B&V Digital News

Google updates can be terrifying!

2010-07-01T16:57:00.002+01:00

Whenever Google makes an update to their search algorithm great debates are sparked over the fairness of the search model and whether Google has too much power. It is understandable that people complain about an update if it has a negative effect on their ranking, and therefore their business. Some commentators ask if the best thing to do would be to regulate Google, or even make the algorithm public.

Complaints run along familiar lines. Google keep things secret so web publishers don’t know what the ‘rules’ are and when updates are made, without prior warning some businesses suffer greatly. This coupled with the fact that search is such a large part of the economy now, means that one company should not be too dominant. The argument goes that therefore, the algorithm should be made public.

Some of the points made are genuine concerns to consider but the step into making the algorithm public is a step too far. It would bring far too many problems. Primarily the search experience would suffer. Spam is a massive problem in electronic communication and I have little doubt search results would be quickly infiltrated by spammers. Legitimate sites would find it harder to rank well and the whole mantra of a search engine would be compromised.

Essentially the more secret the algorithm is, the better protected the search results are. Google, and Bing and Yahoo for that matter, work on the premise that they will return the most relevant web resources for your search. All of the added value you can get with their other services help but the core remains the same. The challenge is to make your site more useful and a better user experience than the competition.

If you would like to speak to an SEO consultant about your website and how Google can affect your business please call us on 02380 4233348.

Competitor & Keyword Research

2010-06-21T17:23:00.003+01:00

Before embarking on a link building programme for any client preparation is vital. Part of that preparation will be competitor research and part will be keyword research.

If you are engaged in a link building programme for someone else then it is essential you have a good relationship with them and ask as many questions as you can to build up a good picture of their marketplace and competitors.

Among the most important questions you can ask will be naming the companies competitors and the keywords that they want to rank for. You should not assume the competitors are the same for all the keywords you want to compete for. It is a good idea to research the backlinks of industry competitors as well as keyword competitors.

There are a number of different tools for checking backlinks to a particular URL. I use Yahoo Site Explorer most often. You enter the URL you would like to look at and select ‘inlinks’ and then ‘show inlinks except from this domain’ and it will return the results you are looking for. It is very simple.

Trying to add a bit of value to a link request is something that will help when contacting webmasters and should mean a higher success rate in link acquisition. You should be targeting sites where a link to yours can add something to the user experience but that may not always be enough to encourage a webmaster to go to the trouble of editing their page for you.

One technique that can be used to try and gain links is to run a quick check on their site with Firefox’s check page links tool. It allows you to see if there are any broken links on the page and to let the webmaster know if there are. It doesn’t take long but really can encourage someone to do you a favour if you are doing one for them already.

This technique is particularly of use if you are trying to obtain a link from high authority sites like ac.uk or .gov sites because the people in charge of them are unlikely to have much time to audit links, and are likely to appreciate it if others do a little leg work for them.

Link building is a key part of any overall SEO project. Please get in touch if you would like any advice on internet marketing.

Video Marketing - Recent B&V Projects

2010-05-04T15:00:00.002+01:00

Video is a great marketing tool. It is popular with agencies and businesses of all sizes have bought into its power and reach. The stats back this up as well. YouTube streams more than 6 billion videos a month!

Testimonials, product videos and how to guides are the most popular types of video that B&V Digital have been asked to produce and market. They have all have a fantastic ability to tell an in-depth story, beyond a still & some text. Video also encourages customers to become more engaged, giving an opportunity for bigger brand & product insight.

We’ve recently been commissioned to produce this short video for Stannah to publicise the internal launch of their re-branding exercise. It gives a chance for the narrative of the branding process to be told, to inform staff of the changes being made and to set up the official external launch. We are due to launch an updated website for Stannah shortly as well, so look out for that. In the meantime here is MD Jon Stannah talking about the re-branding...

The video testimonials that were produced for Titchfield dental surgery have also proved really successful. It is a very friendly practice and they have a lot of experience of helping patients over the very real fear of going to the dentist. These videos have successfully demonstrated how customers are put at ease, making Titchfield an attractive choice of dentist for all potential patients.

Remember, once the videos have been produced that is not the end of the line. Hosting them on your site, via YouTube or Vimeo you can share them through social media profiles as well as direct traffic to them through a well thought out PR strategy. The more places your video can be viewed the wider and more diverse your audience will be.

If you would like to know more about the process of putting a video together or marketing video content please do get in touch.

Web Design and Development Projects

2010-05-10T16:36:00.009+01:00

We’ve had some exciting web design and development projects recently at B&V Digital so we thought we would share them.

The biggest project has been the rebranding of Stannah, the Lift manufacturer. We’ve been busy implementing the new branding document developed by brand consultancy, Interbrand. Our objectives at this stage have been to create the new look whilst keeping the fantastic usability and site performance built up on the previous site. Changes in the tone of the copy and style of photography are still to come….

