Pay per click (PPC) can be a highly advantageous tool for any business looking to bolster their income from ecommerce sales. PPC campaigns are something which is best left to the professionals in the field of search engine optimisation (SEO) but I think there are a few general tips which can be remembered to help ensure the success of your PPC endeavours.

As with all search engine optimisation activities, it is important to stay on top of the latest trends and developments – and this too is true with pay per click projects. In my opinion some of the best methods of ensuring the success of a campaign include:

• Eye Catching Ads – There’s little point getting your pay per click ad to the top of the Google listings if it doesn’t stand out from the crowd. The best thing to do is write a compelling and punchy ad to go alongside your PPC to ensure that people click on yours as opposed to your competitors.
• Rely on Professionals – When it comes to setting up PPC campaigns it is, in my experience, something which is best left to the professionals. They will perform all the intricacies of the campaign, such as carrying out keyword research and will be able to yield the best results from pay per click projects.
• Keep Track of Results – Obviously, it is imperative to actually track how a PPC campaign is performing which, again, is another reason to leave it to SEO and SEM experts. They will use the latest analytic tools to see which terms are leading to the most conversions and thus be able to maximise the return on investment (ROI) potential of the campaign.

Pay per click is a good addition to any SEO campaign but should rarely be relied upon in isolation. It can be an extremely good way of driving traffic to a website and, if done correctly, will be cost effective.

SEO is, of course, a speciality and PPC definitely falls under this umbrella – so, if you’re looking to utilise PPC to boost your revenue in 2010, I would suggest seeking out professional assistance from a digital media agency.

PPC campaign

Any ecommerce company worth their salt should at least be aware of the notion of search engine optimisation (SEO) but may not be quite as familiar with the concept of social media – and how this phenomenon can help their rankings in major search engines. Marketing companies across the UK are now tapping into the resource of social media – but how does it specifically differ from SEO techniques that are presently being utilised?

In my opinion, it is important to see SEO and social media as two peas in a pod and not as separate entities because the merits of one certainly overlap with the other and vice versa. It goes without saying that SEO staples such as sensible use of keywords, long-tailing, unique content and building good quality links will long continue to play a role in propelling websites up the search engine listings – but social media has been invited to the top table now as well and definitely has its own role to play.

The best way of explaining how SEO and social media differ is probably to suggest that SEO deals with those people who are looking for a specific product or phrase and, through the use search engine optimisation techniques, it becomes possible to rank highly for any given search term. From the social media perspective, however, it is more about reaching out to demographics and revealing listings and products that they may not have actively been seeking.

Essentially, optimising a website should be seen as a big picture comprising of many different parts – two of the most important of which are SEO and social media.

Social media site Facebook

In the last post we discussed how videos can be used by internet marketing teams as another tool in the battle for search engine rankings. Following on from this story I have been investigating other ways on which movies and animation can be used in SEO, and have come across a great site called GoAnimate. This website allows you to create characters and cartoons which can then be embedded onto blogs, bookmarked and shared around the web, with the potential to go viral should they get enough views.

In a fun activity that shouldn’t really be called work, I have been playing around with the characters, themes and sounds available on the GoAnimate website, however you can also import your own music and images from around the web or your own computer. Just like my video in the last post, I do not claim to have totally mastered the art of animation just yet, but it does give you a good idea of what can be done.

As a little bit of blatant promotion, my cartoon focuses on the SEO services offered at my workplace, 9xb.

GoAnimate.com: SEO at 9xb by fruitbat

There has been a lot of discussion recently concerning the value of multimedia including videos. pictures and audio appearing in search results. Google is now displaying more and more information on each page of its search result and this is valuable for users.

I have been using the internet for over a decade and do not have that same length of experience with SEO, and I know that as an internet user you are likely to click through to the more interesting multimedia results thatn the website links. This way the client is sure to get traffic through these forms as well as with high ranking web page results. They could end up being the only company above the fold when they have well optimized results for video, images, web pages, blogs and local search.

With this in mind I have had a look around the web for some sites with which you can create images. You can use computer software or internet based services to create basic and more technological videos. I have had a go at designing a video for this blog-but be warned-it is very very basic! It does however show you the type of information that you can fit into a multimedia video.

Enjoy!

