Tag Archives: Google

Edinburgh Panda = Good. Google Panda = Bad.

1 May

Google Panda updates have re-written the SEO rulebook.

 

On 24th February,  Google’s most recent large algorithm update saw many websites’ rankings (and therefore traffic) fall away. It’s subsequent release to the rest of the world in April saw a similar effect. What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that for most websites, their rankings have only just begun to be effected.

This most recent update, seems to be effecting many smaller websites. Whilst Google is eager to downplay the size of the most recent update, it is clear that for many people the effect may be worse than the initial release.

What does this mean for you? Well, if you have duplicate content issues then you really need to sort them out! Furthermore, Google’s algorithm is increasingly becoming smarter at judging the quality of a website – no longer on just a content level, but also on a design level.

Recent updates to Google Analytics’ tracking code include a new metric to measure page load speeds. This hints at another new metric Google will use to evaluate your website’s quality. If a page takes too long to load then that’s bad for visitors  and Google will stop sending visitors that way.

Whilst standard SEO techniques still stand, it is more important than ever to ensure your website has high quality, unique content that is genuinely engaging,  insightful for users and visitors and most of all interactive via social media avenues.

For more help with you sites search ranking, contact Marketspan.

Need more proof – search ‘SEO Edinburgh‘ and you will find that we are 3rd/4th in the organic listings – quite impressive for a small firm with such massive competition!

SEO is STILL important…

11 Apr

Brafton's Infographic: Why Content for SEO?

Contact Marketspan to get your site SEO optimised and visible on Google.

Timing is everything – Know whats happening in your industry.

19 Jan

Knowing when to speak is often crucial to establishing a credible brand voice in the market. Jumping in too soon or waiting too long can make you appear hasty or out-of-touch.

Set Google alerts on key subject matter in your industry so that you can remain informed, knowledgeable and ready to offer insights and commentary when appropriate.

google alerts

Google Alerts takes seconds to set up and can be customized for weekly or daily delivery, straight to your email.

google alert for today

Google Alerts provide easy, top-line reading to keep you informed and up-to-date on industry trends and developments.

Top reasons your beautiful website does not convert.

9 Jan

There can be many pitfalls on the way to getting traffic to that beautiful site you created. All the design and creativity in the world won’t bring visitors to your site. You have to know a few basic laws of optimizing a webpage for search before the traffic will begin to flow in your direction.

NO call to action. A focused call to action page will have your potential customers performing what you want them to do on your site. Make the page clear, uncluttered with simple enough terminology that gets the benefit of completing the action across as well as where to go to complete said action. A good example of a straight forward call to action is Spotify.

Spotify

Here you see the benefit – “free music” and what Spotify wants you to do “Download Spotify.”

HOMEPAGE with little or no content. There are instances of sites that have little content and draw you into the site further. Just make sure that people know who you are and what you do on your homepage and there is a clear call to action. For example this artists site obviously wants me to “like” his Facebook page and I know what I get for doing so!

Kevin

Is there a FACE behind the site. Here are some questions to ask yourself before you publish that beautiful site. Do your visitors see a personality behind your website or are you falling into the “strictly business” category? Have you added that personal touch that gives dimension to your website? Can people feel comfortable handing their information or money over to you? Can they hold someone accountable if they buy a product or service from you?

Adding social networking buttons will boost your “likeability” and accountability as it adds an extra way for people to be in touch with you if they have a problem with your product or service. To that end, adding a blog will also help people feel more comfortable with you as well.

Marketspan have used these tried and tested tactics on all our clients sites with outstanding results. We wish you great success with your beautiful website that converts!

What the World’s Biggest Websites Looked Like at Launch – it all starts somewhere!

23 Dec

Google. While the company’s design doesn’t seem to have changed a whole lot, its services and capabilities sure have. Created by Stanford PhD students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google officially launched Sept. 4, 1998. The interface was so simple because the founders didn’t know HTML and were looking for a quick design.

Google

YouTube. The video sharing website that brought us hits like “Charlie bit my finger” and “Sneezing panda” first launched in February 2005 with a practically empty interface and no evidence of videos. The first video uploaded to the site was created by one of YouTube’s founders, Jawed Karim, and was titled “Me at the Zoo.” It was a 19-second clip of him in front of elephants at the San Diego Zoo.

Youtube

Facebook…or should I say Thefacebook…was created by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004. As the original interface indicates, the site was only available for Harvard University students, which eventually expanded to today’s 800 million users across the world.  The interface also featured the image of a man’s face in the upper left hand corner, a digitally manipulated photo of Al Pacino.

Thefacebook

Yahoo! An acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle,” Yahoo was the product of another Stanford duo, Jerry Yang and David Filo. In March 1995 the site was heralded as the first online navigational guide to the web. The original interface featured a simple search bar and hyperlinks to other websites, but soon became a sleek, personalized news website.