HR Consultancy, First HR already had a website with a content management system but it just wasn’t working hard enough for the company. Our development work has included the addition of a whole raft of content, social media links, a blog and an overhaul of the site design. It has made the site a usable and powerful asset for First HR and their clients alike.

Armorgard Security Products manufacture and supply secure storage units. Their website development has involved technical and on-site optimisation, design improvements, the addition of new product pages and the creation of downloadable technical documents.

These are just a few of the ongoing projects keeping us very busy! If you’d like to talk about any aspect of your website or online presence we’d love to hear from you.

Where to concentrate your link building efforts

2010-04-26T16:44:00.002+01:00

Link building is the cornerstone of any successful SEO strategy. There are lots of ways to go about link building, and all of them have different advantages and disadvantages.

Internal Links
These are links to other pages that occur within the website itself
Advantages: They allow search engines to find new content and they pass on PageRank.

Paid links
This is a widely used form of link building. The process usually means finding potential link partners and offering them money in return for an inbound link.
Advantages: Paid links go against Google’s guidelines but they can be very effective. Disadvantages: If you use a link broker scheme then you run the risk of being caught. In the past links have been devalued or canceled entirely.

Comment links
This entails finding relevant articles or blog posts and making comments, using keywords to link back to your site.
Advantages: Most comment sections on blogs are now set to ‘nofollow’ so your website won’t receive any link benefit.
Disadvantages: None really although you should try and have a spread of different types of links.

Social Media
Social Media links are pretty easy to spread through different channels like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook even if most of the are 'nofollow' links.
Advantages: One good bit of content disseminated across social media outlets could generate lots of high quality links from bloggers who pick it up.
Disadvantages: None, as long as you use your accounts properly and your contributions don’t appear like spam.

Press Release Links
This approach involves using press release distribution firms like PR Newswire in the hope of generating links
Advantages: This can be a great way to attract relevant links as long as the press release is useful.

Authoritative site (Gov or .ac.uk) domains
Links from these sites are the best way of gaining a positive impact on PageRank for targeted keywords.
Advantages: Although the benefits are great it is not worthwhile putting concerted effort into trying to get these links.

Link Baiting
Link baiting is the process of generating links by creating useful and engaging content and tools
Advantages: Link baiting is the best way of generating links in a long term strategy. As long as the content is something that others will want to share then you are onto a winner.

Reciprocal Links
Links from A to B and B to A. These links are completely devalued by Google and will not do anything for your PageRank
Disadvantages: Engaging into a strategy of reciprocal links is not a worthwhile exercise. It won’t benefit your site

Directory Entries
Acquiring entries on Business or Web directories.
Advantages: Done properly this can be great. Industry relevant directories can be an excellent source of traffic as well as providing a positive link.
Disadvantages: There are a lot of directories out there and many of them won't make a bit of difference, in fact as a general rule avoid directories that don't have interaction but are merely lists. As for SEO directories, the only ones worth pursuing at all are DMoz and Yahoo and even those won't impact greatly.

Link Building is a process and spending time on a mixture of approaches is most likely to yield good results. Link baiting is probably the best way to go about this because creating new content can be a great exercise in itself, meaning link building becomes part of your routine and something to actually enjoy.

If you have any tips on link building or want to share any experiences of success or otherwise, please feel free to join in below the line.

Making the most of your digital assets

2010-03-19T12:33:00.002Z

Images and video are not cheap to buy or produce so once you have them, you really should be making the most of them.

So, what can you do to make the most of these assets and how hard will they work for you?

Images

Image searches take up roughly 10% of search queries, so they are pretty important. They also feature in search engine result pages (SERPs) so a well optimised, relevant image could get your site to feature on the first page of Google without a text based link at all….

To make your images accessible you should:

Make sure you have submitted a site map so that search engines can index the pages where your images are stored easily
Offer a plain image behind any that are displayed in classy Flash enhancers so they can be indexed
Include unique alt tags for each image using keywords
Give images file names that describe what they actually are, as opposed to a number
If images link directly to another page, include a link title tag
Display images surrounded by relevant text content

In addition to these techniques you should be looking into getting the most from your images externally as well. Use your social media profiles to increase exposure of images and consider setting up accounts on sites like Flickr or Photobucket. Any way in which you can increase the chances of your image being viewed will in crease the chances of it taking up a position in the SERP.

Video

There are lots of advantages to using video on your site. Videos hold the attention of visitors, persuading them to stay longer on your site. They also allow you to demonstrate a product or service in an entertaining and concise manner without the need for visitors to trawl through lots of text. Finally, videos also appear in SERPs, so again they represent another opportunity of taking up one of those coveted positions.

As with images there are loads of opportunities to utilise your video across the web. YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world and there are lots of other video sharing sites as well. An account with TubeMogul will allow you to post video to lots of them in one go.

For optimising video make sure you tag them properly. They need:

A coherent title of between 75-120 characters
A description that starts with the landing page URL and is up to 200 characters
Tags that include keywords, brand, city and topics

The digital assets you own are difficult and expensive to acquire – make sure they are working as hard as they can be!

