Paid-for search advertising “dominates” online marketing, according to the Ofcom.
Its report Communication Nation: UK consumers paying less but getting more found the amount spent on promoting goods and services via the internet grew to £2.8 billion last year.
The watchdog reveals the amount spent on advertising through the web was greater than the total amount spent on marketing through C4, ITV1, S4C and five.
I find this a bit frustrating. Paid search is a useful tool and can have huge benefits for any business. It is easily measurable, easily controlled and easily effective.
However, it is just one of many marketing tools and it is also one which requires an ongoing budget.
Appearing at the top of natural search results will be more beneficial for a company - but it is also much harder to achieve.
I firmly believe it is well worth the search engine optimisation (SEO) work, though, as consumers find natural results more trustworthy.
Furthermore, decent SEO continues to work to an extent even if a firm stops spending money on it.
Ultimately, the best option for any business is to use both paid search and SEO to make sure their online marketing targets everyone.
That way they never risk being dropped in favour of a competitor with better search skills.
A common question we’re asked by clients is how can they improve their rankings for Google Maps local searches?
Having analysed many listings, in my opinion the main factors to Google Maps listings in the UK are as follows:
- 1) Proximity to location - The closer your registered business address is in distance to the centre of a town or city, the more relevant Google will find your listing to a locational search.
- 2) Keywords within company name - Using product/service keywords within a business name appears to be a very important factor towards obtaining an improved Google Maps ranking.
- 3) Categories selected - Being listed in a relevant or closely related category to a keyword can make an impact. Keeping the number of categories selected concise should also improve the likelihood of being listed for relevant searches.
- 4) Local telephone numbers - This may be coincidental, but I’ve noticed local telephone numbers such as 01865 (Oxford) appear to outrank listings which use 0845 style of numbers. I’ve just updated the SEOptimise listing so will test this out.
- 5) Having a full profile/reviews - Listings which use images, descriptions and contain reviews generally appear to rank well in Google Maps. A high number of positive reviews is also likely to have an influence.
- 6) Locational information on website - Ensuring your website address details correspond with the companies Google Maps listing.
- 7) Strong SEO - This doesn’t appear to be of high importance at the moment, but as the Google Maps algorithm develops we may see the relevancy and quality of a website’s content and link popularity becoming a major factor.
If you’re feeling sneaky you could always add a slightly inacurrate business name, so that it contains important keywords, and register a PO Box address located in the centre of your city! 
New web tools appear daily. Often I don’t even manage to bookmark them all, let alone try them. Nonetheless I try as many Internet tools as I can, I’m just a serial early adopter. I can’t stop it. These are mostly 30+ free tools which are either web tools or tools for the web I discovered just recently in 2008.
I tested most of these tools and I use some of them regularly as a web professional. Most of these social media, web design & development, search, SEO and analytics, e-commerce, blogging and Internet tools are not yet widely known main stream tools. The average webmaster will hopefully find them useful. I selected the 30 most useful tools from the hundreds available out there.
Social Media
- Social Median is a unique combination of a Mixx-like social news site and Ning-like community functionality
- Browzmi is a real time social browsing and chatting tool, it’s like a more social StumbleUpon
- Social Browse is very similar to Browzmi according to NetHackz, invitation only as of now
- Hooeey is half social browsing if you want it to, half a web based browser history that renders bookmarking obsolete according to the site
- Second Brain is often mistakenly referred to as a lifestreaming tool like the popular FriendFeed, but its focus is to collect and organize “all your content” available online
- Muxtape is a very simple kind of music community which allows to listen to predefined user “generated” playlists
- Twitbuzz is a Digg-like interface showing the most popular links on Twitter
Web Design & Development
- Cushy CMS makes any static site a CMS site, it’s so easy I’ll recommend it to my mother who already uses Jimdo
- Pokform is a Jimdo-like Flash online CMS that allows you to create smooth websites with ease, currently it’s a nono for SEO though so you should only use it for an artists or photographers page
- Pingdom allows you to test whether your site is up and how fast it is
- Splashup is the real web based Photoshop, the Adobe online app can’t match
- BricaBox allows you to create your own social site, be it a map mashup site, a wiki, or a voting site. They compare it to Wordpress and Ning to underline the ease of use of creation of a site but it appears to be even easier than WordPress
Search
- Cuil is a new search engine which claims to have more pages indexed than any other, for me its results are as good as Google’s
- Grooveshark Lite is a music search engine that lets you listen to what you find
- Muxtape Stumbler is a music search engine for the Muxtape community
- Picitup is a very advanced visual search engine for images which also allows you to find Creative Commons licensed images you can use for free
- Google GEO Search Tool allows you to see Google results from other locations as Google localizes your results based on your IP usually
SEO and Analytics
- Trifecta by SEOMoz is an updated blog/website worth measuring tool
- Rank Checker by SEOBook, been around for several months now but after more traditional ranking checker software has been crippled recently by Google a very good alternative
- Ranksense is a an advanced SEO software by Hamlet Batista for all those who do go beyond ranking checking, it’s out of beta for a few months now
- Raven SEO Tools, this a a whole web based SEO tool suite which will also track your rankings over time among others
- Woopra is an advanced web analytics suite which can compete with Google Analytics and in some cases offers better and more timely data
- Google Insights for Search is THE new keyword research tool for every webmaster or website owner, it’s Google Trends “on steroids”
E-Commerce
- Shopify is a very simple online shop application virtually anybody can set up a shop now, it’s been around since 2005 and nobody told me!
