctor Chris Fielden with assistance from Professor Pete Wailes

Panda

The Google update that scared more men than a swarm of gargantuan hornets with man-murder on their teeny tiny insect minds.

Fright Factor: 8
It should have been called the Rabid Grizzly Bear update. That would have worked better. It would also suit the amount of fear it inspired in people worldly enough to know better. At the time this bad boy went out, everyone seemed to think that no one would rank for anything anymore, except Wikipedia.

Power: 5
It came in like a whispering Spitfire. Those who needed to be scared of it were those who scraped content, those who couldn’t be arsed to amend their manufacturer descriptions and those who undertook a myriad of black hat methods. In short, those who deserved to be struck from the SERPs.

Not scary…

http://www.art.co.uk/products/p15503786-sa-i3781071/posters.htm

Awesomeness: 1
Google updates aren’t that awesome. Sorry.

Special Power: What’s the Good Word?
OK. So far I’ve being unkind to Google. The Rabid Grizzly Bear update (still prefer that to Panda) was meant to do some good things. What it did was encourage:

• good content
• awesome content
• content people want to read
• content people want to share
• content people are interested in
• content that is useful

All Google were trying to do was make the SERPs a better place for us to hang out. And a place they could sell more advertising. Sorry. I can’t help it. I’m 40 now and scepticism is a joyous part of the aging process.

Penguin

A Google update that failed to scare even those of an extremely nervous nature – the kind of people who worry about heavy rain, if they have clean pants on and how many calories are in a carrot. But this was born of Panda apathy. It should have scared everyone. Even Chuck Norris. It’s evil.

Fright Factor: 10
Google are not good at naming things. I want them to give me a job thinking up names. Names I can do. They want to scare spammy poor content creating quick win lazy boys? I’m their man.

Penguin. It’s a biscuit. It’s a kid’s toy. It’s a cute cuddly thing that David Attenborough talks about lovingly. It’s a Batman baddy that the joker would eat alive. Jack Nicholson vs Danny Devito. Who’d win? Jack. I rest my case.

When Danny talks, Jack makes this face

http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Jack+Nicholson/Danny+DeVito/Rocky+Horror+Picture+Show+35th+Anniversary/AyjZWqH7UKW

This update should have been called the Rhino update. Rhinos are not cuddly. Rhinos have horns. If there were a Batman baddy called Rhino, the Joker would run screaming. Rhinos mean business. They are something to be scared of. The name befits this algorithm update.

Power: 7
This update struck with the force of a sperm whale dropped from space (unlike the proverbial bowl of petunias that was Panda). Think of it this way – it’s like you’re being chased by Monsieur Panda, and you have to sacrifice your best mate to keep him off your fat, lazy, couch-loving arse. OK, so you’re still alive, but your best mate (known as Mr Website) is going to get seriously mauled.

Blogs full of comments about how cheap Viagra is and how big certain body parts could become merely by taking some vitamin tablets were hit badly. Not surprising. If you run a blog, moderate it and fill it with awesome content. Hmm, ring any bells? It’s Rabid Grizzly’s twin on steroids!

Frightening

http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Feathers_McGraw

Awesomeness: -1
It could have been great, the Tutankhamun of algorithm updates, if it hadn’t created such carnage by hitting so many sites that it shouldn’t have. Every time Google updates Penguin, a baby seal gets clubbed.

http://www.inquisitr.com/191902/clubbing-baby-seals/

Special Power: Blog Killer
You thought Roundup was a good weed killer? You thought a harpoon was a hippies most hated weapon? You’d be right. Hmm. Lost my thread there a bit. Sorry. I don’t do editing…

Anyway, Rhino (I cannot for the life of me understand the name Penguin, not on any level…) destroyed rubbish blogs. It also destroyed everything else. It attacked with the same emotion as hurricane Katrina. It was chaos. It was remorseless. Good old Google. We love them.

So, who’d win the cage fight?

Obvious. Penguin. He’s got a gun. And he’s mental. All the Panda has are paws. And that’s going to work about as well as a knife in a gunfight:

There’s no need to be scared. There’s no need to panic. Write good content. Make it useful. Make it awesome. Keep all that in mind, and even a razor toothed penguin with rocket launchers for flippers won’t scare you.

