Christmas is coming: Black Friday arrives on November 25th

By Matthew Kinlin

This year, we will see Black Friday arrive on 25^th November and with it comes a wave of excited shoppers looking to grab a great bargain.

Black Friday is the annual date that marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, a huge amount of retailers will offer promotional sales and bargains to kick off the Christmas season.

The following week will see the start of the Christmas shopping period with shoppers flocking out to find the best presents for Christmas. The start of the week has been named ‘Mad Monday’ to announce the arrival of the crazy shopping season.

This means that shoppers will be able to find some great sales to start the season. They can pick up specific items for reduced prices and track down some bargains.

This will help to kick-start the shopping season. Buyers want to get in there early and find what they want whilst stock lasts. Reduced prices will encourage buyers to start looking early for Christmas.

Black Friday is the official launch for retailers. It marks the moment they will officially start pushing Christmas products. Offering reduced rates will get people in the shops and on their websites looking for what they want.

Large online retailers, like Amazon, are offering a ‘Black Friday Deals Week’. This will feature hundred of deals and millions of pounds of savings for online shoppers.

With the official launch of the Christmas season, online shopping will become a much busier place and just like in shopping centres, the internet should be well prepared for this huge influx of custom.

Part 2: Google is the sheriff! White Hat, ethical SEO, is the law of the virtual plains

In the last post Adrac took a light hearted look at the White Hat, Black Hat symbolism used in search engine optimisation.

Moving on into more serious territory now, Google has made it a mission to raise quality on the internet. It ranks websites on its search engine results page according to its quality standards, taking into consideration things like relevance, banning the use of doorway tactics and devaluing sites that use poor content, spam keywords and, more recently, download times.

However, following Google’s infamous downgrading of retailer JC Penney’s website for link farming,  US company BrightEdge released results of an audit of the websites of more than 1,000 leading brands that revealed black hat SEO tactics “are much more widespread than most are aware” – especially company directors.

How to spot a White Hat SEO company

They will:

• - assess your current market and search engine results page position
• - undertake a competitor analysis
• - discuss openly with you what actions they recommend
• - agree on your budget before work commences
• - be unlikely to want to tie you in for lengthy contracts
• - provide unique, keyworded content for your website and your publicity and marketing materials
• - have substantial, proven experience as an established company with an impressive client base
• - provide monthly reports
• - wear White Hats (joke!)

Since the Panda/Farmer update to Google’s algorithm, which aimed to address the growing problem of high ranking spam content and bad SEO practices, many other companies may have found their Serp position affected. With White Hat SEO, this will not happen; so, if your website has experienced a sudden landslide then there are questions you need to ask about the provision of your SEO services.

Adrac Ltd research underlines that organic search complements SEO

Adrac’s analysis of internet campaign performances for its client websites underlines the importance of a wholistic approach to optimisation.

Natural or organic search positioning uses search term relevance to determine how high a website appears on a results page. Content, optimisation, search engine optimisation and link building all reinforce relevance.

Our recent research reveals how important it is to achieve a page one, top three position; some 95% of search engine users click page one results, and 70% click the top three positions.

- Position #1: 45.46% of all clicks
- Position #2: 15.69% of all clicks
- Position #3: 10.09% of all clicks

Improvements made following client campaigns led directly to quality traffic; in other words, high organic rankings increase their quality traffic thanks to Adrac’s management. Quality traffic offers the best conversion rate – these will be people who want to purchase what you are selling.

This is what we observed:

- A move from #2 to #1 saw a 25% increase in search traffic for the client’s top key term
- The increase in position also saw rise in direct traffic and brand related key terms
- Search traffic doubled when website shifts from bottom half of page one result to top half of page one result

In addition, the analysis revealed that organic search complements non-organic methods of search engine prominence and both are essential for maximum exposure – and a maximum return on investment.

Adrac Ltd has been managing organic search and PPC for clients since 2003. The team are certified Google Accredited Professionals, MSN Ad Excellence members (Bing) and Adrac is a Yahoo Network Certified Agency.

Practical blog writing tips – raising the benchmark by Jackie @ Adrac Ltd

This blog post is written in response to a Tweep who insisted that nobody reads past the first couple of paragraphs of any blog post.

It is a serious claim: is the entire blogosphere supported on the failure of unread blogs? Judging by my own personal blog perusing habits, I think not: there are some fabulous blogs that I consume greedily and want seconds; others that I might get half way down and skip to the end; sometimes I do click the back button after the first sentence.

The fact is that blogs do get read, at least in part. If they did not, then the blogosphere would not exist.

However, possible reasons why some blogs fail include:
- you have not spent time building a following;
- the blog posts ramble, do not deliver what the headline promises;
- poor spelling and grammar, limited vocabulary;
- boring introduction;
- obvious lack of authority on the subject, poor research;
- offering unoriginal, outdated advice;
- uninspiring design and presentation;
- because a well constructed news story will tell you at least twice, if not three times, what the post is about; no need to read it all unless it has excellent entertainment value.