- PPCalc is a “PayPal fee calculator”. As you know PayPal is very widely used but rather expensive and also not the most reliable solution. I’d recommend Moneybookers as alternative
- ChipIn is a PayPal connected tool that facilitates so called crowdfunding. It’s like crowdsourcing but with money. You ask many people to fund your project
Blogging & Internet
- Feed Compare lets you view and compare the subscriber numbers of blogs using Feedburner for their RSS feeds over time
- BuySellAds does exactly that buy and sell banner ads taking 25% commission, it’s easy to use ideal for bloggers and worked fine for me
- Proxify “is a web-based anonymous proxy service which allows anyone to surf the Web privately and securely.”
- xrl.us by Metamark is the better TinyURL, I use it daily
- issuu is a YouTube like website for magazines and other print publications, you can upload them and allow people to read them only suing a sleek Flash interface
Bonus
- MagMyPic - You always wanted to get famous and end up on the cover of a magazine? Now you can!
You might know some of these web tools, especially if you’re a SEO expert you probably will know the SEO tools. I made sure that the list contains both the best tools currently available and those which not everybody outside a certain industry knows yet. Also these 30 tools can be used by anybody. You don’t need to be a full fledged web professional for most of these.
The Guardian may be wincing this week as it emerges it purchased sponsored Google results for the keywords Madeleine McCann.
According to the CounterValue blog, written by Justin Williams, assistant-editor of the Telegraph Media Group, the Guardian showed poor taste at best.
“There is no phrase too sensitive, no taste that is too poor … apparently,” he sneered.
Ouch. Even more painfully, Williams published a further post, asserting the newspaper’s use of paid listings shows it is unable to compete organically.
The Guardian has attempted some comeback, commenting to news source Journalism.co.uk that it has mistakenly paid for these keywords but is now reviewing the list.
Marc Sands, the publication’s marketing manager, said search engines are a new field for newspapers and everyone is feeling their way.
“Everyone is working their way through and trying to remain true exactly to the principles of what they’re doing, but also to ensure that they’re getting read,” he asserted.
Of course, Williams could not leave the Guardian’s response alone and quipped: “Perhaps they were trying to buy the keywords for Madeleine Stowe and somebody’s fingers slipped.”
I do love the industry insights blogs offer.
High street retailers are gaining more visitors to their websites than their online-only competitors, a new study shows.
The research and analysis gurus at Hitwise compared the 100 largest online high street stores, like Argos and M&S, with the 100 biggest web-only retailers, which include Play.com and the mighty Amazon.
According to the study, these high street retailers received a fifth more UK visitors last month than those companies operating only online.
Interesting stuff. More and more people are turning to the web to shop, but many seem to prefer the brands and shops they are used to in the real world.
I think this comes down to visibility - Marks and Spencer, Argos and other high street brands are put in front of consumers every day.
Their very presence in every town centre is an advert, it builds trust and recognition.
In order to compete, online businesses must increase their own visibility and this may not be as hard as it sounds.
