Instagram & Facebook – Why?


A few hours ago I read that Facebook had acquired Instagram for $1bn… aptly enough, this news came to me via my Facebook feed. There’s also an official release here from Mark Zuckerberg My first thought once I checked the legitimacy Read more

Return On Influence: The New ROI


There is not a single activity in business which is exempted from a query regarding return on investment.  Focused strategic planning and expenditure to optimise your e-commerce mix is known to be an investment worth making for product and Read more

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Keywords

Title Tags – Their Use, Length and Making the Most of Them

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Mike in Keywords, Search Engine Optimisation | Leave a comment

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Excerpt: Last week we held our Digital Marketing Seminar (watch out for the new agenda this week), we had a lof of conversations about SEO so I thought today would be the ideal time to bring this post back to life, the content included is still very relevant as it covers how to write a blog post about page titles, their use, the correct length and how to make the most of a very simple element on any web page. Firstly a page title is the element shown within SERP’s signalling to both the user and Google the content located on the page. Google’s webmaster guidelines defines a page title with the following: A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. Ideally, you should create a unique title for each page on your site. – Google Webmaster Guidelines More often than not you heavily invest in a new business website with the majority of funding going towards aesthetics rather than focusing time and effort on optimising your website for search prior to launch. The use of your page title is one of the most basic functions of any foundation SEO work and is one of the first areas crawled for information about your page by Google. When writing the content for your page you should always have a subject of phrase in mind to base it around, this is more often than not an area completely skipped over during initial concept stages of a web design. More often than not…


Google penalty recovery services?

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Mike in Google Penalty, Keywords, Search Engine Optimisation, Web News | Leave a comment

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Excerpt: Oh dear… has your site been banned by Google? I know the feeling you currently have, that gut wrenching fear and loss of control. Where has the site gone? Why has the site gone? When will it be back? I have been developing and marketing websites since 2003, many of those sites I promoted using techniques that today would be considered “alternative”. I don’t shy away from this because it means that I have the scars of battle with the search engines…. believe me, you can quickly achieve a short term gain with Black Hat techniques, however long term it is not a viable marketing strategy. View the search engines as your source of free targeted traffic. Don’t mess with them, give them what they want… great content and information. Play by their rules and they will reward you. Every business in the UK should follow the webmaster guidelines, if you don’t then you’re running the risk of being banned. If you do not know whether you are following Google Webmaster Guidelines, then start asking some questions. Click on the link and read through what they say. If you work with an SEO agency, get them to confirm and demonstrate that they are not risking your business by using SEO techniques outside of the guidelines. Ok, if you’re on this page it is probably an emergency and you’re keen to get to the meat of the problem. So let’s have a look at some of the reasons your site might be banned, or…


Myth, legend and lore… With so much of it out there, what exactly is e-marketing?

Posted on March 18, 2010 by John King in Digital Marketing Tips, Events, Keywords, Link Building, Seminars | Leave a comment

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Excerpt: Tell me… Could you describe and explain social media and online marketing to your grandma, in such a way that she could confidently use it to potentially better a business? I know I couldn’t. I did however go to a seminar today on this very subject that did exactly that! No the room wasn’t full of ‘grandmas’, but it did break down the mysterious lore that is social media and online marketing into easily digested nuggets of knowledge. This seminar was hosted by Generate UK at the spectacular Donnington Grove in their ‘Cloud Suite’. The ‘Cloud Suite’ is a luxurious room lined with lovely old paintings, overshadowed by a fantastic painted ceiling. There was free tea and coffee, there was glorious sunshine and there was a friendly buzz as attendees began to arrive. We were all seated in some rather fancy chairs and we covered a variety of things from e-marketing myth busting to the fundamentals of the ‘twitterverse’. I already knew some of the basics that were covered but it was nice to see that all the fundamentals were explained so that everyone else understood the more advanced things that were to follow. Overall it was very well presented and it left no one guessing. Over the course of the morning I mentally noted a number of clever marketing devices for later use. I learned that no more are the days where one could simply post a few thousand identical links all over the Internet to rank their page from ‘unheard of’ to…


Keywords, SEO and the importance of research

Posted on July 29, 2009 by Mike in Keywords, Search Engine Optimisation | 2 Comments

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Excerpt: It has been a manic summer so far with companies doing all they can to promote themselves within the search engines and vying for every scrap of business that’s available. Having the opportunity to compete over price is now seen as a luxury; it’s being found in the market that is now seen as the biggest challenge. Search engines feed on keywords; these are the phrases that users type in when they are looking for a websites, services, products or specific pieces of content. It is important that you do your research to understand what keywords or phrases are being used by your potential visitors and customers. To research these statistics there are a number of keyword tools that are available to use, some free and some usually via a subscription. Fighting over the competitive keywords to increase the level of traffic is a priority for many business owners. From our perspective, we cannot stress enough how important it is to do your keyword research and we don’t mean do it once and think that the jobs done! Markets change, companies change, people change in the way they search, therefore so should your keywords. Keywords should be considered as the platform for your online strategy and should be used throughout your website and all online marketing collateral. When researching your keywords, don’t put all of your eggs into the most popular keywords. Whilst it may be true that they are important for your business, they may also be the most competitive and therefore will take…