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Google + took on a huge number of users when it first opened but since then both sign ups and use have plummeted.  The amount of time people are spending on Google+ has dipped considerably but Google have now made search results more ‘social’ with what could be seen as an attempt to get people using Google+ more.

Google announced ‘Search, plus your world’ earlier this month which is supposed to be a way of expanding your search results to include more content, especially content specific to you. This meant that they would tap in to what your friends are saying about certain things and make the whole experience more ‘social’. As an idea I think this is brilliant. I would be entirely behind the idea of including results from social media within search results. If I search for a brand it would be great to be able to see what my friends think about this brand straight away without having to research this separately.

The main problem with this new expansion from Google is that this will not be the end result for most people. The results will only show ‘personal results’ from Google products, primarily Google+. This is where the idea falls short. If it were to include results from across all relevant social media it would be perfect. By focusing mainly on Google+ this makes the whole idea a whole lot less appealling to me. These guys have addressed that and created their own algorithm that would focus on results from all across the web, not just Google+ which shows some interesting, and very contrasting results.

However, all is not lost for Google+. Since launching Brand pages brands are becoming more involved in the network and ‘Hangouts’ have even become successful.  The most notable example of this is Barack Obama who is set to ‘hangout’ on the social network and answer questions that people can pose to him through Youtube. People are still clearly using the network and this is a good sign for Google. Maybe if we see it enough people will gradually start using it. Maybe.

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eCommerce & Search Insights for 2012

December 19th, 2011
by Camilla King

What to watch out for in 2012:

The economy. Undoubtedly a time of uncertainty for the global economy, coupled with speculation around a breakdown of the Euro zone, this will be a focus on the outlook of 2012. The Advertising Association and Warc, earlier this month, downgraded UK adspend for 2012 to a 3.8% growth from a previous forecast of 4.7%.

That said, 2012 adspend as a whole will be £15.9bn, not something to be sniffed at. And while technology isn’t completely decoupled from the state of the global economy, it does stand in relative strength as an industry. The recent downgrades are most likely to reflect sharp downturns in print and supplements, particularly following closure of New of the World.

Google. No surprise here, but with the search giant owning 90% of the market globally and rolling out over 100 innovations in 2011 alone, we can expect its influence on trends in the next year to be huge.

More critically Google has 98% ownership of the mobile search market worldwide, over the likes of Yahoo! and Bing which have struggled to make even a dent on their competitor. “After years of false predictions, it looks like 2012 really will be the year of the mobile”, says Efficient Frontier CEO David Karnstedt, who’s recent study found mobile search in the US could account for 22% of online adspend next year, a significant increase from 6.5% currently.

Insights. Improved technologies such as Google Analytics and their widespread adoption have meant that consumer insight is easier to access than ever. Analysis of the search funnel, for example, will allow advertisers intelligent multichannel attribution. Minute Steak will ensure to invest in complete multichannel views of customer journeys for all channels. Using this advanced analysis of this data we can implement tailored strategies and improve overall marketing effectiveness.

More savvy users online now rely on social networks, customer reviews, video demonstrations, discount vouchers and apps to influence their purchase decisions. Today’s technologies now need to support a multi-touch presence to engage with and convert customers, providing the insight into behaviours allowing appropriate strategies to be executed.

Customisable Experience. IAB recently reported that over 50% of tablet usage took place between 7 – 12pm, making it the most widely used devise for accessing the internet in late evenings. Associate director of technology at YouGo, Russell Feldman also suggested that 24% of tablet users browse the interest from bed – supporting the IAB’s description of the devise as the ideal “downtime device”.

We’re already seeing newspaper and magazine publications focusing on tablet-specific versions, note the BBC homepage redesign back in September, now created to look and work more effectively from smartphones and tablet devices.

Only 4% of UK population actually own a tablet at the moment. Steve Koenig, director and industry analyst at the CEA describes how 2011 saw consistent growth in tablet sales reaching 207% growth. However forecasts of growth for 2012 have been cut to 59% and 22% for smartphones. Partly this is down to the “customisable experience”, whereby we’re using apps to personalise our devises, and therefore less inclined to make the upgrade. As a resilient market that saw sales drop only 8% worldwide in 2009 following the recession, the CEA still predicts the market to hit $1 trillion next year.


 

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Brand Pages Launched on Google+

November 10th, 2011
by Lucy Ingram

This week, Google launched the first of the brand pages on Google+.  Some of the first brands to have pages include Cadburys, H&M, Pepsi and The New York Times to name but a few.

