Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Can you Tweet your Value Proposition?
I was recently invited to Guest Post for Future Curve, a Value Proposition consultancy, about Social Media and Value Propositions. My post, entitled "Can you tweet your Value Proposition" was posted here : http://futurecurve.com/can-you-tweet-your-value-proposition/
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Digital Advertising Ireland
Just a quick blog post to start talking about our next venture into Digital Advertising Ireland. We're currently expanding and working with a world-class crew to take Primary Position to the next level in Digital and Online Media.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Google +1 Button - long overdue
Google announced the Google + 1 Button on their blog, today, which I think will likely have a positive impact on SEO.
Users of the first Google Toolbar will possibly remember the like and dislike voting buttons on it. They were available beside the PageRank Meter but you had to enable them manually. (I don't have a screenshot). I used to like them but they were quickly disabled as they were too open to abuse. But Google has returned, Facebook-esque, with the Google +1 Button. I think this is brilliant and much overdue.
A lot will be made of it being a Facebook copy-cat but that's overrated. Much of Facebook isn't original and Google has tried this in the past. It's also not social networking - Google is an aggregator of data and their star rating system, like/dislike voting buttons and PageRank systems are relative dinosaurs compared to Facebook and the like button.
Here's why I think its so important and where it will have some positive effects for SEO.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Users liking sites brings back appreciation for design, UI and UX. If design is really bad and the User Experience is awful, this will could have a negative effect on a website. Of course, design is impossible for search engines to take into account and its pretty hard for humans given its subjective nature.
This to me is great news for people who value strong design and user experiences and is a big shot in the arm for web designers. But it's how the design affects you, not how you feel about the design (note for site owners) - and so "graphics-free" sites like Craigslist will probably garner many likes.
Up until now, design and UIX was taken into account by indirectly valuing the CTR and link back stats that Google collects.
Can the spam
A massive benefit could be reduced spam counts. Rubbish and empty blogs, posts, press releases, content farms and other spam mass generated by ruthless and shameful blackhat-SEO companies and their careless clients should be hit again by giving a direct vote to users
Bringing Balance to the Force
By giving users a vote on pages - it essentially starts to move to balance out the guesswork by the algorithm. For example, if users keep picking the first few sites that rank but they get less likes than other sites - it makes sense for Google to shake up the mix a bit.
Execution
Its unlikely that this will be a heavy weight factor at the start. Because internet representation is still anonymous (and Privacy Campaigners keen to see it that way), the system is open to some abuse, so some form of balance of power to limit it.
Users of the first Google Toolbar will possibly remember the like and dislike voting buttons on it. They were available beside the PageRank Meter but you had to enable them manually. (I don't have a screenshot). I used to like them but they were quickly disabled as they were too open to abuse. But Google has returned, Facebook-esque, with the Google +1 Button. I think this is brilliant and much overdue.
A lot will be made of it being a Facebook copy-cat but that's overrated. Much of Facebook isn't original and Google has tried this in the past. It's also not social networking - Google is an aggregator of data and their star rating system, like/dislike voting buttons and PageRank systems are relative dinosaurs compared to Facebook and the like button.
Here's why I think its so important and where it will have some positive effects for SEO.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Users liking sites brings back appreciation for design, UI and UX. If design is really bad and the User Experience is awful, this will could have a negative effect on a website. Of course, design is impossible for search engines to take into account and its pretty hard for humans given its subjective nature.
This to me is great news for people who value strong design and user experiences and is a big shot in the arm for web designers. But it's how the design affects you, not how you feel about the design (note for site owners) - and so "graphics-free" sites like Craigslist will probably garner many likes.
Up until now, design and UIX was taken into account by indirectly valuing the CTR and link back stats that Google collects.
Can the spam
A massive benefit could be reduced spam counts. Rubbish and empty blogs, posts, press releases, content farms and other spam mass generated by ruthless and shameful blackhat-SEO companies and their careless clients should be hit again by giving a direct vote to users
Bringing Balance to the Force
By giving users a vote on pages - it essentially starts to move to balance out the guesswork by the algorithm. For example, if users keep picking the first few sites that rank but they get less likes than other sites - it makes sense for Google to shake up the mix a bit.
