Jan
20
Google Analytics gets a new look for 2012
If you are a regular user of the top Analytics website, Google Analytics, then you would have noticed a few changes in the program recently. Since the program was introduced by Google, users have been able to see the activity of their website for free and track its progress in terms of things like click through rates.
From January 2012, all users will have been updated to this new and improved version of the site. As seen here, the program has had many smaller updates before but the most obvious thing you’ll notice about this new update is the crisp and clean new face-lift that the program has been given. With improved headings for ease of navigation through the site and a new customisable dashboard, Google Analytics appears more user-friendly and inviting.
In addition to the cosmetic features, there have been various new features added to give a more complete view of your website’s progress. With the new Multi-Channel Funnel feature and Visitor Flow Report, you no longer have to worry about your last source receiving the credit for any sales of goals, unless you want them to. With these new features, you can see the path your customers took before the conversion, whether it was through anything from paid advertising to organic searches, you’ll know exactly how they got to your site. Also on the theme of tracking your customers, there is now a feature that tells you if a mobile device was used and if so, what one it was. So you can see exactly how people are getting access to you site.
With a variety of apps available on the market to manage Google Analytics, there really is no excuse for not giving the new and improved program a try!
Nov
10
Opera Hotel Software by Equator
Today we are going to talk about our web dev friends at Equator digital agency in Glasgow and how they successfully redesigned and developed client website’s and booking engines with Opera, A property management system to streamline bookings made online.
The first company to ask Equator to integrate Opera hotel software with a new website was Ramada Jarvis. At the time of asking Ramada Jarvis operated 30 hotels in the UK.
Why Opera?
Opera gives the flexibility to individual hotel groups to set specific needs per hotel. For instance hoteliers can set and control rates for real-time bookings per hotel.
When the site went live it was a huge success. Users could now book extras online like bottles of Champaign on arrival, bed and breakfast or diner. The extras of which were available were firmly in the hands of each individual hotel.
Not only did this provide a better user experience for users and give more control for hotel managers, this also gave the SEO team at Equator great insights into what keywords converted out with the norm although, I am not allowed to disclose that information 
.
Another plus for the SEO team was they could now claim group bookings. These would have previously been made over the phone.
All in all the new website massively increased the conversion rate, the SEO team increased traffic numbers resulting in continued year on year growth made through natural search results.
Equator have been busy lately are becoming something of a hotel specialist in terms of delivering brilliant new websites with flexible booking engines. They have recently been working alongside Village Hotels, QHotels and Macdonald Hotels so a big pat on the back for the team at Equator and keep up the good work, we here at Digital Marketing Scotland are watching you!
Oct
13
Google Author Authority Score and What it Could Mean for you
What is the Google Author Snippet?
The Google Author snippet is a piece of personal code an author can place on his posts. This piece of code tells Google that author X created this post.
Why would one want to do this?
Authors can build up trust in Google. If they provide useful, relevant and unique content to their audience Google with track this and pass on value to their author score. This in turn could get your articles place ahead of other authors in your specific niche in Google.
For instance, I write about SEO so I will be looking to build my author score in this niche area. Building up you authority score could be fruitful to niche copy writers in the future.
Future story Line
For instance – say fictional Mike is a content writer who specialises in writing content about digital marketing. He writes content for his own blogs and occasionally does some guest posts for websites that also specialise in digital marketing.
3 years down the line fictional Mike is one of the most respected digital marketing writers in the UK. He has blogged and written content for the best digital marketing websites in the UK and has a high authority score.
Historically and currently large companies higher content writers from agencies. They don’t actually know nor ever meet the guy who writes the content, as long as it’s relevant, SEO friendly and well written for the benefit of their audience everyone is hunky dory.
Now if Google was to implement author authority score to their algorithm, companies will soon be hiring the content writers who have the best author score in their specific niche. So the likes of fictional Mike’s digital marketing content would be well sought after and he would now be able to demand top dollar for his services.
This may or may not be the scenario of a few years down the line however, if you make money by writing content? make sure get you don’t get left behind.
You can find out how to implement your author tag on this post from search engine land.
Sep
13
Why Would You Want Google Bullet Point Snippets
Google has recently been showing bullet piont snippets in there search results. Google first started to show these new bullet point snippets for the likes of property rental and sales websites however, the have since extended showing the snippets in SERPS for a wide range of search results.
I have been reading with intent since Google started introducing the bullet point snippets and many people who offer search engine optimisation services seem to be asking the question why the snippets are not showing in SERPS for there clients websites?