One of the key benefits to Google+ is that ‘Circles’ gives the user more control; they can decide how they share content and who they share it with.  The brand pages will work in the same way facilitating a relationship between fans, advocates and potential customers.

Brands can decide how to interact with their fans.  Users can be split into circles that target geographic locations, age groups, gender or a combination of all of these.  This will allow for tailored messaging.  However, the brand’s connectivity will be more limited than an individual’s page.  An individual must add the brand page to a circle, and the brand cannot initiate the link and so this puts the user in control of the relationship.

The pages themselves will allow the brands to share content with certain groups, make content unsharable when necessary, post text, photos, videos and links, there can also be live video hangouts.  Maps can be utilised for local businesses.  Affiliated companies and people can be acknowledged on the page, and users can interact with them separately.

The impact of social media on SEO has become increasingly important in recent years and it’s apparent that content (be it a product, a status update or anything in between) with a +1 can appear considerably higher in the search results than those without.  Consequently, it is now more important than ever that brands become early adopters and have a useful, comprehensive Google+ page in line with their digital or social media strategy. Google+ won’t replace existing social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook are here to stay, but it’s a further platform to engage consumers and improve SERP visibility.

 

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It has been the trend in Digital Marketing for the last million years that Mobile will overtake laptop and desktop computers with everything it does with more people using mobiles to access the web than desktops.  From the forecasted rise in increased use of mobile in comparison to desktops and the huge numbers of purchases being made via mobiles nowadays you can sort of see why. The IAB are particularly fond of mobile, which is where they believe the future lies. And who can blame them; in a recent study they revealed that 51% of the UK has undertaken and engaged in M-Commerce with 42% saying they use it because it is the easiest way to purchase.

The iPhone 4s came out this week and with it came Siri – your own personal assistant. With Siri you can ask it almost anything and it will pull the answers for you, from the local weather to a nice place to eat close to where you are. Its voice recognition software makes it the easiest to use so far which has now made using mobiles even easier. What impact could this have on M-Commerce? If 42% of people already using their mobile to purchase were doing it because of its ease how much further will Siri help to increase this figure?

Does this then mean that all retailers should be active within Mobile and what can this mean? Should you have a website that’s optimised for mobile or a mobile site? i.e should you have an optimised version of your pre-existing site or a site that is built solely for the purpose of use on a mobile, with unique content. Based on our previous blog posts on Content being King it is clear that we think having a mobile site could be the best avenue, particularly if you are a retailer. Crew Clothing are an example of a retailer that has identified this growth and they launched a mobile website this week to accurately target this market.

So with  mobile use forecasted to increase and its use by consumers in purchasing and researching, is it something you should be considering?

 

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Why You Should Probably Be Keeping A Blog

October 14th, 2011
by Elliot Jones

Matt Cutts (Head of the Web Spam team at Google) recently said “there is no excuse not to have a blog”, and when it comes to maintaining an online presence, he’s probably right. There has never been a better time to start blogging, and the SEO benefits are infinite if you implement your blog in the right way.

Companies like WordPress, and Blogger have made it so easy to keep a blog that it’s been proven that even monkeys can do it (your reading the evidence right now!)

Blogger LogoWordpress Logo

So, now you’ve set your blog up… what do you do with it? Well…

Content Is King!

As an SEO, I cannot stress hard enough how important ‘content’ is on your website. Without content, your website is blank and bare,… just a white page (like Google.com… and look how badly that turned out for them :-s). But seriously, content is what drives visitors to the site, and once they’re there, it gives them a reason to stay.

An on-site, or sub-directory blog gives your site additional space for content. Often brands, after having spent hard earned money on site design and development are adverse to adding content in order to maintain site aesthetics, so by adding an additional yoursite.com/blog section, the look and feel of the main pages of the site can be maintained.

Needless to say, just adding content on a whim can, and probably should be detrimental to your site, but when added with purpose, and optimised in the right way, has a huge amount of SEO value.

Content comes has four key forms; words, images, videos, and sounds. You’ll know what is right for your brand, and if you don’t then you should. Good content should be heavily tailored towards the user, so try to pre-empt what a visitor will be looking for when he or she visits your site.

Engagement!

Blogs are the ideal platform to really engage with your customers. Every post you make allows visitors to leave their two-cents in the form of a ‘comment’, a ‘like’, a ‘buzz’, a ‘+1’, the list is ever growing.

