On Wednesday night, Google announced they have changed how average positions are calculated in the Top Search Queries report. These changes are effective immediately.
Average position is an SEO truth that seems to struggle to take hold even though it is far more appropriate to today’s personalised search landscape than the old concept of absolute rankings.
Yesterdays flurry of X-Factor info-graphics and studies report a positive correlation between social media, the viewing figures and the end result largely based on cumulative data such as likes, followers and views. Interesting as this is, with a wealth of data publicly available on Social Media platforms such as Twitter, does an over reliance upon automated quantitative stats mean we are missing out on more robust and reliable analysis? Read More
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday boosting online sales further this year many UK consumers took to Amazon taking advantage of the bargains.
Amazon is famed for its excellent customer service, social reviews platform and all round positive customer experience. However our recent Testify Live study has revealed a worrying Social CRM trend that threatens to tarnish Amazons’ good name in their most lucrative period of the year. Read More
Trying to explain Social Media is a bit like trying to describe what an elephant to someone who has never seen one. It encompasses technologies, humanities (psychology and sociology in particular), but is also critical to marketing and business strategies. If you are new to the industry, it can feel overwhelming and hard to distinguish signal from noise.
I am by no means an expert in the field. I started my career as an academic researching into the role of trust in Wikipedia’s success, then spent a few years in Yahoo! which provided me with a fantastic, global perspective on managing and designing for communities of scale. Currently at IPC Media we have over 50 brands for us to experiment and learn from. I’ve found that hands-on experience is still the best way to learn. Here I’m sharing with you my top tips that I wish I knew before I started my career: Read More
It’s more than a week since Google announced it will be encrypting searches made by logged-in users, but the debate about what this means for natural search rumbles (rather loudly) on. Read More
Seven months ago I reported Google was taking aim and Adobe and IBM with the launch a paid-for enterprise analytics tool, which would compete directly with Omniture and CoreMetrics.
Indications from the web are that this tool will be rolled out later today. Read More
The battle for the top spot in the Premier League of Facebook fan pages looks to be won before the season has really got going. With over 18 million fans, Manchester United are sitting clear at the top. The next closest rival is Arsenal with a respectable 7.3 million fans.
At this early stage, Chelsea and Liverpool are in with a shot for second place with a respectable 6.9 million and 6.85 million fans respectively. Read More
Resonate: research questions value of 'heavy' social media users
People who use social media the most are less involved in the outside world and might not be as worthwhile targeting as marketers believe, new research indicates.
Resonate, which specializes in online audience targeting, has found that heavy social media users are less likely to be involved in politics; less likely to donate to charity; and less likely to do online shopping, not spending as much as other groups when they do.
Foursquare: more developments
Foursquare is the latest social network to look towards businesses to monetize its website, with a report in the New York Post saying it is planning to start charging registered merchants.
The newspaper interviewed Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, who said: “[The check-in] comes back to me in forms of recommendations. It goes back to [users] in interesting ways.”
Let’s face it: most PRs probably don’t have a grasp on search engine optimisation. They might have heard of the term and may know a little bit about Google’s Keyword Tool and on-page optimisation, but how many PR firms could actually hold their hand up and say that they could offer a full SEO programme beyond just content creation?
By this I mean website re-architecture, link building, keyword position tracking and all those other things that help organisations compete effectively on search engines? Read More
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