And, because I know you want to know… Grizzly or Rhino – who’d win? Now there’s a question. A question for another day. Use these names, Google. Then we can find out.

Its only one day but its jam packed full of exciting presentations oozing with actionable content and its where the SEO rock stars get their groove on! I was especially looking forward to seeing Rand Fishkin, Will Reynolds and Mike King. When you follow these guys on Twitter you get a feeling for their style and quality of what they have to say, they certainly didn’t disappoint!

1. Rand Fishkin – F%$#! Link Building. Content Marketing FTW

Rand stressing the importance of creative content

It was 9am and I’m sitting up front with Pete because I don’t want to miss a thing! Rand starts with an update on the state of search with Google, what links used to work and why the don’t now.

Organic search still has the lowest cost of customer acquisition: $15 dollars for search $35 for social and $95 for paid search. SEO is far from dead but it is changing shape and creative content that people want to share (social signals) is the future for successful agencies.

He went on to provide a plethora of examples of how boring sites/products have made themselves super sexy through imaginative and creative content – I love this stuff! (link to deck)

2. Mike King - Quantifying Outreach

Mike wearing his black hat pushes his white hat techniques!

Next up is a very tired Mike King! Despite suffering from extreme jet lag he really pulled off a great presentation about outreach. Mike is a favourite of mine as he shares so much great content on outreach, personas and how to build the best relationships. This presentation was primarily an evaluation of a bunch of data that gave some really strong pointers about what works best for outreach. Even down to adding graphics in signatures and not including your phone number!

3. Branko Rihtman – Which social shares actually get links

I didn’t take a picture of Branko – I must have been writing too much down!

Branko is a very smart chap whose presentation came with some serious scientific backup! This is a video I am going to be watching again with a finger on the pause/rewind button.
Some great detail was shared about his personal techniques for identifying the social signals that work best. I’ve come away from this presentation with some new tools and tactics that will definitely refine our approach.

4. Jane Copland – Getting Golden Links

Jane shares some winning strategies for gaining some very cool links

Jane’s emphasis was on thinking differently about how you build links – for get about challenges and look for the opportunities. A pretty radical example was used to illustrate this point… sending a stripper out into the middle of the Olympic Games with your brand logo on his chest will get you a lot of exposure (!) and a fine of £20k but that’s much cheaper than paying for sponsorship! Risky, but you get the point.

Jane really helped to emphasise that creative campaigns that are bordering PR stunts are great ways to get noticed and therefore get viral links.

5. Wil Reynolds – Stalking: How you land the links you want

Wil Reynolds - best presenter of the day & my favourite SEO Rockstar!

Ok, so I confess that Wil is my favourite by quite a long chalk! Wil’s presentation is the highest value, most actionable and blow you away awesome presentation I have ever seen. The topic was stalking, link stalking, with the end goal being to get some people with serious clout to notice you and link to your stuff.

Wil’s enthusiasm is infectious, his style outstanding and his process is second to none. This was a step-by-step approach to get under the radar and build a genuine real life relationship with pretty much any one you decide you want to get close to!

Social is about people, relationships and conversations – Wil gave us the key to creting these relationships using publicly available tools and some serious smart! Great job Wil!

6. Tom Anthony – Putting the love back into links

Tom Anthony has the audience gripped

I stood at the back for Tom’s presentation, partly to charge my Iphone but largely to start stalking out Wil.

Tom gave a very frank talk about how Google is so serious about cutting out spam & cleaning up the web that they are willing to sacrifice some white hat businesses along the way. He doesn’t expect them to stop the current pruning so watch out!

This presentation concentrated on link graphs and how Google is changing the way it views links. The message is that the your emphasis needs to be on people (influencers) and relationships for the quality, authority, diversity and natural relevance. See how the theme of Linklove is tying together? Such good quality stuff!

7. Martin MacDonald – Tips, tricks and secrets from the trenches

Martin MacDonald standing still very briefly!

Martin is larger than life and never stands still so all my pics, and there are lots, are blurry. This is the best one! Martin doesn’t do things by half and is one of the heavy weights in SEO so he grabs your attention straight away. Hi emphasis is on scaling and leveraging link building whihc is a great strategy.