Following my recent post on the introduction if SideWiki to the Google toolbar, I have already started seeing comments full of spam. Whilst the spam is related to the webpages that the comments appear on, it is spam nonetheless.  It remains to be seen what Google will do to try and reduce this or if it intends to take any action at all.

To see how effective spamming SideWiki comment posts is remains questionable, especially since few people have yet to start using the new tool.

Confabulations will keep you updated with all the latest news!

Google has recently announced the introduction of Sidewiki, a tool that allows internet users the chance to comment on any site they visit on the web. When you have sidewiki enabled you can also see the comments that other users have made. So, we must ask ourselves, is this one of Google’s better inventions, or will it cause more harm than good?

During the early days of its release, sidewiki is available to internet Explorer or Firefox users, and Google are hoping to have sidewiki on Chrome as soon as possible. You need to install the newest version of Google toolbar and install the enabled version. This allows Google to know all of the pages you visit; otherwise it cannot send you any of the sidewiki information available for the page you are viewing. However this is not a new feature of the toolbar as anyone who has page rank enabled will have let Google know what pages they were looking at.

Taken from the Google homepage, you can see a tiny blue line at the left hand side of the screen. This is what you will see on every site that sidewiki can be used on.
If you put your mouse over the >> or the bubble, the sidebar will expand and you will be able to see the comments and comment yourself.

This is a snapshot of what you see when    you click on the >> or bubble. You can click on the down facing arrow next to Google Sidewiki to add your comments. You can move through the comments by clicking on ‘next’ or ‘previous’ at the bottom of the window.

Comments

Comments are not listed in age order. There is a complex Google algorithm with many factors which determines which comments appear first. Some of the factors that Google have identified and internet users have guessed at include;
•    The quality of the entry
•    What Google knows about the author
•    User contributed signals including flagging and feedback
•    Use of sophisticated language-Google has a language sophistication detector which works in the 14 languages that sidewiki supports
•    User reputation
•    User history-How long have you had a Google profile, when did you start commenting, etc.

Just as Google gives every web page a Page Rank, every Google profile has a Profile Rank, and you are more likely to have your comments posted higher if you have a better profile rank, although as of yet there is no way of knowing what your profile rank is.
If your comments are not deemed to be of a high enough quality, they will be flagged by Google, in a yellow top bar pictured below.

You will always see your own comments if you are logged into sidewiki. If you want to try and find where your comments rate, sign out of sidewiki. You will still be able to see all the comments that have been made but you will not be permitted to add anything new. If there are not enough comments for a particular page, Google may use blog posts that comment on the webpage. The sidewiki window on Twitter is full of blog posts. As more and more comments are made by individual users, these blog posts will start to disappear.

Rating, Making and Sharing Comments

You can rate comments that have been made through sidewiki. If you click onto a comment, you are asked whether you found the comment useful, and can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this. If you think that the comment is inappropriate, you can flag the comment by clicking the ‘Report Abuse’ tag.

Making a comment is easy. All you have to do is open the sidewiki side bar and click on the logo at the top. A drop down menu will appear with the option to write a comment. Once you have finished click save and your comment has been made. You can put links into the text using HTML however these will be nofollow, or drop a YouTube link into the comment so people can see associated videos. If you need to edit the post, there is an edit option as well as the option to delete your comment.

If you want to comment on a particular part of the page, for example a quote, you just highlight the text you will be commenting on and make a sidewiki about this text only. The added bonus is that if the quote appears on any other web pages, your comment will be used on these too.

Each comment in sidewiki exists as a standalone URL, and Google encourages these links to be shared. You can share your comments by clicking on the ‘share’ tab next to edit and delete. When you click on this you have the option to copy the link, send it via email or post it on your Twitter or Facebook page.
Site Owners’ Comments

Even though the links you add to your comments are nofollow, they could still be a valuable source of traffic to your website and that of your competitors. If you have verified site ownership through Google Webmaster Central, you have the chance to claim the first comment on your web pages when you first open sidewiki on your site. If there are several owners of the web site they will all have this option. If you claim the first comment it will always be shown at the top of the comments. When you make more comments, they will be spread throughout the rest of the comments on the basis of the sidewiki algorithm.
Do not try to fill the whole sidebar with one long comment however, as Google has taken steps to prevent this by condensing comments. You cannot block your competitors from commenting on your site, but by making several well written comments you can try to dilute their influence.