Google Buzz Launches

2010-02-18T17:43:00.002Z

Google have been rolling out Buzz, their new social media tool over past few days. So, what are the initial reactions, is it any good, will we use it, and if we do what will we use it for?

Google Buzz allows you to make status updates and to share pictures and video with people who are in your Gmail contacts, as well as with others via a Twitter feed. Buzz also pulls in images from links that users want to share and you can flick through photos. It also connects to other services such as Picasa and Flickr and is available on mobile devices.

Once a conversation has started users can respond directly to other Gmail contacts by using the @ symbol, as you can do with Twitter and now Facebook. Updates are pushed though your Gmail inbox.

One major rethink has already been made as Google has stopped the auto-follow and auto-share features of Buzz, after privacy concerns about things such as Picasa albums automatically becoming visible to Gmail contacts. Just goes to show even Google can’t get everything right first time!

The best way to see what you think of the new service is to play around with it yourself, but failing that here is the official launch video

There is already a lot of discussion online about how good Buzz is, how useful it could be for personal and business use and if it is capable, or even aimed at rivaling Facebook of Twitter.

So far I’ve read differing opinions along the lines of:

Facebook is too dominant for Buzz to challenge it
Google is offering things that are already offered elsewhere
Users need to be able to group business and personal contacts separately
There are too many social media channels available for Buzz to make an impact
Buzz is limited by only being available to Gmail contacts

One thing is for sure, the array of social media now on offer for personal and business use is dizzying.

Companies that have given social media some time and thought are reaping the benefits of having an enhanced dialogue with customers and there are ever increasing ways of doing this, of which Buzz is one.

However Buzz catches on, social media is now an essential marketing channel. If you want to find out more about how to make the most of it, please get in touch.

B&V Creative join Business Southampton

2010-02-12T17:22:00.003Z

We are pleased to announce B&V Creative have recently become an Associate of Business Southampton.

Business Southampton is an independent, business led organisation which provides a valuable voice for business in the region, though initiatives such as their City Champions. We now look forward to being part of this and to helping promote and raise the profile of business in the city.

B&V Digital is a division of B&V Creative. Whilst we at B&V Digital are dedicated to providing cutting edge internet marketing services, B&V Creative is a full service marketing agency with a strong presence in Southampton having been based in the city since it was established in 1983.

A victory for Apple

2010-02-01T16:53:00.000Z

Well, the dust has started to settle. Apple's big announcement in San Francisco on 27th January instantly polarised both fans and critics of the company alike. Love it or hate it, the new Apple iPad certainly generated quite a buzz. In fact at one point, technology company Retrevo reported 7400 TPM (tweets per minute!) about the iPad during the launch event.

I have to confess, I'm a bit of a technology junkie. I love the latest new gadget, and when the iPad was announced I was furiously following the live blog on Engadget, which was being updated a few times per minute with photos and important tidbits of information during the keynote address.

But with 60 days to wait until the iPad would hit the shelves, I've not been able to make an impulsive purchase yet... which has actually left me with some time to do some soul-searching: do I actually need this? What would I use it for?

I'm clearly not the only one wondering about the purpose of the iPad. There are many who feel it's nothing more than an oversized iPod Touch. Too small to replace a laptop, but too big to carry around.

One particular review caught my eye - that of habitual twitterer, Stephen Fry. He wrote on his blog:
There are many issues you could have with the iPad. No multitasking, still no Flash. No camera, no GPS. They all fall away the minute you use it. I cannot emphasise enough this point: “Hold your judgment until you’ve spent five minutes with it”. No YouTube film, no promotional video, no keynote address, no list of features can even hint at the extraordinary feeling you get from actually using and interacting with one of these magical objects. You know how everyone who has ever done Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? always says, “It’s not the same when you’re actually here. So different from when you’re sitting at home watching.”? You know how often you’ve heard that? Well, you’ll hear the same from anyone who’s handled an iPad. The moment you experience it in your hands you know this is class. This is a different order of experience. The speed, the responsiveness, the smooth glide of it, the richness and detail of the display, the heft in your hand, the rightness of the actions and gestures that you employ, untutored and instinctively, it’s not just a scaled up iPhone or a scaled-down multitouch enhanced laptop – it is a whole new kind of device. And it will change so much. Newspapers, magazines, literature, academic text books, brochures, fliers and pamphlets are going to be transformed.

Having read, watched, studied and considered all the various points of view, I think I've decided I do want an iPad - now that I know what I'd do with it. It would rarely leave the house... instead, it would sit on the coffee table in our living room, taking the place of books and magazines; it would be our internet browser of choice, email client, and word processing device. (It remains to be seen whether that will be using 'Pages' in Apple's iWork suite, or Google Documents... I'll let you know what we settle on!) It will fulfil a role that is currently being performed by several, less convenient media in my home. It has found its niche.