Recent tests by various people in the industry have discovered Google have found a way to segment lists and tables from content, no matter what kind of code has been used to create them.
Dr Pete done a brilliant post over in SEOMOZ. This post goes through different types of search engine result sets in Google. The analysis shows Google know how to segment different result sets from different types of coded lists and tables within web-pages. In this post Pete goes through result sets showing the bullet point snippets from different coded web-pages. The difference in web-page codes range from basic bullet point lists, css styled lists, separated bulleted lists, HTML tables and nested DIVs.
In all the posts I read it seems everyone is wanting to know how to have the bullet point snippets results shown in SERPs for there client websites.
I have a better question – why do you want them?
Do you really want Google showing cramped bullet points in where your meta description showed be? Remember, meta descriptions are the attention seeking information descriptions created by you (or associates) to grab the attention of users. This is your selling point to encourage searchers to click through to your website rather than to your competitors website.
Now, I am not saying these new bullet point meta descriptions will have a negative effect on your click through rate’s from Google’s search engine. I am simply saying it would be better to wait it out and see if these new bullet point snippets will have a positive effect on click through rates before you hop on the band wagon.
You can read Dr Pete’s full posts here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-i-get-googles-bulleted-snippets
Aug
16
Google Test New Site Link Structure in SERPs
We have been reading a lot of posts recently in regards to Google testing a new and improved (in my opinion) site links structure for brand queries in Google. Despite all the chat about this over the last few weeks today is the first time we have seen result sets returning the site links for ourselves.
We found the new structure by searching for a phrase we are pushing in the built up to social media week in Glasgow and strangely enough there are 8 of us checking the same search phrase “Social Media Week Glasgow”. Half of us are seeing us ranked 3rd position in Google directly underneath two pages from the Social Media Week website and above the well respected Drum website.
The other half are seeing the Social Media Week Website in 1st position with the new list of site links on display.
Here is what I see when I search for the phrase social media week Glasgow.
Last week we were positioned 8th place for the same phrase “social media week glasgow” hence the reason I decided to shout about our increased position to 3rd place in Google SERPs. That’s when half my colleagues pitched up and shouted back to me – no your not! we got you ranked 4th position.
That’s how mucked up search results are these days. We have 8 computers all running on the same IP addresses and there is a 50/50 split on search results shown, crazy! We have hacks and all sorts of other procedures to eradicate issues with personalised search results so god only knows what’s going with search results these days?
For proof, below is a screen grab of the search results my colleagues are getting for the same search phrase and IP address.
As you can see the Social Media Week website has the new site links structure shown in SERPs. Our website www.equatlive.com has been pushed down to 4th position although we do now feature in 4th and 5th in Google search results.
We also feature in 8th position for the competitive term social media week 
My thoughts on the new site links structure
I think the new site link structure is a great move by Google. This works really well for clients as this pushes affiliates and 3rd party websites further down the SERPs. Obviously affiliates and 3rd party booking or review websites will see it differently.
Jul
25
Social Media Week Glasgow
What’s Social Media Week?
Social media week is the brain child of Crowdcentric Media LLC. Their aim is simple! To help connect the world of business, brands, governments and people by establishing better social media communications that will help us all excel in building relationships, whether they be business, social or personal. It’s safe to say they have been massively successful since there first event back in 2009.
The Events
The first ever Social Media Week event took place in New York, with the city hosting 40 individual events that were attended by over 2,500 guests.
After their initial success in 2009 Social Media Week expanded to six cities across the globe for their 2010 event. Networking in cities such as London, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Toronto, Berlin and the birth place of it all, New York City.
Social Media Week has been so successful they now hold two events per year, one in February and one in September. The event in February was the biggest to date with a total of 9 cities participating across 8 countries and 4 continents, reaching a truly global audience.
Being true to their word the guys at Social Media Week have not rested on their laurels, with the biggest event to date planned for September 2011, this social media week event will be held in 12 of the world’s best renowned cities around the globe.
Participated Cities Sep 2011
- Glasgow
- Beirut
- Berlin
- Bogota
- Buenos Aires
- Chicago
- Los Angeles
- Milan
- Moscow
- Rio de Janerio
- Sao Paulo
- Vancouver
It is anticipated this event will be the biggest and best event to date.
I am particularly excited about the up and coming event in September due to myself being a Glaswegian. I have taken a great deal of interest in the previous events but this will be the first one where I will be able to attend in person. Roll on Social Media Week Glasgow!