Problems With Sidewiki

Although the algorithm used by Google when choosing which comments to rank higher than others is supposed to filter out any unhelpful comments, the tool is open to spam and comments that will be of little help to anyone.

Companies will be able to fill pages of relevant content with sidewiki comments containing links to their sites, increasing traffic for themselves but it may come at the cost of the original webpage losing custom. Also, until the comment boxes for all web pages are used, what is to stop spammers entering irrelevant content into the comment boxes?

There is sure to be uproar when controversial comments are made, like holocaust denial comments or pro-racism comments. Having no way to censor this type of content may act to kill sidewiki. Threats, hate rants and socially unacceptable material may be added to the comments. There is nothing to stop a link to a pornographic site from being entered as a comment on the sidewiki bar on a children’s website. All of these things are sure to attract much criticism towards Google sidewiki.

When you get it right, the perfect website should be creative, usable for consumers and structured so that it can be optimised. What is the point of creating a fabulous, show stopping website full of flash and JavaScript, when it is impossible for search engines to crawl, consumers to see, and optimisers to market?  Every client who hires your company to design and optimise them a new website will expect the two teams to work together to create a finished product which does everything they asked in their brief. If the design/development team and the marketing team are not communicating, your site may well end up as a flop, with no traffic, no sales and no success.

This is especially important when it comes to ecommerce sites. People who use the internet to do their shopping have experience with different ecommerce sites, checkouts and navigation. I cannot tell you the number of times I have gone onto a website, put something in my basket, gone to the checkout and got my credit card out, only to abandon the transaction because the payment process was too complex. This problem is simple to remedy. Any SEO will be quick to tell you that a checkout process should be quick, and if it cannot be quick, then the stages should at least be listed so that shoppers can see they are progressing through the purchase.

The checkout is just one area where designers and marketers need to communicate more.  Another area of debate is product images. Product images need to be easily discernible from decorative images so that consumers know they can click on them and it will take them through to a more detailed product page. It is all very well designing a page so that the images float or overlap and look super nice, but if customers cannot use the page because it is all about looks and not about utility; you have not served your purpose of building a profitable site.

If you work for a digital agency, as a web designer, web developer or in SEO, think about how design, crawlability and usability go hand-in-hand. By looking at a website from a user’s perspective, you will be able to design a site that suits their needs as well as incorporating new technologies and special features.

Getting your news out There

Why Do We Use Press releases?

• Press Releases are a way for companies to promote their work or news features across the internet.
• There are traditional, text-heavy press releases or more modern Social Media News Releases (Otherwise known as social media press releases)
• Online press releases can help your news and company to reach millions more people than a traditional paper press release, or for that matter, more than a small web 2.0 campaign could.
• This is because of the advent of SMNRs and their ability to go viral with the touch of a couple of buttons.

Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!

• On 27 February, 2006, Tom Foremski posted an article on his SilliconValleyWatcher Blog entitled Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!
• He lambasted traditional press releases for serving no purpose in today’s age of new media.
• Foremski called for more multimedia and linkage in press releases so that they could be accessible by many on the internet.
• He also said press releases should be divided into sections so that journalists could pick and choose and quickly find the information they needed.
• So on May 23, 2006, SHIFT communications offered the first SMNR.

What Do SMNRs Feature That Traditional Press Releases Don’t?

• The structure and make up of SMNRs is different to traditional online press releases. They can contain;
• Contact Info displayed at the top of the release
• A basic list of facts
• Quotes from company employees/experts in the field
• Any company logos and headshots of contributors, writers etc.
• Related audio or visual material, including YouTube videos.
• Social bookmarking/sharing links for maximum exposure
• An RSS feed
• A space for comments

Press Releases And Search Engines

• Press Releases have to readable for humans and search robots, otherwise their viral-ability is reduced.
• Laura Sturaitis, VP at BusinessWire said they are telling clients how to get their press releases showing up in the SERPs more. Logos and images influence Google to show a result AND if an image is displayed next to the clipping, users are 2.5% more likely to click through.
• Google New’s Josh Cohen says that PRs are not crawled on a company’s website, only from the PR distributors. The robots label them as PRs and they are treated differently from other news sources. For example, a PR will not lead a cluster of news stories.
• However, Gabe Rivera for Techmeme said they do not treat press releases differently from other news stories at present, although the algorithm may change in the future.