Below is a list of insider tips from a qualified and experienced journalist, SEO copywriter and blogger. Some may sound simplistic and directed at new bloggers, but all are definitely aimed at raising the benchmark and enriching the blog experience.

- Plan: A rough list of points to cover is enough, but it keeps you on focus and cuts down the time you spend playing FarmVille while you meditate on your next paragraph. Social media is the Bermuda Triangle of your Working Day if you don’t discipline yourself. Your plan will include an intro, middle and conclusion.
- Story construction: your intro will hook your audience, with mystery or promise, and tell them what you are going to tell them. Your intro must be interesting, it should never contain hackneyed information they have read elsewhere, or that’s obvious – this will lose their interest pretty quickly. Your middle will expand on your points; your conclusion will remind your reader of your points and wrap them neatly for taking home.

- Learn to edit: ruthlessly, or enlist a co-blogger’s help. The first para of this story was originally the fourth or fifth in its first draft. Blogging lends itself to all kinds of rambling. By the third draft you should have eliminated (pretty much) all self-indulgent purple prose. Less is more.
- Title: optimised, snappy, an accurate reflection of the post itself. Titles are also a whole issue by themselves.
- Writing: spell check; do not include unnecessary adjectives or adverbs; expand your vocabulary but do not overuse your thesaurus; do, however, use a dictionary; use a style guide (try The Guardian); get a blogging friend to check your post through; read your post aloud – this will reveal clumsy sentences; did I mention a spell check?
- The law: you should have an idea of the fair use, far comment and best practice employed by journalists. Check out the editorial policies of your preferred newspapers (try The Guardian again) and also the guidelines of the Press Complaints Commission. At the very least, you should understand what libel and plagiarism are and how to properly cite or protect your sources. You also need to know your own rights regarding the free press and freedom of information.
- Audience: they are who you are writing for; do not forget this.
- Pimp, shamelessly: advertise your blog post via your Facebook Page, your Twitter account, link it to your website if you have one, put it in your signature when you comment on other blogs and forums.

If you got this far you will no doubt have noticed that I have broken or at the very least manhandled a few of these rules. My response? You need to know the rules in order to re-craft them to your bidding. After all, you are still reading.

Here’s to happy – and successful, inventive, quality – blogging!

Keeping up with the shoppers: customers up the ante on mobile websites, by Jackie @ Adrac Ltd

Another body of research has underlined the importance of having a professional website that does exactly what you – and your customers – need it to.

More about the research later. First, a public service announcement about website design.

At some point, web design became something everyone could “have a go at”, possibly dating from the 1996 launch of Microsoft Office FrontPage (now Expression Web and Sharepoint Designer) – a website designer that used the familiarity of MSWord to create documents.

Hang on, what is it you do again? Beauty therapy? Car repairs? Maybe you are the manager of an engineering company. Perhaps you run a private school.

Whatever your profession (outside the sphere of internet marketing), be assured Adrac will not try and tell you how to do your job, or try to do it for you. Just as I contact a garage if my car needs new tyres or an oil change, I expect you to contact Adrac when you require internet marketing services.  And your customers expect it too.

This is not a case of “don’t play with the tech”; the fact is a bad website costs custom and profit. In addition, mobile website optimisation needs an expert. Do some mobile browsing and see how frustrating some sites are to navigate. Ah, you don’t need to; you already know.

So, back to the research: Foresee Results has published (more) compelling evidence that the future of retail is mobile. Shoppers are using their mobile phones to spend money with retailers like you. A third of shoppers accessed store sites over the festive period and their behaviour can’t be ignored. Many used their phones to check prices and services of other retailers while physically standing in a shop. Some 8% of mobile phone users spent money at a website they visited.

Kevin Ertell, vice president of retail strategy at ForeSee, wisely said: “Any retailer not actively working to develop, measure and refine its mobile experience is leaving money on the table for competitors.”

Shoppers are rightly forcing British business to up its game when it comes to eCommerce. Not only should you have an online presence that is optimised through its design and copywriting with keywords, you also need a mobile presence that works for mCommerce.

It makes sense to get ahead of the crowd, be an early adopter and make the most of your customer loyalty in the years to come. It also makes sense to employ a specialist to do a professional job, leaving you to do what you do best, freeing time for you to develop your business and keep up with the shoppers.

Adrac Ltd: Google Local – big in 2011?

Google is ever expanding into so many different fields, you might be forgiven for forgeting that it is a search engine.

Regular developments to the core Google business never go unnoticed, though. This time, search engine developers unleashed an updated Google Local, which has garnered serious interest from SEO companies.

But what does this mean?

A significant revamp of Google search has been already scheduled in for the end of this year. Before then, we will be able to properly explore the impact of new features like Google Instant and Google Local searches.

Google Instant, is not everyone’s cup of tea; but some users find it very helpful and SEO companies have to take this on board in 2011 and integrate their optimisation to incorporate Instant results.

Google Local is what SEOs at Adrac Ltd are most excited by, because of it actively helps businesses attract web traffic. Integrating Google Maps and YouTube into search engine results pages (Serps) has been around for a long time now and is inspired – yet its value has been underapprieciated.