Having seen my Facebook status mentioning the device soon after the launch, a friend of mine told me how eager he was to buy one. However, when I tried to engage him in conversation about the iPad, it was clear that he knew absolutely nothing about it. Nothing. He hadn't seen, or read, anything about it since the announcement... only the hype during the build-up. He'd fallen hook, line and sinker for the Apple marketing machine and would have bought the thing on the spot. (And most likely, it would have become an expensive ornament.)

For me, the victory for Apple is not the iPad itself, but the genius marketing engine that drove the launch. The buzz leading up to the big announcement was quite astonishing... not days, not weeks, but months of speculation. The PR folks at 1 Infinity Loop, Cupertino, CA, certainly know how to capture the interest of their audience. We can all learn a lesson from that.

For advice about creating a buzz with your next product launch, give us a call on 023 8043 3348. B&V Digital has grown out of B&V Creative, a Southampton-based full service marketing and design agency with over 26 years’ experience in the business.

B&V Digital White Paper: The Website Challenge (part 1)

2010-01-13T15:01:00.006Z

This is the first of two reports commissioned by B&V Digital which seek to address some of the issues and considers the opinions of Louise Moir (Head of Marketing, Haskins Garden Centres), Phil Page (MD, Compass Contract Hire), Richard Sawney (FD, Micheldever Tyre Services), Felix Bolger (MD, Homelodge Buildings) and Rick Munro (Partner, law firm Lamport Bassitt).

You can download the full white paper here: The Website Challenge

Alternatively, you can read the full text of the report over the next 5 OwlBlog posts & join in the discussion in the comments section below.

For sure, the internet immediately gives a company a window on the world - an instant potential audience across the globe.

But then there’s the extraordinary amount of time it takes to manage, up-date, and develop that digital presence; integrating it with sales and other functions.

Just how many hours are there in a day? But actually, they aren’t the only challenges......

What are the biggest issues in getting the most out of your on-line presence?

Phil Page, Managing Director, Compass Contract Hire: “The website needs to be our silent salesman, so I want to get a lot more traffic to our site, but I’m just too busy to give it the time it needs. I find the whole thing rather challenging. We’ve had a re-design of our website, which enables us to change the content on it ourselves now but it’s still not as sophisticated as maybe I’d like. But then I’m not sure that I want it to be too sophisticated. I don’t want people to be able to get all the information they want just from the website because I want them to contact us directly instead. We dealt with a website company for a while, but I wanted to get ongoing advice and recommendations from them, and it just didn’t happen. They were too ‘teccie’ as a company and didn’t communicate very well with us. After three years, it turned out we didn’t have any meta tags, and when I challenged them about it, they said I’d never asked for them! You need to have a website company that really talks to you about your needs.”

Felix Bolger, Managing Director, Homelodge Buildings: “Most of our enquiries are driven though the website now, but it can get horrendously out of date so quickly. Our company’s growth has been massive over recent years and the website has been a monkey on my back – we must have a better way of being more visible on-line! We were at the top of the search list, and then we weren’t anymore. I’ve spent a fortune on Google advertising but I think a better website could achieve as much, if not more. The rate of change is challenging. It concerns me that I might spend a lot of money on a site, only to find that the goal posts have moved again, and that I’ve disappeared off the search list again.”

Richard Sawney, Finance Director Micheldever Tyre Services: “Our business is split into two sections, the wholesale and the retail. From the retail perspective I’m not completely convinced that spending a fortune on an internet site for selling tyres is going to make a real difference to sales. We live off price and availability and have to be very, very competitive, so we don’t like to put the prices on the main Micheldever website anymore – the competition just price check us. The biggest challenge is making sure that you’re not on the tenth page of Google, but I quite enjoy keeping up with all the technological changes. The excitement is huge. For instance, while at the moment I’m not sure how relevant Twitter would be to us, I keep up with it all.”

Rick Munro, Partner, Lamport Bassitt: “I think the challenge is turning your website from what’s essentially only an on-line brochure into something more useful. We spent a lot of time thinking about it and speaking to marketing professionals and have worked on giving visitors to the website useful information. There’s a newsfeed on our site now and, as we’ve become more aware of its potential, the strike rate has been going up exponentially. The other challenge is having the time and money to work on the site, which has to be done because the internet is live.”

Louise Moir, Head of Marketing, Haskins Garden Centres: “We re-launched our website because the previous one didn’t get over the ethos of the company. I’m sure when it was produced it had the ‘wow’ factor, but that’s the challenge with websites; they have to keep developing and growing. Every website has to have a function, and in our case it has to support the stores and drive sales. Producing a website isn’t cheap, so it’s got to result in increased customer sales in the centres. The other challenge is search optimisation. There’s no point having a fantastic website if no-one knows about it. We’re lucky in terms of URL, but we don’t take it for granted. We’ll be looking at how our new site does over the next six months and tweaks will be made if necessary. It’s not like a brochure where the content is fixed once it goes to the printers.”