He provides some very specific strategies that I wasn’t aware of before so great value there. Martin is a leader in testing various methods of link building to prove or disprove something to the SEO community so he’s definitely someome worth following.

8. Will Critchlow – Mediocre to Great

Will wrapping up Linklove with an inspirational talk aimed at SEOs

What a very nice man Will is! Despite being the last presentation of the day he held everyone’s attention and shared some great information that is relevant to team leaders and agency owners. It was a long day packed full of strategies and tactics. I felt that Will’s presentation was more about how to do all of the above in a very smart, scaleable and achieveable way. Perfect way to end a great day!

Around the middle of Janurary, Google rolled out “Search Plus Your World” (hereon called SPYW), which means that logged-in users will get their organic search results augmented with socially shared content and markup, ostensibly from Google+. Danny Sullivan already wrote up two pieces about that (Google’s Results Get More Personal & Real-Life Examples of How Search Plus Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy), which cover the changes brilliantly, so I suggest reading those, before carrying on.

In case you didn’t read them though, the important points are that when you’re logged in, you’ll see:

• Normal web listings, as they would normally be
• Normal listings pushed up or down, by your search history, and/or social connections
• Public Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos, and
• Private or “Limited” Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos shared with you

There’s a bigger picture here though, and to see it we have to move beyond what Google+ is, and on to what it represents, bearing in mind Larry Page’s recent statement:

This is the path we’re headed down – a single unified, ‘beautiful’ product across everything. If you don’t get that, then you should probably work somewhere else.

That sounds like Larry trying to channel a bit of the late Steve Jobs. A unified, beautiful product, and if you don’t like it, get out.

The Pledge

In magic, every trick has three parts: the pledge, the turn and the prestige. In the pledge, you’re shown something ordinary, like a deck of cards or a book. You’re asked to inspect it, to check it’s real. The point is of course, whatever is going on is so subtle that you won’t see it, even when looking. In the turn, the magician takes back the item and makes it do something extraordinary. A card gets shuffled in the pack, and the magician blindfolded. The book is shredded and the person put in another room. The places are set for something amazing to happen.

And then we get the prestige: the card is inside the bottom of your shoe, or the magician has had someone else write down a word, and it’s the one you chose. The part where everything defys the laws of nature and is put back together.

So what’s Google’s Pledge? Well, it’s to build a search engine. Lots of people were doing it back when they started. But they did a good job, and removed the clutter, and build a good product and refined it and many years later, here we are. They’ve monetised it well, and become a verb and done all the things that aspiring Valley companies aim to do.

The clever part though, was not stepping on too many toes along the way. By (pretty much) staying a search engine (although what they searched got bigger), Google quietly trundled along.

The Turn

And then Google got weird. Forays in to social, sponsoring of projects that had no real basis in searching for things. Gmail, a great product for email, but bearing no real relationship to search arrived. And the Android came along. Again, an interesting product, with no relationship to search. And most recently, Google+.

With all these projects, it looks like Google’s trying to compete with dominant players in an important space – with Gmail it was Hotmail and Yahoo, in the case of Android, Apple (and iOS specifically), and with Google+, obviously the target is Facebook.

But here’s the thing, saying that they’re trying to compete with those services misses the point. In waiting for the prestige, people keep forgetting that Google swapped the order of the trick around. But the trick takes so long to pull off, everyone forgot that they were told what would happen.

The Prestige

You can actually see what the prestige will be, over on Google’s About page…

Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful

Or consider the quote given to The Guardian

Our goal with search has always been to provide the most relevant results possible. That’s why for years we’ve been working on social search features to help you find the most relevant information from your social connections no matter what site it’s on. Search plus Your World doesn’t change who has access to content, it simply helps people rediscover information they already have access to. We’ve taken special care with our new features to provide robust security protections, transparency and control for our users.

Google doesn’t care about social, or mapping, or your inbox, or even search really. Google cares about information; specifically storing it and holding it in a format that’s useful, so when you go to look for something they’ve got the answer, and ads to show you alongside it.