Headline Sponsors
Social media week would not have been the success it has been if it were not from the continued support and sponsorship from global brands such as Motorola, Vodafone and PepsiCo just to name a few of the many supporting companies.
Social Media Week has announced Equator Digital Agency as their headline sponsors in Glasgow for the event that will be running from the 19th – 23rd of September.
Who are equator?
Equator is a full service digital agency based in Glasgow, Scotland and pride themselves on providing a fully integrated service. So whether you need an expert to run your SEO campaign or whether you need a website built from scratch and then marketed on all channels, Equator has the skill sets, knowledge, experience and creativity to carry this out.
Don’t be square, we will see you there. Roll on Social Media Week Glasgow!
Jun
30
The End of the Wallet?
PayPal President Scott Thompson has boldly predicted the end of the wallet within the next 4 years. In an announcement which primarily highlighted Paypal reaching the 100 million active account milesone, Thompson claimed that the rise in the use of digital currency meant that by 2015 the wallet would be a thing of the past.
In his latest blog post, he states that Paypal “believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S. – from your local corner store to Walmart. We will no longer need to carry a wallet”. And in an attempt to highlight the benefits of digital payment methods the company has asked 5 employees to embrace a ‘digital lifestyle’ and only use digital currency to purchase goods and services, an interesting experiment which could end up being an excellent marketing opportunity if everything goes well. 
The company has continued on an upward curve, particularly in the past few years and its partnership with online auction site eBay has proven massively fruitful, with Paypal increasingly contributing to eBays bottom line. The market has taken notice of the company’s success however and there are some big hitters starting to offer their own alternatives, with Google Wallet a particularly noteworthy competitor.
Time will tell if the wallet truly is destined for the bin, and although I think it’s tough to argue with the huge increase in the adoption of the technology I think a lot of consumers will need to be convinced that their transactions, data and money are fully secure before they completely move away from cash payments.
Jun
27
Wikipedia Joins The Like Brigade
Social sharing seems to be the latest big thing for the internet’s biggest names, with the story of the Google ‘+1′ button receiving more than its fair share of coverage in the digital marketing world. Not wanting to be left behind, Wikipedia has joined Google in riding the coattails of Facebook’s successful Like function by introducing the WikiLove button, which will take the form of a little red heart in the right hand corner of the screen and is intended to highlight on-site activity which deserves commendation.
For those who have been living under a rock for the last few years, Wikipedia is a community edited encyclopaedia which is normally the first stop for people looking for information on almost any topic imaginable. Despite already having an army of willing volunteers creating and editing content, a study has shown that users given positive feedback on the work they have completed are more likely to contribute additional material to the site, and with users being the lifeblood of Wikipedia the hunt began to find a simple way of allowing users to show and receive praise for high quality content. Thus, the WikiLove button was born.
For those curious, it is currently live on the Wikipedia test site, with the planned roll out scheduled for the 29th if all goes well. Clicking the button will lead users to the ‘Love Interface’, a screen which offers users a variety of options with which to show their thanks including sending the author an image and a free text compliment area.
Despite not being an entirely original concept my gut feeling is that this will work well. With updating Wikipedia being a voluntary and increasingly thankless task it should help keep those dedicated individuals motivated to produce useful content for those of us lacking the time or inclination to source it elsewhere online.
Jun
15
Taking Brands Mobile
Despite the massive increase in mobile web use over the past couple of years it seems the majority of brands have not yet optimized their website for mobile users. Ian Carrington, head of Google mobile, announced to attendees of IAB Mobile Engage that 79% of big brand websites were not prepared for the mobile revolution and were potentially missing out on a big opportunity to take advantage of the mobile commerce explosion.
Some brands were touted as an example of how to do mobile internet the right way, with Marks and Spencer and House of Fraser in particular singled out. Other brands have really been pioneers in the world of mobile marketing, with Heineken, Cornetto and Lynx all coming up with brilliant mobile marketing campaigns.
The UK managing director of Microsoft, Ashley Highfield, spoke about the improvements in the service available mobile users. The traditional barriers to m-commerce were eroding, and the high costs and poor user experience were gradually becoming a thing of the past. He also claimed the arrival of total broadband coverage in the UK would have a “profound impact” on mobile web.
Other companies were listed as providing an excellent mobile site, with Amazon, eBay and Paddy Power all said to have easy to navigate, user friendlysites.
Recent Comments