Ross Breckenridge, Director, B&V Digital: “Companies need to understand the role of their website, to have a strategy that sets out what they want to achieve from it. Using a website can now be much more of an interactive experience. Some will provide visitors with the option of ‘chatting’ to an adviser in real time. A simple email sign up for information updates or a newsletter means you can capture data from people looking at your website and begin a relationship with a potential customer. Websites might have started life as a marketing tool but now they’re intrinsically a business tool. Establishing your business on line should be a liberating experience, but most companies tend to react to what others are doing rather than being proactive and setting their own agenda.”

Download the full White Paper

Check out part 2 of The Website Challenge

The Website Challenge (part 5)

2010-01-13T16:08:00.004Z

Read part 4 of The Website Challenge

Are companies taking the view that the internet and other forms of sales and marketing are intrinsically linked?

Phil Page, Managing Director, Compass Contract Hire: “We are certainly marketing electronically rather than sending out paper these days. But I think the danger of relying entirely on the internet is that you become reactive, rather than proactive. Something has been lost between the supplier and the customer in terms of communication. You can become more remote from each other, and that isn’t good for building and sustaining relationships.”

Felix Bolger, Managing Director, Homelodge Buildings: “I take a holistic approach; you can’t have one without the other – if I do a mailshot, it will give people a certain amount of information and is designed to prompt them to come to our website. But there’s got to be a strong brand identity across everything that we do.”

Richard Sawney, Finance Director, Micheldever Tyre Services: “It has become intrinsic – and it has to be. There are more and more avenues for expenditure though, so you have to decide whether to spread yourself thinly, or channel your approach. We’re still in Yellow Pages for example, and from tracking our customers, we know it’s still a good market for us.”

Rick Munro, Partner, Lamport Bassitt: “My view is that the internet is just one of many tools. Sales and marketing haven’t changed, but, in the modern era, the internet is a means of obtaining information fast, rather than doing tedious research. At the end of the day, if you’re looking for a company to do business with, the internet can only be a shop window. Initially, it’s all one way, until you start using the ‘contact us’ section – so that element needs to be promoted more. We want to get more information from the people visiting the site – names, emails and phone numbers, so that the internet becomes less of a shop window and more like meeting someone at a drinks party and exchanging cards. We’re also using it increasingly as a recruitment tool and will get the trainees to post a report in their own words about what a typical day here is like. We’ll get hundreds of applicants who will check out the website first.”

Louise Moir, Head of Marketing, Haskins Garden Centres: “Any marketing should translate easily to the website because all your marketing materials should be a reflection of the business. Now, whenever we are planning anything for a store, it will also have a home on the website. All our press releases for example, will be put straight onto the web too, and queries to staff in the store will be posted as FAQs on the web.”

Ross Breckenridge, Director, B&V Digital: “Internet presence has to be linked to all the other forms of sales and marketing. If you were to launch a new coach service for instance, then your website would have to be of the same standard as National Express - they set the height of the bar. A company would struggle to compete in that market with a website which doesn’t have an on-line timetable, booking facility and payment on line, with the customer printing off their own ticket. It’s an example of how the website has to be intrinsically linked to so many different many facets of the company. But it comes back to the purpose of the website, and I’m not sure companies have always thought this through. For example, if I go to a hire company’s website, I want to see prices and availability, and then have the option of making a booking, paying for it by card, and receiving confirmation of delivery. Instead, you’ll find a lot of sites will just have reams of product information.”

References:
www.bvdigital.co.uk - internet marketing consultants specialising in web design and development, search engine marketing, email marketing, audio and video services, online PR, social media, viral marketing, digital marketing strategy; part of B&V Creative, a full-service marketing, design and public relations firm established twenty-seven years ago. wiseguys@bvdigital.co.uk

www.compassleasing.co.uk - Vehicle funding specialists.

www.haskins.co.uk - family-owned garden centre business with four outlets.

www.homelodge.co.uk - modular timber buildings for domestic and commercial use.

www.lamportbassitt.co.uk - business and personal lawyers.

www.micheldever.co.uk - the country’s largest independent tyre wholesaler, distributor and retailer.

Download the full White Paper

Please do feel free to comment on any of the issues raised. The second part of this report will be published in the second quarter of 2010.

The Website Challenge (part 4)

2010-01-13T16:00:00.005Z

Read part 3 of The Website Challenge

What are your biggest frustrations when you go onto a potential supplier’s website?

Phil Page, Managing Director, Compass Contract Hire: “I get very frustrated if a website is hard to navigate – and I find a lot of sites have either been designed by a younger generation or are designed to appeal to a younger generation. I also like being able to download a brochure from a company – and find it annoying if I can’t.”

Felix Bolger, Managing Director, Homelodge Buildings: “I hate it when it isn’t clear where to go on a site; for example, if I just want a table, but have to work out that I need to go to the dining room section. A site has to be easy to navigate. It’s also frustrating when something is listed but when you hit the button you see a notice on the screen that the page is no longer available.”

Richard Sawney, Finance Director, Micheldever Tyre Services: “I also don’t want to spend a long time on any site because we’re all in a hurry these days. I want to have clear, concise directions for how to get something, and I like the pages to be uncluttered.”