The Future

Google will continue to expand in to everything. They’ll push new technologies in every sector, so as they take off, it’ll fund their insatiable appetite for information. They’re working on driverless cars which will be vastly safer and more environmentally friendly. And of course, they’ll be able to suggest restaurants to you on the journey, and know your travel patterns and be able to advertise to you better because of it.

Google aims to be the Dyson of information, sucking everything in and, when you need them, giving the perfect advert back. A profitable way to run a search engine, certainly, but the best one? I’ll let you decide that for yourself.

What is Pinterest?

Put simply, it’s the hottest new thing in social media. Pinterest, despite launching little over a year ago and still available by invitation only, has recently seen a phenomenal growth in popularity and usage; according to Quantcast, in March last year approximately 50,000 people in the US were signed up whereas in October that same year the figure was 600,000 and showed no sign of slowing.

The unique idea behind this social networking site is that users share images, rather than text, making the whole thing a very visual experience. You can quickly and easily share images from all over the Internet and categorise them by pinning them onto boards (think ‘albums’). It’s also a great way of encouraging consumers to make a note of products that they like so that they return later to buy them – whereas they might otherwise forget about that gorgeous lampshade you’re selling, with Pinterest they can pin it to one of their boards and see a visual reminder of it every time they log in. Plus, with no privacy options currently in place absolutely everything that is ‘pinned’ is then visible to the entire community – with a followed link back to the original web page it was found on – so you may find that just one pin leads to numerous sales.

Inspiration for creating Pinterest boards for your Company

Who uses it?

The majority of Pinterest users are female and, of course, drawn to great imagery. Top categories include bridal, home decor, hobbies and food. A quick flick through the most popular images will show you that users are drawn to anything stylish and unique in design.

It’s not just the general public using Pinterest though; from Whole Foods to Southwest Airlines a cross-section of companies are jumping on the bandwagon and promoting not only their products but also their brand as a whole. Southwest Airlines for example have boards such as Destinations (photos of places they’d like to visit), Vintage (old black-and-white photos of airports and aeroplanes) and Travel Style (comfortable, stylish travel wear). It’s a way of giving the brand a bit more personality and interacting with the customers in a way that’s friendlier and more sociable than pushy advertising. Plus the profile also links directly to the website so users inspired by the airline’s nostalgic or breathtaking imagery are but a click away from a site where they can buy their own holiday abroad.

Top 6 Tips for Companies on Pinterest

1. Pin Images and Videos

It sounds obvious, but the best way to generate interest in your brand on Pinterest is to upload as much content as possible. The more images that you have, the more often your profile will be found and viewed. Pinterest also allows video content and with fewer videos than images on the site this stands a good chance of being seen regularly, so if you have any great footage – educational tips, funny adverts, etc. – be sure to get it on there.

2. Install the Pin It Button

The ‘Pin It’ button works much like a Facebook ‘like’ or Twitter ‘tweet’ button. Get the html code from the website and add it to all of your products, to encourage your visitors to share the images that they like without even having to be on the Pinterest website.

3. Be Creative

However, avoid thinking of Pinterest as purely an advertising space. Board upon board of your own products is unlikely to get many users repinning – which shares the image and the link on their profile – so intersperse your own images with other high-quality and relevant pictures. Do you sell lighting for example? Try creating a board with ‘colourful lights’ and mix images of your coloured light-bulbs with eye-catching and artistic photos of fairy lights or disco lighting. This lets users see both the effect of coloured lighting and then, if they are interested (which most likely they are if they clicked on your board in the first place), the products that will let them recreate it at home.

4. Add Prices

A quick but highly-beneficial tip is to write the price of products that you are pinning in the description. This will automatically add a little price tag to the image and cause it to show up in the Gifts category which is exactly where people will be looking if they intend to spend money!

5. Be Social

Pinterest is generally organised by ‘most recent first’ so once you’ve created your boards they’re not going to keep generating interest for very long. The key to making your venture into Pinterest a successful one is to interact with your target audience, just as you would on another social networking site such as Facebook.

Repin other users’ images onto your boards where relevant – they’ll receive a notification and will very likely browse through the rest of your board where their image has been shared. For best effect, do a little research and focus your efforts – a user is more likely to buy a chair from you for example if they have just posted a board entitled ‘Chairs I’d Love to Buy’. You can search boards as well as image titles. Don’t forget to make use of the commenting feature or to follow users either to incite them to follow you back.