DiggGoogle+1Facebook Like

From an SEO perspective, shareable content is the best kind of content, because each time it’s re-hosted, you’re potentially getting a free link. And free links are the best links! On top of this, good content might even drive more traffic.

Social Interaction is seemingly becoming a much more important factor in search engine rankings, so when good content gets shared, commented upon, re-posted etc, Google can attribute this to your brand. Google’s ‘real-time’ search function, gave us huge insight into the future of the social influence on search…and it will only be so long before its back.

As for now, if you’re brand has something worth saying, there’s no place better than your own blog to let your ideas loose on the world, and as Matt Cutts says, there really is no excuse not to.

 

 


 

 

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4 Vital SEO Steps for Website Managers with Limited Time

September 6th, 2011
by Warren Zanin

Managing and maintaining a website is a demanding task in the first place, with often little time and resource left to focus on optimising a website for search engines. We deal with many clients who are so busy at work building their brand and marketing their products or services that the little resource they do have to dedicate to website optimisation needs to be spent very wisely.

Here’s a list of 4 things we recommend time poor website manager or webmaster can prioritise to kick-start website optimisation efforts:

1.) Get Webmaster Tools

Google and Bing both offer free webmaster tools, which give really good insight into website performance as well as being a place where you can address some potentially very problematic issues with your site, some of which are highlighted below. Don’t ignore Bing just because of their significantly smaller market share, they have spent a lot of time adding handy new features to give webmasters even more insight into their site performance.

Verifying a website with Google and Bing webmaster consoles can really be a less that 10 minute job.  The verification process can involve some mild technical steps, so if you don’t know how to FTP a file to the root or your site, or aren’t comfortable adding a line of HTML to page headers then buy your developer a chocolate to spend 10-15 minutes with you to get your site verified.

2.) Deal with Error Pages (404)

404 error pages can be like a wound in a website; a dead-end for crawlers or a waste of valuable crawl time and a loss of very valuable site authority (or juice). The Webmaster Tools consoles mentioned above are great for finding these error pages, giving you the intelligence you need to start addressing the issue. Server logs and 3rd party crawl tools can also be good sources for finding error pages.

Even better would be to go a step further by trying to evaluate what causes pages on your site to result in 404 errors. Are these expired product pages that have never been redirected back into the site, or have URLs been changed as a result of a site restructure or product reclassification? Addressing the root of the problem will save numerous man hours spent hunting down and addressing 404 errors.

3.) Assess and Address Duplication

On-site duplication can arise for many reasons, but should be addressed as a high priority issue to prevent the dilution of search engine results, or confusing the search engines in terms of your most important pages. Again, Webmaster Tools come in handy identifying duplication, giving you intelligence into what parts of your site are resulting in duplicate content, so you can take steps to address these, which could include one of the following tactics;

  • permanently redirecting duplicate pages to the most important version,
  • telling Google to ignore duplicate pages that result from parameter filters (in Webmaster Tools),
  • specifying a preferred version of your domain (in Webmaster Tools),
  • using canonical tags to refer to your most important page,
  • Preventing search engines from crawling and indexing duplicate pages,
  • Removing the source or cause of duplicate pages.

4.) Create an XML Sitemap

An XML Sitemap, not to be confused with an HTML sitemap, is a useful tool for encouraging search engines to crawl parts of your site that might be difficult to find through typical navigation. Many CMSes come with an integrated Sitemap module, or a plugin can easily be added, otherwise 3rd party Sitemap creation tools can also provide a solution and in desperate times a Sitemap can be created manually (try to shy away from this approach, if you still want a good relationship with your dev team:).

Sitemaps can also be used as a means of assessing the indexation of you site, once again, with thanks to Webmaster Tools.

As you would expect SEO is a process that involves significantly more than the 4 items listed above but when resources are running thin we recommend spending that precious time addressing them.

 

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Google ‘Mega-Sitelinks’ – Good for Everyone?

August 18th, 2011
by Katie Saunders

I feel it’s about time for another Google update, and this one just cannot be ignored. In the last couple of weeks, a Google results test from earlier in the year has been rolled out on a larger scale. Searchers now come across an abundance of sitelinks on the Search Engine Results Pages. This has implications for both Paid and Natural search.

Over the year Google has increased the number of sitelinks appended to PPC from 4 to 6. This has been beneficial from my point of view for two reasons. My clients are able to take advantage of more space on the page as well as giving consumers more options to navigate to different parts of clients’ sites.