Rick Munro, Partner, Lamport Bassitt: “Nobody wants to wait for more than a few seconds to access what they want, so it needs to load quickly. The number of clicks is important too. It still surprises me how many sites don’t guide you easily to where you need to go next. People just come off a site if they get frustrated. Our ‘bounce’ rate, the proportion of people leaving the website after seeing just one page is down to 23% now, which is good; if you have a bounce rate over 50% you have a problem.”

Louise Moir, Head of Marketing, Haskins Garden Centres: “I don’t like being bombarded with pointless emails from websites you’ve used – you end up just deleting them anyway. On our new website we do have a function for get people to sign up for our emails but we’re making sure we only send out relevant and informative material, and not too frequently. I hope their reaction is ‘oh, the Haskins emails usually say something useful’, and they’ll open them.”

Ross Breckenridge, Director, B&V Digital: “Not being able to click through quickly enough to what I want to find is the biggest frustration. It’s also important because it’s easier for search engines to index your pages if they’re within two clicks of the home page. Good navigation is key. The sites which have the best navigation are those which are built from a starting point of the company knowing exactly what they want to achieve from their website. I’d also make the point that there is something reassuring about a site which has the registered office listed. With that ‘bricks and mortar’ reference, the company comes across as more legitimate. If it’s not there, subconsciously I think we feel that something is missing.”

Download the full White Paper

Read part 5 of The Website Challenge

The Website Challenge (part 3)

2010-01-13T15:51:00.005Z

Read part 2 of The Website Challenge

Are websites being designed in a manner that is peer group facing, rather than meeting the specific goals and requirements of a company and its customers?

Phil Page, Managing Director, Compass Contract Hire: “I didn’t study our competitors’ websites when it came to our redesign. But I know they tend to put absolutely everything on line, whereas I want customers to get in touch with us so we can better identify and meet their specific needs. We have started to put special offers on our site though. The design company we used showed us a whole host of sites that looked good, but on reflection that shouldn’t have been the starting point. Maybe I should have gone to them with more of a wish list, but really they needed to be asking the right questions too.”

Felix Bolger, Managing Director, Homelodge Buildings: “I’ve been talking to a variety of agencies about relaunching the website, and found there was a tendency for them to look at the competitors’ sites and to say we needed to be doing the same thing. I think agencies do tend to want to give you an ‘off the shelf’ solution. I wanted my website to be an easy read, and to have a magazine look; I didn’t want to end up with a jumbled mess of words just for the benefit of search engine optimisation. I’m much more interested in working with someone who is really interested in what we want to achieve.”

Richard Sawney, Finance Director, Micheldever Tyre Services: “We did look at what other companies were doing in order to benchmark ourselves, but it’s important that you have to look at your website from the customer’s perspective. We wanted to make sure that you didn’t have to make twenty clicks before the tyre hits the shopping basket. We’ve also linked up to the DVLA to help the process so people can simply add their registration number and be told what tyre they need.”

Rick Munro, Partner, Lamport Bassitt: “Our goals with the website were to have a gateway for the firm, a contact point, a directory. We wanted it to make it clear what our values and philosophies are, and what our client relationships are like – to us that was more important than simply listing the work we do, which is what many law firms do. You have to decide what’s right for your own business. I’ve noticed some firms using video clips of their key people, but the success of that depends on the delivery of the person doing it; if the prospective client doesn’t like the look of that one person, they could be put off using the firm.”

Louise Moir, Head of Marketing, Haskins Garden Centres: “You do have agencies saying ‘this is the new thing, look at what it can do’ rather than thinking about what the client needs. What is important is knowing what your customers want from the website, or they’ll get frustrated and go elsewhere. You’ve got to have good basics before you start looking at all the bells and whistles that are available. We won’t add gimmicks to our website just because everyone else is. You’ve got to focus on what adds value to your customer experience. You have to communicate that clearly to an agency though, or you can’t expect them to simply produce what you want. We do look at our competitors, but also at what other gardening information is out there online. We needed to look beyond other garden centres and to the RHS website for example. If the RHS or the BBC are already providing certain information and facilities, then should we be doing the same thing? Maybe we would look at what other companies are doing in terms of chat rooms and video, but in terms of time and budget, that’s not on the agenda at the moment.”

Ross Breckenridge, Director, B&V Digital: “What can easily happen is that your website might appear to have the right branding visually but it has a different ‘tone of voice’. The website is likely to be the prospective customer’s primary exposure to a company; first impressions count electronically as well, so the branding has to be spot on, not just in terms of imagery but in tone. Here’s a classic mistake. The company’s brand is about responsiveness yet the latest item in its website news section is six months old. It gives the impression that the company isn’t up to speed, and actually doesn’t seem too bothered.”

Download the full White Paper.

Read part 4 of The Website Challenge

The Website Challenge (part 2)

2010-01-13T15:31:00.005Z

Read part 1 of The Website Challenge

Are the characteristics and status of companies always compatible with their internet presence?