6. Run Competitions

Pinterest works best when users are promoting your images, not you. Try running a competition where entry requires users to pin their favourite items from your website onto a board, or to repin images that you have already posted.

Overall, Pinterest is proving to be a very popular and extremely fast-growing new website that, thanks to its unique set-up, opens up a whole new range of possibilities and allows you to promote your brand in ways that you may never have tried before. It may just be another passing craze or, who knows, perhaps it will be the next Twitter. Either way, right now it’s an excellent platform and I would encourage any and all companies to jump on the bandwagon quickly to take advantage of the fact that right now there is very little business competition on there at all!

Check out these example boards that we have put together

The internet is alive with news of the SOPA & PIPA related blackout. This is a quick run down the list of key terms and players.

The blackout is due to run from 5:00 AM GMT to 5:00 AM GMT, Wednesday 18^th to Thursday 19^th January, a full 24 hours.

SOPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act is a ridiculous piece of legally dubious waffle that is either unenforceably vague, or would utterly destroy huge swathes of the internet. It is sites such as Wikipedia and reddit that stand to suffer most from the act, as it could cause enormous sections of their user-generated content to become unlawful overnight.

Image by Christopher Dombres under a Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

It is currently in a great amount of trouble, as it has been delayed until some “outstanding concerns” can be, uh, remedied. It ain’t dead yet, though!

The special interests and very special senators that support the bill are listed here.

PIPA

PIPA, or the Protect Internet Privacy Act, is a similar law going through the Senate. Interestingly, it is intended to especially strongly target sites originating from outside the U.S. This is clearly supposed to target chancers like the Swedish “Pirate Bay” mob, but makes America appear embarrassingly insular and protectionist online, in a way that no other fully democratic nation is.

PIPA is still very much alive.

Wikipedia

Obviously, Wikipedia is a major player here, and probably the most important – not everyone knows who boingboing.net or reddit are (yes, even now), and we can get amusing photoshops elsewhere if we really do desperately need them. Wikipedia, however, is a vast repository of information that many have come to rely on.

Cory Doctorow

Boingboing.net is home to the apparently visionary author Cory Doctorow, who has predicted events very similar to these (albeit enacted in “real life”) in parts of his insightful novel and polemic, Makers, where real life user-generated contents starts to be targeted by old, outdated institutions that feel threatened.

In the book, the main enemy is Disney; in real life, it appears as though it’s the U.S. government itself.

Other Major Players

Some of the biggest guns, other than Wikipedia, are boingboing.net, Mozilla, reddit and the Cheezburger network. There are also gamer networks, mobilised in part by early and angry coverage throughout mainstream gamer news outlets such as escapistmagazine.com, including Destructoid, Good Old Games and indie game smash hit Minecraft, as well as political sites and comic strips.

There is no limit to getting involved, and the number of “unfiltered” or unconfirmed participants has hit 1800. If you are interested, you can get involved here.

Implications

An online “strike” of this size and on this scale has never been seen before. It could further entrench the U.S. government, through a desire to avoid setting a precedent, it could cause them to fold like a house of cards, we’ll have to wait and see.

If websites do have the power to influence government policy through acts like this, well, I’m glad it was Wikipedia who did it first. I’m doubly glad it was over a cause as worthy as this.

I can’t help but be a little worried about who else could start throwing their weight around, though…

What a week this has been in search! On Tuesday Google changed the rules in a big way and this time it could have a significant impact on search results. Don’t be alarmed its unlikely to affect your results over night so there is time to embrace the changes that are needed but change is definitely necessary unless you want to risk getting left behind.

Google are constantly updating their algorithm which is why they continue to be the most popular search engine by a country mile. But this week they took a step that forces those serious about the success of their website to sit up and listen – by engaging with Google+.

Why? In simple terms Google rolled out “Search, Plus Your World” which personalises search results like never before. In effect Google are looking at social graphs as well as link graphs to determine what results are displayed and they are taking the social indicators primarily from Google+.

What does Search, Plus Your World look like?

Google+, Twitter or Facebook – too many platforms?