Apparent more recently, the Natural results now include what we are unofficially terming “mega-sitelinks”. When a user types in a specific company name or brand the usual PPC ads appear at the top of the page. The Natural results show as before, however with the addition of sitelinks. While we have been seeing more SEO sitelinks within the Natural listings, the new format shows up to 12 sitelinks.

As you can see from the above example, the brand in question is positively dominating the whole of the results. In this example there is competition on the PPC side, which means that the Paid box at the top of the page is larger than on other searches. This combines with the SEO listings in such a way that there is actually only one Natural result on my screen.

This raises the question about competition. Yes, Google now allows bidding on competitor brand terms, this was in an effort to keep competition healthy.  As a user, about 75% of what I am seeing on the page is from one company. This is potentially a set-back for Affiliates or resellers, making it a lot harder for them to appear above the fold.

At the moment, this is only something that we are seeing on company names. There is one grey area though, and that is for companies that have generic words as their name. I searched for “watch shop”, unaware that this was indeed a company’s name.

Google will have to be careful here with the intent behind the search. It is fair enough to show me a whole page of results dedicated to a brand search, but it is only the Paid Search in this example that offers me a variety of watch outlets.

On a more positive note, additional sitelinks on branded searches allow the consumer more choice, and options to go directly to the right part of the site without having to use navigation. From that perspective, search becomes faster and easier, this should result in a happier consumer.

 

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Minute Steak recently attended the Sheerluxe eCommerce Conference and it was a great opportunity to hear the issues that luxury retailers are currently facing when implementing digital strategies.  Alongside concerns on how to adapt these strategies to suit their customer demographic, it seems that understanding performance and devising cost effective growth strategies causes issues for many.  Here are some key issues that were raised on the day:

  • How do I better understand my web-site performance?

Understanding the performance of your web-site is critical to optimising your online revenue.  Google Analytics is a free tracking solution that can provide you with key metrics if it is implement correctly.  Ensure that your site is tagged correctly, e-commerce tracking is implemented and goals and events set-up.  If you have these key factors in place you can tag online activity and monitor results from one platform including the linking of your AdWords Account.

  • I’ve get lots of traffic, but customers aren’t buying?

This could mean that the wrong traffic is being directed to your site or alternatively you may find your site needs to be reviewed.  If your web-site is not clear and easy to use, any budget applied to driving the right traffic will not generate the potential return.  It is important to get people that aren’t familiar with your web-site to provide feedback and test, test, test.

  • How can I increase online sales aside from increasing marketing budget?

Following on from the previous point, it is essential to plan ongoing testing and optimisation on your web-site and marketing activity.  Ensuring that activity is integrated and consistent messaging is displayed throughout the customer journey will reassure the user.  This supported by directing them to the most relevant landing page with clear product information and an easy to use purchase process will enhance your ROI.

  • Most search traffic is generated through my brand?

The first step is to look at search query processes and identify if a series of generic searches occurred before a purchase on brand.  Secondly you need to develop a search strategy that focuses on driving generic traffic to your site as these searches will often be made by new customers.  Reviewing your top selling products, USPs and Google Analytics reports will enable you to identify the generic terms that are most likely to lead to sales.  In many cases generic rankings can be costly and it can be worth testing generics in paid search before committing to a longer term natural strategy.

  • How do I devise a social strategy?

The most important first step is to complete an audit of the social landscape.  This will enable you to understand where and how your customers engage online and the activity of your competitors.  This process ensures you avoid social for social sake and instead develop a strategy that is in-line with how your customers wish to interact with your brand.  It is essential to provide a reason for your customers to engage with your social activity and dedicate time internally to produce targeted and relevant content.

The above provides an overview of the types of discussions had on the day.  Many of the businesses asking these questions were experiencing great success online, but acknowledged that they often didn’t have time to review reports and performance in the detail that they would like.  In these cases a simple online health check can be an effective way of ensuring that the basics are in place and marketing budgets are being utilised as effectively as possible.

If you’d like help with a health check or any of the above issues sound familiar, please feel free to contact us and we’d be happy to provide further advice on your digital strategies.

 

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Content is King

July 19th, 2011
by Lucy Ingram

At Minute Steak, something that we always encourage our SEO clients to do is to ensure that their site is full of good quality, interesting to read content.  The reason for this is that it enables search engines to understand more about what the site offers and making information available to users makes the site more engaging, which again has benefit for SEO.

An example of a website using content well is the Woodlands Junior School in Tonbridge, Kent which also appears as primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk in the search results.  Their site is absolutely packed with content and they rank for some really generic terms that many businesses compete to appear for at considerable expense.