Phil Page, Managing Director, Compass Contract Hire: “In our industry there are no barriers to entry on the internet. So we’ve now got the bedroom-based brokers who can have a well designed website and can steal the market in the credit crunch. We’ve invested in buying our own premises and in staff who can deliver the service our customers expect, but someone can work from home and if they’ve got £10,000 to spend they can have a website that looks the part, or even better than ours; their website is probably their biggest overhead.”

Felix Bolger, Managing Director, Homelodge Buildings: “My perception of a company I come across for the first time on the internet is certainly affected by their website presence; and I’ve even found website designers with terrible websites! You just click away from them. The web has lowered the barrier to entry. It took us ten years to get a foothold with local councils who can use our buildings as schools, for example. Now they might see a competitor who hasn’t got our experience but has a good web presence. But actually, we have a history; we can validate our position and have a gallery of photos to show that. Clients want to see what you’ve already done. We’re very careful about what we put on the website in term of plans, designs and prices – especially for the commercial market – as I’m wary of giving competitors too much information.”

Richard Sawney, Finance Director, Micheldever Tyre Services: “It’s interesting isn’t it – you want to be reassured that the people you are dealing with will actually deliver, and I always get a sense of satisfaction from seeing Amazon’s massive warehouses on the A1! But on the internet, people don’t even have to have their own stock. There will be companies out there with websites selling tyres, which are then ordering their stock from us! I always want to be at the front, not following the crowd, so we want a website that reflects that. I think we do need to look at the site again though and make sure that it projects our size and our success as a company. There needs to be a corporate page that will allow us to shout about the fact that we’re a Sunday Times Fast Track Growth company and that we’ve gone from a turnover of £70million to £290million.”

Rick Munro, Partner, Lamport Bassitt: “Some firms will invest disproportionately in their websites because it’s a way of being able to compete on a higher level. It’s probably easier to do that when you’re in the business of selling widgets though. I’ve fallen victim to that myself already. I bought something from an impressive looking website but it turned out to be faulty. When I tried to return it, it became clear this was an outfit run by a man and his dog.”

Louise Moir, Head of Marketing, Haskins Garden Centres: “A website needs to express the personality of your company, not the designer’s. You can easily find some very long-established companies who aren’t focusing on their website presence. That can sometimes be a strategic decision, but often it’s because a company has a different agency designing their website to the one designing their other marketing materials and it ends up with strengths in one area more than another. It’s ironic because websites should help to widen people’s perception of what the company does.”

Ross Breckenridge, Director, B&V Digital: “The internet means you can define your true size and strength, to make sure that a competitor’s emperor’s clothes are seen for what they are. You can set out your USPs, show your premises and facilities, have separate buttons for specific disciplines with the CVs of the people responsible for them; you can set out their individual experience and track-record. Just because the entry level is the same for any company with a website, it doesn’t mean the content has to be. What it means though is that you’ve got to think through what sets you apart from the competition.”

Download the full White Paper.

Read part 3 of The Website Challenge

New Year. Fresh Strategy

2010-01-08T15:24:00.003Z

As a new decade dawns it is a nice time to take a step back and review your Search Engine Optimisation strategy.

Making sure you are aiming for and measuring the right goals is vitally important. If your SEO goals aren’t focussed on the right metrics your effort could be going to waste and the return on investment into SEO will suffer.

So, what goals do people set and what problems do these throw up?

Traffic
A focus on increasing traffic is a key goal for many companies and rightly so. However, using traffic numbers as the bottom line for measuring your campaigns is flawed. The relevance and quality of that traffic needs to be taken into account. It is quite easy to put time, effort and money into increasing traffic but the amount of return on that investment rests just as much on the quality of traffic that is attracted.

Rankings
Using search engine rankings is another very popular metric and most companies use them as a target one way or another. Rank higher, obtain more visitors, sales figures go up – at least that is the train of thought….

To rank top of Google for a specific search term is what most companies work towards, but this should not be done at the expensive of all other possibilities. Also, for new businesses this measurement clearly represents a problem because it is highly unlikely that they will obtain a top ranking in the short-term.

Successfully gaining a top placed ranking for a specific search term is a great achievement and could result in a good increase in sales. It will also help brand visibility. However, there is the possibility that overlooking a wider range of search terms and longer search terms (that make up over half of all searches) means restricting any potential increase in sales. Something to think about...

Link Building
Setting a target to obtain a certain number of links a month is a metric many people use and it really is a flawed one. It leads to seeking out a cost per link acquired and if that is the measurement to test results it is easy to contract out link building to India with great results. However, it is the quality of links that count and not the quantity. One good relevant link from an authoritative site could be worth thousands of other links that may have been gained on your behalf.

So, when reviewing your SEO approach and goals it is important to make sure that they fit in with your wider business goals. If you don’t tie your goals down tightly so that you can measure your success and see the best return on investment possible, then you could be wasting time and effort. As it is a new year, it is worth seeing if you could be working smarter!

SEO, what should we be ready for.....?