Execution
Its unlikely that this will be a heavy weight factor at the start. Because internet representation is still anonymous (and Privacy Campaigners keen to see it that way), the system is open to some abuse, so some form of balance of power to limit it.
Ennis Open Coffee gets started
It’s an open forum, where you might feel obliged to buy a coffee, but otherwise you are free to drop in between the hours of 11AM-1PM each 1st Friday @ The TempleGate Hotel, Ennis, County Clare.
http://www.e-newmedia.com/advice_centre/ennis-open-coffee-club/
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The Internet : Going Global and other myths
It's 2011. We're embracing the 3rd decade of public internet access. Since 1991, home use of the internet has been mushrooming. Google has been at the forefront of the use of the internet. If you want to find something on the internet, you use Google. Ok, maybe you use Bing or Yahoo, but same thing really.
Why? Search engines have the whole internet read and indexed, stored and filed, cross referenced. Google has been going since 1994 and in 2001/2 became the biggest search engine in the world (by use and by documents indexed - the then used benchmark). You can read more about the history of Google on my slideshare.
With all of these documents, Google has to look at different ways to present information. It's slowing moving towards the concept/idea of a Symantic Web but allowing cross-referencing. Google is learning to return results on the way you use results. It's using Places (Geo-Targeting) and Organic Ranking. It displays results by Blogs, Discussions, Real-time (twitter), Video (including Youtube) and Images. It uses User Ratings and reviews, average prices and other data (Google Snippets).
It's a vastly different animal from 10 years ago. So why do pre-Google myths still surround us? Some of them are made up and some of them are just scary. Many of them are issued like edicts by self-professed experts. But they're all debunkable - Google goes to comprehensive lengths to distribute accurate information but we've too many soap-box experts willing to shout out rather than sit back and listen.
This is a quick list of my favourite, pet-peeve Internet Myths. I hear them daily. I read about them on Fora (plural for Forums), blogs and in advice given to clients. Sit back - some of them seem like complete fact - but these are all bona fida Internet Urban Legends. If you hear any SEO Guru espousing the virtues of these - run, run away fast!
1. Keywords and Keywords density: Why do 1990's SEO "tips" still survive into 2011? Because its easy to understand. It's based, loosely, on a library-style indexing system. Really - Google is going to rank you for "Hotels Dublin" because you have it 101 times on your home page and you competitor fell short at 100? Forget it - Myth Busted: Google doesn't respect a Keywords Meta-tag!
Snake oil Hint: Keywords are just text.
2. You get penalised for duplicate content: I've been lectured on this at length. I keep 4 domains with exact, duplicate content that are all at least 5 years old and none of them are penalised. I don't need to - Google has a video on it. Duplicate content, that you own, is not necessarily penalised. Cloned, syndicated, plaguarised and scraped content being different. Rolled up content is not penalised content. This is actually quite a complex area but I'll keep it simple - its how I can tell the cowboys from the real researchers!
Snake Oil Hint: Be careful but be weary when someone pontificates on this one!
3. .COM is global: This is the worst and most damaging myth of all. A .COM, for most parts is a TLD but it's not necessarily Global. If you're a search user in Ireland or France, you'll get search results based on your location. A .COM hosted in France with largely French Traffic will most likely be seen as a French site - interchangeable thus with a .FR - the ccTLD for France.
Why is this myth the worst? We speak to companies and web designers every day who think selecting MyCompany.com will make them ubiquitously available. The issue is Geo Targeting. Google uses your Location (e.g. Ireland) to show websites that match your search and location best.
Here's an example:
This a search for "Pensions" from Google IE and Google UK. So whats so different? In both cases, the search is "Pages from the Web", not just pages from Ireland or the UK. In both cases the results are perfectly tailored to my Geo-Location. In fact, because I have a Dublin IP address, Google is showing me a map of Dublin and showing listings and cross referencing them with their listed places. In the UK search, my Dublin address doesn't match a UK Region, and therefore no map is shown.