The rebranding and packaging of this service as “Local” will change this – now we can see that Google integrated YouTube and Maps so it can show users actual locations.

This could herald the direction of Serps and search engine aglorithms in 2011, plus the exploitation of the usefulness of social media integration into search.

Adrac Ltd: Who Tweets wins – Mashable Social Media Awards

The Mashable Social Media winners have been announced, and there are familiar faces on the roll of honour, as well as some surprise guests.

For example, Best Social Media Customer Service (award sponsored by Blackberry) was won by Eurail.com.

It is somewhat of a difficult concept for Brits, that train companies win awards for being good at something; they get a lot of bad press, after all.

However, Eurail.com has apparently used social media to look after customer needs.

The ecommerce site for Eurail train passes regularly updates and replies to customer queries using Twitter account, Facebook and other channels, said Mashable.

Also among the winners was World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) was Most Creative Social Media. Its desire to correct its image and reputation, it launched the Stand Up For WWE campaign and encouraged fans to support it via social media and with videos (presumably on YouTube).

Mashable reported that its also published facts about the WWE that were not particularly well known, and some of its supporters were very high profile.

There are many fascinating ways to utilise social media, but again and again success comes to those who focus the interactions, how they happen, what happens and when, around the needs of their audience – read, customers.

Another tip is to link all your information/customer service channels: Facebook, Twitter, your company blog, your company website. If the information you give out has value, visitors will return.

Adrac Ltd: Spam, tar, brush and good SEO copywriting

Good search engine optimisation is worth its weight in gold. Good SEO is not a rarity but it does involve experienced, qualified and honourable professionals. No, that is not an oxymoron when it is applied to SEO.

In the Guardian this week, Charles Arthur reported that Google has become a “tropical paradise for spammers and marketers” who are making it impossible to perform a useful search.

Spam is undesirable; it works because it tricks systems and people; it is allegedly clogging up the internet and wasting people’s time. Sadly, spam seems to be working significantly well for its perpetrators to continue to produce it.

On topic, search engine optimisation includes – but is not exclusively – keywords. Spam is a meaningless stream of words that tries to simulate quality and relevance; professional SEO copywriting uses keywords in a sensible way to enhance a website and is always, always written with the user in mind.

The job of the SEO copywriter is to enhance the website visitor’s experience of the company, service or product, to give them something useful, enjoyable and relevant.

Excellent copy – whether this be news, feature articles, blog entries, press releases or product and service information – attracts quality traffic, targeting the type of visitor who is more likely to spend money with your company.

This kind of service, offered by established accredited companies, is so far away from spam it is positively vegan. So do not let negative stories about internet marketing steer you away from enlisting the help of an SEO specialist.

Why Schmidt reminds me to embrace grocery shopping, by Jackie @ Adrac

The prospect of humans being chipped to enhance their search experience is so bizarre that I actually checked my calendar didn’t say April 1st. I’m still not entirely sure that Google’s Eric Schmidt isn’t playing with us, even a little: perhaps it’s fun to wind us up and watch us hop madly.

Still, this is thought-consuming subject. I sat in my modern office at Adrac and imagined myself in an ultra-modern world like Minority Report; I am walking through a shopping centre mall and the advertising boards are asking me about my satisfaction with previous purchases and targeting my needs tastes preferences in their next sales pitch.

I reflected muchly on the fact that my pets are chipped, so if they get lost, I have a better chance of being reunited with them.

I also thought a little more about ID Cards in the UK and how the idea really raised our hackles: the British Bulldog has a fighting streak when it feels its freedom is being threatened.

Time is precious because we like to work hard and play hard in the 21st century: however, I’m prepared to shoulder the inconvenience of the grocery shopping trip navigated using a hastily scribbled list on the back of an old envelope; in return for knowing that, for at least some portion of the day – probably when I am asleep – I am not observed or data routinely collated about me and my life habits.

Though perhaps even the fact I am “not connected” is data in itself!

In this “always-connected” age where we have our mobiles on us all the time, it is sometimes difficult to remember what it is like to be able disconnect ourselves and enjoy our own company. One day, we might not have this luxury.

Advertiser Confidence Sees Internet Marketing Sector Reach Spectacular Growth

More internet users, faster broadband, popularity of social media and advertiser confidence are all contributing factors to the fantastic growth seen in the internet marketing sector over the last few years.

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) report on advertising spend- internet advertising expenditure has grown 2,200 per cent in the last decade and has increased by 4.2 per cent to £3.54 billion in 2009, from £3.35 billion in 2008.

One of the key areas of growth in 2009 was in paid search which grew by 9.5 per cent, representing 60.7 per cent of all online advertising spend in comparison with 59.3 per cent in 2008.

While there was a 4.4 per cent decline in online display advertising between 2008 and 2009, the market picked up in the second half of 2009 resulting in online display accounting for 20 per cent of total online advertising expenditure in comparison with 19 per cent in 2008.

Incredibly, online video advertising was a real favourite with online marketers, seeing total spend shoot up by 140 per cent with pre- and post-roll advertising generating £28.3 million.

Older Posts »