The majority of Google+’s now 60M users are at the more tech savvy end of the user spectrum, the early adopters and those who are already heavily engaged in social media. I have to admit that when Google+ came along my initial feeling was that I didn’t need another social media time suck when I can get what I need from Facebook for friends and family and Twitter for business.

Google+ does seem to have taken the best bits of our favourite social media platforms and mashed them together to produce something that is quite slick, clean and very user friendly. But as its trying to do what Facebook and Twitter do so will those embedded in those systems jump ship or take on an extra platform? We’ll have to wait and see.

The beauty of Google+ is that you can mix business and personal in one stream without upsetting either group with irrelevant content because you choose what each group (circle) sees. And it beats Twitter by not forcing you to talk in scrunched up witty sound bites. The only problem with Google+ is that there aren’t enough people on there. However this push towards personalising search results means commercial sites are being forced to engage and eventually this Google gamble could turn the social world upside down so that everyone ends up using it.

7 Steps to Google+ success

1. companies need to create a presence on Google+
2. so they can engage with existing communities
3. by sharing awesome content
4. and so grow their social graph
5. Google will reward your site in search results
6. as well as embellishing your Adwords display
7. and so your click through rate will increase

Simple huh? With anything “social” we advise clients to be very clear about what they want to achieve from their efforts. It makes sense to understand the audience you are reaching out to and deliver value but its just as important to measure the success of your social campaigns.

Google has made it a very simple decision for companies to make the choice to adopt a Google+ campaign – the message is that if you don’t you could be left behind. So lets get started

Getting a Presence on Google+

Create a Google+ Profile and Business Page

This video is a Google webinar with full instructions on “Getting you Business on Google+” its 34mins and covers everything you need to know to get set up. It also includes some pro tips dotted throughout which are well worth taking note of .

Draft Up Your Google+ Social Strategy

Your social strategy needs to match with your business objectives so it needs some thought and planing otherwise you can easily waste a lot of time and achieve very little.

Here are some pointers to get your strategic juices flowing:

• Which platforms will your target audience favour? Be on them e.g. Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Google+
• What do you want your campaigns to achieve? E.g. brand awareness, links, new leads, customer service, write down all the reasons you are doing this.
• Who will run your social campaigns? – inhouse or outsourced
• What measures of success will you use? E.g. traffic measures: analytics will tell you about traffic referrals & what those visitors do; how valuable are they compared to other sources; or, social engagement metrics: are your followers increasing, are you getting retweets and mentions. Identify suitable measures and monitor them monthly.
• What is your Content Strategy? This is really important as it should outline what awesome and original content you will have to share with your community on an ongoing basis. E.g. blog posts, tutorials, video, webinars, white papers, infographics, widgets, resources/knowledgebase etc.
• Decide HOW you will interact with your community and stick to your own rules. E.g. find and follow the influencers in your industry, develop relationships with them, gain trust by being helpful and providing quality information, retweet/share their stuff, engage in conversation, ask questions etc.
• Be real! “Social” means treating people online like you would face-to-face.

When you have decided on your strategy and tactics start implementing them but keep your strategy under review constantly & update anything that needs a tweak. And don’t forget those measures of success, they will help keep you focused.

At Strategy we have previously advised on but not run social campaigns for clients, this is changing as we see how our creative link building strategies are integrating with social engagement. SEO is evolving constantly but these creative and social factors are the most exciting aspect of internet marketing. Its harder work, demanding more commitment to the long game and greater resources but the end result is worth it.

Circle Strategy Internet Marketing on Google+ or +KathDawson and +1 this post by clicking the link just under the title. Please share your comments and views on Search, Plus Your World and how you think this will affect your business.

With fictitious holidays all over us like a bad rash, “Cyber Monday” stands out with the most blatant aim – Getting our money. Still, you have to congratulate whoever came up with this concept, it is genius and it’s bold and not afraid to deliver its message, almost like a Lynx advert, except you’d have to swap the genius part for overt misogyny.

Cyber Monday is the Monday that follows Black Friday; the opening of Christmas gift hunting season on the high street.

However, instead of scaring shop workers with demanding requests for life perfection, people will face a friendly looking website and avoid the rage caused by too many people in little space.