So what does this mean? Well, in the UK results, most of the UK sites (AdWords aside) are targeting the UK. In Google Webmasters, you can only associate 1 country with a domain. In the case of a ccTLD - you are stuck with the countries that keyword is associated with (for example .IE is for Ireland only and .CO.UK for the UK only). Any of the TLD's (COM, NET, ORG, INFO, BIZ,....) can be set to target any country.
Even if you don't set it, in the case of most new TLD's , Google will auto-select your Geo-Location for you based on hints provided by where you're hosted, words used in your content, address hints, where you get links from, searches you're associated with.
In some cases (but rarely) - Google will select 2 locations - this is common for companies with both Irish and UK companies. But's it very hard to create.
Why does this myth persist? Well, big sites like Microsoft.com often outrank local sites - but that's because of their enormous authority. When you select "Pages from [my country]" they often disappear.
So whats the big deal? Well, many web designers are still building websites that can only run on one domain. Quite often it's a .IE or if their client wants to be international, on a .COM - even though the site will probably still only be seen as a .IE (and there's little they can do about it). When queried, most retort that Google "Punishes" duplicate content or that international domains are hard to purchase. And this is holding us back. As long as we continue to believe, perpetuate and listen to myths, we'll only struggle to use the Internet as a successful exporting vehicle.
Hint: German and English content published on two domains does not qualify as "Duplicate Content"
It doesn't matter what the myth or excuse is - there's no reason for them to exist anymore, and web designers will have to rise to the challenge of developing localised sites - that's how people work and that's how Google works. Time to work with it, not against it!
Why? Search engines have the whole internet read and indexed, stored and filed, cross referenced. Google has been going since 1994 and in 2001/2 became the biggest search engine in the world (by use and by documents indexed - the then used benchmark). You can read more about the history of Google on my slideshare.
With all of these documents, Google has to look at different ways to present information. It's slowing moving towards the concept/idea of a Symantic Web but allowing cross-referencing. Google is learning to return results on the way you use results. It's using Places (Geo-Targeting) and Organic Ranking. It displays results by Blogs, Discussions, Real-time (twitter), Video (including Youtube) and Images. It uses User Ratings and reviews, average prices and other data (Google Snippets).
It's a vastly different animal from 10 years ago. So why do pre-Google myths still surround us? Some of them are made up and some of them are just scary. Many of them are issued like edicts by self-professed experts. But they're all debunkable - Google goes to comprehensive lengths to distribute accurate information but we've too many soap-box experts willing to shout out rather than sit back and listen.
This is a quick list of my favourite, pet-peeve Internet Myths. I hear them daily. I read about them on Fora (plural for Forums), blogs and in advice given to clients. Sit back - some of them seem like complete fact - but these are all bona fida Internet Urban Legends. If you hear any SEO Guru espousing the virtues of these - run, run away fast!
1. Keywords and Keywords density: Why do 1990's SEO "tips" still survive into 2011? Because its easy to understand. It's based, loosely, on a library-style indexing system. Really - Google is going to rank you for "Hotels Dublin" because you have it 101 times on your home page and you competitor fell short at 100? Forget it - Myth Busted: Google doesn't respect a Keywords Meta-tag!
Snake oil Hint: Keywords are just text.
2. You get penalised for duplicate content: I've been lectured on this at length. I keep 4 domains with exact, duplicate content that are all at least 5 years old and none of them are penalised. I don't need to - Google has a video on it. Duplicate content, that you own, is not necessarily penalised. Cloned, syndicated, plaguarised and scraped content being different. Rolled up content is not penalised content. This is actually quite a complex area but I'll keep it simple - its how I can tell the cowboys from the real researchers!
Snake Oil Hint: Be careful but be weary when someone pontificates on this one!