Yahoo

Amazon. The mecca of online shopping can trace its roots back to 1995, when it was primarily an online bookstore. Jeffrey Bezos named the site after the Amazon River. The original site contained small text and icons, which still informs its most recent design.

Amazon

Twitter. This barely recognizable design was the first concept of co-founder Jack Dorsey back in July 2006. It featured the word “Twttr,” which was inspired by Flickr and SMS shortcode (which always includes five characters). Although the interface design has changed at least six times in the last five years, that hasn’t deterred its more than 100 million users.

Twitter_original

MySpace. Launched in August 2003 as a competitor to Friendster, MySpace’s original design was pretty bland. When MySpace skyrocketed to popularity between 2005 and 2008, News Corp. bought the social networking site for $580 million. Although it holds the former title of most-visited site on the Internet, MySpace sharply declined in the past few years. The site recently sold to Specific Media and Justin Timberlake for $35 million.

Myspace
Amazon

See the full gallery on Posterous

 

Since the rise of the Internet in the ’90s, the web has shown no signs of slowing down. We’ve watched the birth and evolution of social media, e-commerce and online video entertainment.

It’s hard to imagine that the treasured websites we all use today were at one point just scribbles on a piece of paper. Seeing how far the world has come in terms of web design, where do you foresee us heading next?

 

How to Use Google Search More Effectively

1 Dec
Google-search-infographic
via mashable.com

I know it is for US college students – but some really good tips here!

Quick link to Google+

17 Nov

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Google+ doesn’t offer vanity URLs for user profiles, making it more difficult to share your Google+ Profile with your friends. Instead, Google uses a long string of numbers to denote users (e.g. 112951670532841935235).

Gplus-to

The reason Google+ doesn’t use vanity URLs is because those could lead to spammers figuring out the email addresses of millions of Google+ users (since many Google Accounts are linked to Gmail accounts). Ours, for example, is gplus.to/marketspan which is much easier to remember than a random strong of numbers.

Of course, this leads to a problem: you don’t want to be telling people to type in a long string of numbers to find your Google+ Profile. That’s where Gplus.to comes in. This simple little app lets you create a short URL for your Google+ page, making it easy to share with your friends. 

We are still discussing Google+’s place in this complicated social world and are keen to know your thoughts on yet another platform to keep updated. 

Watch this space for more Google+news as it rolls out.

+1…What’s it all about?

9 Sep

Google Analytics are growing.

5 Sep

How can your business benefit?

Contact Marketspan to find out

Google + Brand Pages…Will they be better?

8 Aug

Converting Facebook’s 750 million active users to Google+ will be a long, difficult battle for the search giant. But converting brands to Google+ will be much easier if Google+ is able to solve advertisers’ biggest problems with Facebook.

In a month or two, Google+ will launch its highly anticipated brand pages. Here are four reasons why marketers are right to be excited and why Google+ brand pages will provide a better branded experience than Facebook.

Google_plus

1 | Better Search Opportunities

It would be crazy for search giant Google not to have search benefits for Google+ brand pages, whether it is a “certified check mark” callout (like on Twitter), a colored box around the listing, or possibly page-rank priority. Search benefits would likely be the strongest reason for brands to adopt a Google+ brand page. The only flaw in this theory is that giving brand pages’ extra benefits in search could raise the specter of anti-trust action and legal challenges.

2 | More Customization

Facebook ad types are limited to just ads, sometimes with a video or poll, allowing for few branding or creative opportunities. Looking at the design of Google+ personal pages, I predict the two skyscraper-sized white spaces on each side of the profile will be opportunities for custom skinning of your brand page and for display or rich media ads.

I would not be surprised if advertising opportunities were immediately available after the launch of Google+ brand pages, since Google is fully prepared to support it with its Google Display Network, AdWords and DoubleClick advertising products.

3 | Better Analytics

People who have used Google Analytics know how detailed the data is, including metrics like time spent on page, top content, referring sites and geographic information. It seems inevitable for Google to integrate Google Analytics into Google+ brand pages, so that brands can gain valuable insights into who their fans are, what content their fans are consuming, and where they are coming from.

All this data will guide brands in the prioritization, organization and creation of content for their page, which will lead to an improved experience that better suits fans’ interests and needs. More importantly, Google Analytics and DoubleClick reporting products will let advertisers tie paid media placements to page interaction, and help to optimize and maximize the value of media spend.

4 | Google Can Learn from Facebook

Facebook pioneered one-on-one connections between a brand and its fans through social networking, and will continue to be valuable for inherently social brands like musicians and celebrities. But for less social industries such as insurance, health and, say, paper towels, Google+ provides a platform that is open to conversation and focuses on providing branded content and valuable information in one place.

Facebook’s successes and missteps offer invaluable lessons, giving Google second-mover advantage in creating a brand page based on brands’ need for more customization, a hub to aggregate content across the web, strong search presence and user-engagement data. However, if Google+ brand pages turn out to be a replica of Facebook’s, the battle could be over before it’s begun.

Original Post on Mashable

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