Though they may still be faced with those annoying pop-up surveys…

The Marketing aspect of Cyber Monday is genius, no question about it. And when there are millions of people flooding the internet with card details at the ready, it’s even more vital to have a functioning website that will not collapse under the pressure of this 24-hour feeding frenzy.

The Virtual Shopping Basket

If the navigation works like a charm, customers are of course more likely to buy the products, but the last hurdle before getting an order in is that dreaded checkout process.

Until then, shoppers are frivolously adding bits and bobs to their virtual baskets, so when it comes to paying, it’s make or break.

Good SEO will not only get customers through the online shopping gates but it will keep them there, preferably with no easy way to navigate away without a page refresh, until they make a purchase that is.

Good Website/Bad Website

An easy to navigate website that finds the right products within seconds will not only satisfy the demanding shopper, but also make them reach again for that worn out piece of plastic.

However, a bad website is the equivalent of a cold atmosphere after stepping into a deserted cafe on a Sunday morning, trying to catch the attention of a grumpy barista, and getting served instant coffee for the price of real espresso (true story).

The experience is spine-chillingly bad, and one vouches to never visit that place ever again.

But with so much competition on the internet matched with its large-scale reach, no one has to.

A website is never the only one of its kind on the global high street, and so this reception is the last thing a company wants pushed on a customer.

Looming Deadline

This year’s Cyber Monday has now passed but Christmas is only now getting into the hot zone, where the looming deadline of the last day of the timely Christmas delivery gets ever closer.

Instead of bombarding customers with SALE products that never ever seem to be out of sale, improving the website and its usability is the first important step in any business’s lifespan.

So getting ready for, what will surely be another record breaking spending day in the next year, think about a friendly user interface, and good SEO.

Customers may not be aware of it, but it should be top of Santa’s wishlist for any online business in 2011.

You may have noticed in recent months that there is a new version of analytics accessible within your existing account. It looks quite different but has much of the same data. The navigation is organised in a more sensible way and the filtering options & advanced segments are easier to manage. Its a step forward in more ways that just the layout and usability interface. There are a number of new features that allow you to explore your data in deeper and more interesting ways:

Google Analytics Real-Time

Reporting in “real-time” allows you to see what’s happening on your site right now! The reports are updated continuously and each pageview is reported only seconds after it occurs on your site. For Real-Time reports look in the ‘Home’ tab.

Multi-Channel Funnels

This is an excellent new feature as it allows you to see which channels your visitors used during the 30 day period prior to them converting or purchasing. By looking at your conversion path data you can see visitors who found your site first through PPC and then returned to convert through organic search. This section measures the performance of clicks from many media channels including paid and organic searches, affiliates, social networks, and display ads.

See a Video demo & a Guide to using the Multi-Channel Funnels Report.

Mobile Reporting

As the number of visitors using mobile devices to browse the web increases the new mobile reports in analytics helps you understand how these new visitors are interacting with your site. By seeing how many visitors use your site from various devices you can make decisions about optimising for those devises.

Flow Visualization

This completely new report shows visually how visitors navigate through your site. This report is replaces the clunky navigation tools available in the old version of Google Analytics.

Watch the Video demo for more details and check out the Usage guides for Visitor Flow and Goal Flow

Over the next few weeks the new version of Google Analytics will become the default.

Strategy Internet Marketing are seeking to build relationships with talented journalism and creative writing students.
We are currently looking for volunteer bloggers to write interesting and engaging blogs on a wide range of different topics.
This is an excellent opportunity for any writers who are looking to gain some valuable industry experience and get published online.

What’s in it for you?

• Successful blog posts will be published with the author’s name in the bio.
• Authors will be provided with a link to the published content so that they can see it online.
• Authors will gain work experience by dealing with our editors, working to high standards & gaining feedback to help them improve & get more publications.
• Authors can reference us on their CV as being volunteer bloggers for Strategy Internet Marketing.
• The opportunity for a long term relationship with Strategy, as this is an ongoing project.
• The possibility of paid opportunities for other projects, for those who prove themselves and are committed.

What we are looking for…

• Well written, well researched & interesting content for publication.
• An ongoing relationship with good writers who are able to produce quality work and meet deadlines.

For more information contact louise@strategyinternetmarketing.co.uk.