As more people are spending time on the internet, web retailers can use pay-per-click, organic search engine optimisation and other web marketing tactics to increase consumer awareness.
If they market themselves carefully and enthusiastically, they can compete without a physical presence.
As spotted by Ciaran Norris, British tennis player Andy Murray is now using Twitter to provide regular updates to his fans and followers during the Olympic Games.
Described by many, including the normally very polite Tim Henman, as a “miserable git” this could be a very clever idea to help win over some new fans by helping to portray himself a more cheerful image of what happens behind the scenes, rather than the serious/grumpy Andy Murray we see on-court and in post-match interviews!
Many celebrities already have their own Facebook or Myspace profiles (most of which are fake) but the successful ones are those where people clearly take the time to provide information and communicate with their fans. Andy Murray obviously has a few people to convince but by cleaning up his online reputation I’m sure he can at least start to change a few opinions and help to get the crowd behind him even more in the future.
Yahoo! has urged marketers to choose appropriate keywords for their paid search campaigns.
A post in the engine’s search marketing blog reiterates the message we tell clients day after day – choose business specific keywords.
It suggests firms bid on both generic and specific phrases, warning generic selections can quickly eat up budgets and are less likely to result in sales than more targeted choices.
This is such an important point for search engine marketing and for natural search tactics.
Yahoo!’s example is the broad word “guitar”. Now, a consumer plugging that word into a search engine could be looking for lessons, wanting to buy a guitar or seeking sheet music.
Businesses choosing to bid on that word had better have a pretty broad range of guitar-related services, or they risk wasting their marketing pennies.
So, in terms of paid search, it makes sense to target keywords which are highly specific.
However, often it is tempting to pursue generic and highly-competitive keywords through the organic results.
If a company decides its wants to aim for high rankings in the most-competitive phrases, it is important to make use of some less generic phrases at the same time.
This allows them to rank highly for business-specific keywords while they battle to climb the rankings of those more difficult phrases.
Business people often ignore many simple fixes for websites. Their sites don’t get found or scare away visitors who do land there. Web developers often underestimate the plethora of ways to tweak a website for more visitors and higher sales. SEO has been around for 10 years but still many sites fail to take advantage of most little fixes Google needs to assess a site and visitors need to get what they want.
This list of 30 really “quick and clean”, mostly one minute fixes will enable you to give Google plenty of these so called “signals” it needs as well as the clues your visitors need to find what they want and ideally also to buy. I assume that your site has already some keyword research done, some basic on-page SEO measures implemented and some backlinks gathered.
Titles
- Add one more keyword to your title-tag if your site is already performing well in Google, substract one if your still a little weak in Google. Strong? Then follow this example: Before “SEO Blog”, after “SEM & SEO Blog”. Weak? The other way around.
- Add an often searched modifier to your title, something like “cheap”, “affordable” or “London”, “Glasgow” or “shop”, “services”.
- Remove your company name or shorten and move it to the end of the title. Wrong: John Doe Industries SEO Services Glasgow. Right: SEO Services Glasgow - J.Doe
Meta Tags
- Repeat the keyword/keyphrase at the beginning of the meta description: If the title is “SEO Blog” then the meta description should be: SEO blog: The UK’s leading SEO blog offering global search marketing news about SEM, PPC and more.
- Remove al other meta tags, they just clutter your code and make your “code to content ratio” look bad. Google ignores most, others are nice to have, not more.
Headlines
- Add a h2 headline which is a sentence explaining your h1 headline. Example: h1 - “SEO Services Glasgow”, h2 - “We’re the first professional search engine optimisation company in Glasgow offering SEO services since 1995″.
- Add a h3 headline with a teaser, something that kicks ass, example: “Seoptmise - The SEO blog that will kick your ass like Beckham”. It can be a longer one. Do not repeat keywords too often.
Page Elements
- Change your menu item “shop” or “services” to something that reflects what you offer or sell, e.g “SEO services”.
- Change your homepage link from “home” to “SEO Blog” or whatever your site or blog is about.
- Add your address in the footer.
- Create a big bold link or button with a “call to action” like “buy now!”, “subscribe here!” or “join now!”.
- Add a large phone number in bold at the top of your page
- Delete an element on your homepage you never click on other websites
- Change the anchor text of a “more” link to the keyword the “more” page deals with
Backlinks and PageRank
- SMS your mother/daughter/sister or father/son/brother and ask for a link to your site.