Are Press Releases Any Good?

The Cons

• Greg Jarboe (president and co-founder of SEO-PR and correspondent for the Search Engine Watch blog) wrote an article in 2007 titled “Is the Social Media Press Release a Meatball Sundae?”
• A ‘meatball sundae’ is when mixing two good things result in something not so good.
• In Jarboe’s metaphor, the press release was the meatballs whilst everything else included in an SMNR was the toping and ice cream. Greg looked at several factors which made SMNRs less than perfect.
• On digg, press releases were more likely to be buried than digged, so it was better for a blogger to write about your news than submit a PR.
• Comments on early SMNRs were full of spam, and there was no way to control this without removing the feature all together. This can cause serious brand damage as well as distracting attention away from your story.
• As of 2008, traditional & multimedia releases – which would include most of the SMRs released to-date –were not readily discoverable by ’social’ search engines like Technorati, not even if Technorati tags were used. In other words, adding Technorati tags to your social media releases doesn’t get them into Technorati, which was tracking 112.8 million blogs at the time.

The Pros

• A case study of ITV television which used SMNRs to promote its winter 2007 programmes.
• Ben Ayers used WebitPR’s SMNR design and he had good things to say about it.
• Results from SMNRs were higher internet coverage of ITVs winter schedule and other companies in their industry and the traditional/online PR firms gave ITV kudos for exploring new distribution methods.
• The main drawback that Ayers noted was that not enough journalists and publicists were using social media tools, which limited the effect that any SMNR could have until this changed.
• One of the biggest advantages of using SMNRs is that you can track their success. Following comments, the amount of times your PR has been bookmarked, linked to and from and how many times your multimedia has been viewed.

The Structure Of A Press Release

• 300-800 words long, including title and contact information.
• Title-needs to be punchy , contain keywords, the story and the company name. Needs to be in Initial Case, ALLCAPS titles will be rejected by PRWeb. PRWeb found that Google and some other search engines reject headlines that are too long.
• Summary and 1^st paragraph-one or two sentences detailing what the story is and why it is important-it needs to hook the reader. Should also include a dateline with location. If the reader stopped reading now, they should know the basics of your story.
• Body-provides the details, precise information every thing your story is about. It needs to tie in with the headline otherwise readers will be alienated from the PR and your company.
• Bulk Up-Fill your PR with SEO friendly multimedia and links. This provides the reader with a diverse PR experience and crawlers with lots of info. If you sell products include product shots, a link to a video advert that you may have made etc.
• After the first couple of paragraphs you can insert quotes-these add personality and can be easily re-used by journalists/bloggers etc.
• If you have any charts or graphs (especially in finance-focused PRs) these should be attached as a PDF.
• Keywords-choose one or two keywords, put these in the title and first line of the summary. Link from them to your site.
• Boilerplate-brief company history, any awards, how long you have been going etc.
• Contact Information-name, telephone #, address and fax. Also company name and website. Do not enter an email address in the body of the PR or in the contact info as PRWeb will remove these to protect from spammers and your PR will not be as good.
• Don’t be too technical. SMNRs are meant for a general readership and even if you have a niche product, don’t confuse people.
• There should be only one link to every 100 words to prevent overcrowding. Also, if you have a list, don’t have too many bullet points as some search engines do not like this.
• Have an angle. Your PR will get a lot more coverage if you link it to current news, social or political issues, any new reports or studies etc.

Anything Else You Need To Know?

• A successful PR has many benefits for the company; free publicity, a reputation as an authority in the industry, inbound links to the website.
• If you don’t have any news about your company, releasing a response can be a good way to get in the news. If something big has happened in your particular industry, lets say Google does something BIG, release a response saying you agree/disagree. BUT…don’t just publish a PR based on general opinion.
• Target your distribution; if you have a niche story, use PR distribution categories and locations to target the most relevant audience. Give your PR to relevant bloggers as well.
• Follow up; A few hours after you have sent a press release, follow it up by contacting the newspaper/journalist to make sure they have received it. You can also give them extra info at this point and exclusive quotes to get their attention.
• MAKE IT PERFECT; your credibility could be ruined if your PR contains spelling and grammatical mistakes.