3. .COM is global: This is the worst and most damaging myth of all. A .COM, for most parts is a TLD but it's not necessarily Global. If you're a search user in Ireland or France, you'll get search results based on your location. A .COM hosted in France with largely French Traffic will most likely be seen as a French site - interchangeable thus with a .FR - the ccTLD for France.
Why is this myth the worst? We speak to companies and web designers every day who think selecting MyCompany.com will make them ubiquitously available. The issue is Geo Targeting. Google uses your Location (e.g. Ireland) to show websites that match your search and location best.
Here's an example:
This a search for "Pensions" from Google IE and Google UK. So whats so different? In both cases, the search is "Pages from the Web", not just pages from Ireland or the UK. In both cases the results are perfectly tailored to my Geo-Location. In fact, because I have a Dublin IP address, Google is showing me a map of Dublin and showing listings and cross referencing them with their listed places. In the UK search, my Dublin address doesn't match a UK Region, and therefore no map is shown.
So what does this mean? Well, in the UK results, most of the UK sites (AdWords aside) are targeting the UK. In Google Webmasters, you can only associate 1 country with a domain. In the case of a ccTLD - you are stuck with the countries that keyword is associated with (for example .IE is for Ireland only and .CO.UK for the UK only). Any of the TLD's (COM, NET, ORG, INFO, BIZ,....) can be set to target any country.
Even if you don't set it, in the case of most new TLD's , Google will auto-select your Geo-Location for you based on hints provided by where you're hosted, words used in your content, address hints, where you get links from, searches you're associated with.
In some cases (but rarely) - Google will select 2 locations - this is common for companies with both Irish and UK companies. But's it very hard to create.
Why does this myth persist? Well, big sites like Microsoft.com often outrank local sites - but that's because of their enormous authority. When you select "Pages from [my country]" they often disappear.
So whats the big deal? Well, many web designers are still building websites that can only run on one domain. Quite often it's a .IE or if their client wants to be international, on a .COM - even though the site will probably still only be seen as a .IE (and there's little they can do about it). When queried, most retort that Google "Punishes" duplicate content or that international domains are hard to purchase. And this is holding us back. As long as we continue to believe, perpetuate and listen to myths, we'll only struggle to use the Internet as a successful exporting vehicle.
Hint: German and English content published on two domains does not qualify as "Duplicate Content"
It doesn't matter what the myth or excuse is - there's no reason for them to exist anymore, and web designers will have to rise to the challenge of developing localised sites - that's how people work and that's how Google works. Time to work with it, not against it!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Our new project for 2011
The Project
Our new project for 2011 is to take and analyse traffic source data from a number of websites with a combined pool of at least 100k - 1million visitors. This should be relatively easy as we manage sites with that level of traffic monthly.
The hashtag on twitter is #IrishTrafficSurvey.
Who?
We're doing this as a part "collaboration" with our sister WebCare (which builds and maintains Websites and Media for e-Commerce Clients). We'd also like to expand this to other online marketing companies to build a base from which we can measure the state and climate of the Irish Internet.
We're currently looking at traffic from websites in our Analytics accounts. This data will be compiled in proportion to each site (to give highs and lows) but will be kept anonymous. The data will be normalised and compiled and then made available to the public, but first we'll be sharing it with a select group of other online marketing observers.
If you'd like to be involved, please use the tag or contact us to add you to the list.
Data
Here is how we will look at the data and how the data will be made available:
Data Criteria:
Our new project for 2011 is to take and analyse traffic source data from a number of websites with a combined pool of at least 100k - 1million visitors. This should be relatively easy as we manage sites with that level of traffic monthly.
The hashtag on twitter is #IrishTrafficSurvey.
Who?
We're doing this as a part "collaboration" with our sister WebCare (which builds and maintains Websites and Media for e-Commerce Clients). We'd also like to expand this to other online marketing companies to build a base from which we can measure the state and climate of the Irish Internet.