- Link out to your favourite site on a topic similar to yours. Recommend it explicitly.
- Add a sentence like this “Like us? Link us! <a href=”http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/”>SEO blog UK by SEOptimise</a>”
- Add a “permalink” link to your pages
- Add the nofollow attribute to your “contact page” link.
- Add a “Bookmark to Delicious” badge or button, Delicious bookmarks often automatically appear on blogs
Copywriting
- Mention what you offer exactly on your site/page, use brands and exact product names
- Mention where you offer it “SEO Services Manchester”
- Mention why you offer it “We offer recycling solutions because we believe that clean business is profitable business”
- Mention to whom you offer it: “Web hosting solutions for small business”
- Make an unordered list which reflects the 3 most relevant topics of the page you’re tweaking and put it on top adding the words “this article deals with…”
- Explain one key term the page e.g your homepage contains: SEO (Definition: search engine optimisation, the process of making websites more search and search user friendly)
- Add 5 tags to your page by adding following text: “Tags: tag1, tag2, tag3, tag4, tag5″. In our case it would be probably: “Tags: SEO, optimisation, website, traffic, sales”
- Replace your homepage images with smaller ones in byte size (below 50 kb) so that non-broadband users stick with you
- Convince! Start the first or second sentence of your page with “We will make you number 1 in…” instead of solely describing “X offers…”
- Add your name to the text: John, CEO of John Doe Industries. People trust people not companies.
This “quick and clean” fixes will help already tremendously. Many sites miss these opportunities. Do you want to spend more time than half an hour fixing your website to get more traffic and higher sales? Well check out this huge list of 5 minutes website improvements.
Google’s latest move could give everyday users more of an understanding of how it works and modifies their results. It already offers results based on information such as location, previous searches and web history, and now it is to inform users when their results have been modified in this way.
In the next few days, users will start to see notifications popping up to notify them their results have been customised.
The engine will use IP addresses to customise results, although users can sign in to change location. Searchers who are signed in will also be offered results which use previous searches as context.
I like this idea, it will help hone results and ensure users receive more targeted offerings. Could that include paid ads? Google does not say so, but it seems highly likely the move will increase the relevancy of such adverts.
As someone working in the online marketing sector, this is great. In fact, as a consumer, this makes me quite happy – I do not mind viewing adverts which are relevant to my requirements.
However, Google is obviously wary of people’s fear of their details being used this way. It states: “One important note about Web History: it belongs to you and you have complete control over it. You can remove specific items or pause the service at any time.”
I do not think there is much scope for users to get upset- Google is making every effort to keep them informed and they can turn it off. It seems to me this is an important development in search.
Before long, people will expect search engines to “learn” about them and their requirements. It is an important part of developing the way we navigate the web.
Yesterday the very popular social media bookmarking website Del.icio.us relaunched and moved to use delicious.com.
This was well covered across the blogosphere, with reviews looking at its improved design and enhanced speed, but in addition to this the move is also likely to boost the website’s search rankings.
Delicious.com SEO Strengths
- del.icio.us was already a very strong domain due to the website’s popularity, 301 redirecting a huge 524,803,978 backlinks will help to maintain existing rankings during the site migration.
- Delicious.com is an established domain with its own history, originally registered back in 1995.
- Delicious.com has a PageRank 9! I would assume this is largely because of the redirect from del.icio.us, however the old page is still indexed in Google so this would have been transferred across unusually quickly. The additional direct backlinks to delicious.com will add further weight to strengthening the overall website. Many SEO’s will argue about the importance of Google PageRank, however few will disagree that having a PR9 domain will significantly impact rankings.
- Possibly the most important change, from an SEO perspective, is that the site may now benefit from improved international traffic with Google UK, Australia, Germany etc more likely to favour a .com as opposed to a .us domain. I frequently see Digg.com URL’s appear in the Google UK SERPs but it’s very rare that I’ve seen del.icio.us appear.
Large social media website’s generally don’t rely too heavily on search engine traffic, however the content covered is often news based and will generate a high amount of search interest within a short space of time. So ranking highly for these terms could make the search engines become a major source of traffic and certainly help to promote the website more heavily outside of the US where it’s popularity isn’t quite so strong.