Here are some examples of what they rank for:

Easter – Position 2

Electricity – Position 3

Christmas – Position 4

The British Royal Family- Position 5

Houses – Position 7

Science – Position 9

Pubs – Position 9

If you click through to the pages that appear for these terms you’ll see that they’re incredibly targeted and are both content and image rich.  The overall look and feel of the site isn’t great, in fact, it’s just very simple.  There are usually over 500 words of content, often as high as 1000 words of content on the page and this is broken down into clearly titled headings to make the information more digestible.

The content is all unique, nothing has been copied from other sources, it’s interesting to read despite being aimed at a young audience and links to relevant pages throughout the text.

Recent Google updates such as the Panda updates have really taken their toll on sites which are thin on content or which farm out articles designed for link building purposes.

What’s the impact for our clients?

We can’t stress enough the importance of good, quality content and regularly updating the text on the website.  This shouldn’t be done for the sake of it though.  Many companies have hoards of excellent content that sits on the site but hides in inaccessible parts of the site, making this accessible to search engines can make a big difference.

If you’d like more information on how the Panda Updates affect your site or how to improve your content, please get in touch.

 

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Guest Blog from Melina Hamilton of Sage Pay.

Minute Steak manage Sage Pay’s natural search and social monitoring activity.

The key to every shopper’s decision to buy is in the shopping experience and how they connect to your products. Look beyond the design of your website and consider the relevance of your products and promotions, your product arrangement, the helpfulness of information, the ‘ambience’ or ‘pace’ of shopping in your store, and the level of personalised service that you provide. This is all part of online merchandising — so with all these areas to consider where should you begin?

Start with some simple tracking on your website to identify which products are already working well on your website and which pages need improvement. With relative ease you can measure product performance by comparing the product page’s traffic volume to its conversion rate. This allows you to quickly identify your:

  • Top selling products (high traffic, high conversion)
  • Products with opportunities for promotion (low traffic, high conversion)
  • Product pages that require optimisation (high traffic, low conversion)
  • Products to consider replacing (low traffic, low conversion)

Next, fine-tune the performance of your online store with some tried-and-tested techniques. Here are a few that can help to improve the shopper experience and get more people buying from your store:

1. Remove obstacles

Make it easier for your customers to buy by organising your navigation to match your shopper’s needs. Luxury fashion retailer Net-A-Porter does this well by providing categories that follow the thought process of their customer segments. Also, allowing shoppers to browse products visually — one of the most powerful tools for fashion e-tailers in particular— can be the difference between an informed purchase from your store and uncertainty leading them elsewhere. Visual browsing includes multiple viewpoints of the product, detailed and full size image zoom, colour or fabric swatches and the product shown on models or forms. Net-A-Porter also cross-sells cleverly, by recommending only relevant and coordinated products to complete stylish outfits.

2. Empower your shoppers

For most shoppers, being able to customise your shopping experience or even personalise a product, can turn an average purchase into a memorable one. IKEA UK goes beyond the realm of ‘online catalogue’ by using a combination of lifestyle scenery and animation to make products come to life (more so than in-store). Their website allows customers to interact with furniture in almost the same way as you would in-store – wandering from room to room, collecting ideas, getting a closer look and picking up essential product information on the spot.  The audio/visual demonstrations (see TV and media solutions for example) are pleasantly surprising and are an entertaining way to picture how the product fits in with your lifestyle. Taking this a step further, IKEA UK enables shoppers to virtually assemble a furniture collection to suit their needs using their personal planning tool. The shopper’s decisions are then conveniently saved to a shopping list, making it simpler than ever to complete their purchase in-store or online.

3. Consider other content formats

Anyone selling high involvement or high value products knows that expert levels of service are essential to address a shopper’s every concern. This is where formats other than just written content can help. GuitarGuitar, the UK’s largest guitar store, finds a great way to translate their in-store guitar purchasing experience into one suitable for their e-commerce website. They use high definition video format to provide online shoppers with expert instrument demonstrations. Not only is this equivalent to the specialist level of service shoppers receive in-store, it rivals it — by giving online shoppers access to very detailed product information, with the flexibility to spend as much time as they need to get to know the instruments.

Sage Pay is the UK’s largest independent provider of online payment services. It provides simple, secure and fast online payment processing, merchant accounts, online fraud prevention and PCI DSS certification services for over 30,000 businesses of all sizes.



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