We're currently looking at traffic from websites in our Analytics accounts. This data will be compiled in proportion to each site (to give highs and lows) but will be kept anonymous. The data will be normalised and compiled and then made available to the public, but first we'll be sharing it with a select group of other online marketing observers.
If you'd like to be involved, please use the tag or contact us to add you to the list.
Data
Here is how we will look at the data and how the data will be made available:
Data Criteria:
- Source
- We're using Google Analytics only
- We're using Absolute Visits, not Unique
- We may include Page Views
- We're selecting all traffic from Irish Websites targeting the Irish market. Websites and domains targeting other Geo-locations are not included
- We'd like to sort that information by Irish Traffic within it - but that isn't going to be as easy as it looks as it sounds
- Data will be taken from Analytics
- All websites will be selling online and taking payment online. Those that are close-to-online sales may be included but recorded separately for further analysis
- All sites are Business to consumer
Data Segments
- Search Engines (By Google and Other)
- Google Organic
- Google CPC
- Other
- E-Mail Marketing
- Where Possible
- Some Newsletter
- Top Social Networking sites
- We've identified these as common referrers
- Stumbleupon
- Boards.ie
- Other Irish Forums
- We'll also try to track the effort involved
All of this is our "planned" Data List - we look forward to any comments, ideas and suggestions you may have!
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Google gets fed up of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael; Invents new party
Google has clearly gotten into the Irish 2011 General Election with a huge amount of enthusiasm. Spurred on by a high search volumes in all of the political parties, Google is seeking to make it a bit easier with the new "Fianna Gael" party - which stands a pretty good chance of winning...
Google has a habit of grouping keywords together and often assembling new keyphrases based on words from different seaches. Each time you search - Google is "learning" - using pattern recognition. A major part of Google's drive is to essentially help you find things faster. So, it's take to optimising the whole search process - from the start of the search idea right through to delivery:
Here's how it does it:
A famous example recently, was during "DrunkGate" - when you started typing in "Brian Cow" for "Brian Cowan", the predictive text or phrase suggester displays: (suggestions in Bold)
Google has a habit of grouping keywords together and often assembling new keyphrases based on words from different seaches. Each time you search - Google is "learning" - using pattern recognition. A major part of Google's drive is to essentially help you find things faster. So, it's take to optimising the whole search process - from the start of the search idea right through to delivery:
Here's how it does it:
- Rapid search - searching billions of documents in split seconds using caches and compiled indices
- Search Phrase suggestion (as you type, a predictive text style phrases suggester - see below)
- Instant Results (where results display as your type, requires you to be signed in or 'recognised'; highly annoying)
- Benchmarking the sites in the index to make sure the sites it sends you to are fast too (based on an average)
A famous example recently, was during "DrunkGate" - when you started typing in "Brian Cow" for "Brian Cowan", the predictive text or phrase suggester displays: (suggestions in Bold)
During the day it emerged, the "Brian Cowen Drunk" suggestion was first, demonstrating Google's focus on "trending" searches. If it was me, I'd be heavily engaged in Reputation and Personal Brand Management but this obviously doesn't matter to everyone. The suggested searches above are horrendous at best. There are now positives, only some neutrals.
Back to the topic at hand - Google often slices "related" keyphrases (one or more words in a group : Keyphrase but still called a keyword). The biggest search phrases are, according to the Google Keyword tool, "Fine Gael" (14k lcoal searches) and "Fianna Fail" (9,9k local searches). This isn't remotely accurate. It's based on a sliding curve/pattern system and multiplied out. The numbers are just too even - anyone who works with stats would find that more than a bit odd!.
But the oddest and funniest suggestion is "Fianna Gael":
And its not just a suggestion. Google's taking it quite seriously - having added the search volume for "Fine Gael" and "Fianna Fail" together - Google estimates a colossal 23k searches per month - making it the biggest political party in Ireland. So, if you're voter and can't make your mind up - try these guys. In fact, Google is so confident about it's new political party, it clearly doesn't think much of Voter Apathy - with "Why Vote" only topping 170 monthly searches....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)