2009-12-14T12:46:00.002Z

Quality search results. That’s what you want from a search engine and that's what the search engines want and need to supply for you. Search Engine Optimisation isn’t about manipulating those results, it’s about producing a resource that gives the user what they are looking for….

New factors for search engines to use to rank websites are always being discussed. Of course, Google, Bing and Yahoo aren’t going to tell us what they are using or exactly when they roll out a new algorithm but there are some factors, or signals, that most commentators think are going to become more and more important in the not too distant future. Some changes have taken place already.

Social Media
Real time responsiveness in Google results is HERE! Topics that have a surge of content on social media sites now have a real time stream of Twitter entries and news stories appearing in the search engine results page. This appears to be happening for stories that have a spike in activity and lasts only for as long as that surge in discussion goes on. It's a new and intriguing development that all SEO's will be monitoring.

Page Load Time
This makes sense as a ranking factor because Google and other search engines want to supply the user with the best experience possible, and waiting for pages to load is not a good user experience! What this does mean is that a good hosting partner could become even more crucial as things like video content are added to sites.

Clicks
It has been said that search engines already use click through data i.e. if a page is 2nd in the search engine results page (SERP) and is constantly getting more clicks through than the page in 1st place then perhaps that page should be moved up. This could be a useful factor in search because it targets the most popular sites.

Web References
Just like links count as a ‘vote’ for your site, a mention of the company name on the web could also count the same. There would obviously be different factors in working out how much a mention would mean, just like there are for inbound links. Also nofollow links could be given some link juice depending on what site they are coming from. Nofollow Blog and Forum posts definitely won’t be given any link juice but if a high ranking site such as a .gov or .org site contains nofollow links they may pick up some ranking votes.

How and when these changes come into play isn’t clear yet. We won’t be told much about timing or the weight each area is given as the algorithms are closely guarded secrets, but these signals and no doubt others will be factors to address in your SEO strategy.

Remember, Google and the other search engines are all based on giving the user the content they are looking for, if they fail to do that they fail full stop. So making sure you keep your site well written, up to date and relevant is always the most important thing!

E-commerce, it pays to get the basics right…

2009-11-27T17:16:00.002Z

Starting up any e-commerce business would be daunting during the best of times, but in a recession hit economy it appears all the more challenging.

The basics of any online business remain the same, you must appear trustworthy to get customers to part with their cash, you must have competitive prices and you must have a unique selling point for your business – and shout about it!

Here are a few tips to help any start up try and get the basics right, if there are any steps you think I’ve missed out please add them to the comments section…

In no particular order:

Site Navigation
The structure of the site needs to make sense. Well organised menu’s and sub menu’s should be easy to navigate and clear to follow. This is key to making the whole site believable. Products, prices and shopping cart should be easily accessible from the home page.

Secure Transaction
Make sure you display any secure transaction logo in a prominent place and display all of the ones that relate to your site. This helps with trustworthiness and guarantees a secure transaction.

Guarantees
Offer guarantees in a clear and prominent place. These should guarantee refund of faulty goods for example or shipping guarantees, and could go over and above statutory rights in order to add value to the customer.

About Us
It should be easy for the user to find out who it is they are purchasing from. A clear link to an about us page on the site is a good way of doing this.

Company Details
Following on from the about us page, it is vital users see you as a real business and reference to ‘bricks and mortar’ will really help with this. The company registered address and contact details should be clearly displayed throughout the site. This should include postal address, email and telephone number.

Customer Support
There must be a clear and quick way of contacting a sales advisor by contact form, email, or on the phone – and this number should be manned during office hours at least!

Copy
Copy must be well written, relevant, properly structured and include a call to action to customers.

Cross Selling & Up-Selling
Related products must be on display on product pages and they must be relevant. A section detailing other products that may be of interest or have been bought by previous customers is essential.

Discounts & Offers
Price is a serious consideration for online shoppers so offers and incentives should be well highlighted throughout the site.

Testimonials
Genuine customer testimonials or feedback for others to view is a key feature of successful e-commerce sites.

Reviews
Product reviews are both a great way of encouraging user interaction with the site and to show that the site is being used and is trustworthy.

Without trust and without a unique selling point anything else you do to get traffic to your site could be wasting money. It is essential to get the basics right first.

If you have any other suggestions for start up e-commerce sites, it would be great to hear from you!

Paper: is the writing on the wall?

2009-09-15T09:08:00.006+01:00

Since the internet exploded into households around the world and rocketed the contents into cyberspace, information technology in general has become something of a black hole, swallowing long-established methods of information, communication and entertainment into a Central Resource for Everything: whatever we need or want, simply turn on a device and, voilà, in moments it is before us, without so much as getting off our already under-exercised derrières.

So what does the future hold for paper, our predominant information medium since 2nd-Century China? Books are holding strong, but for how long? Publications already have their online versions, so a logical conclusion is that paper will soon disappear into this virtual galaxy, taking with it a plethora of seductive charms: the scratch and rhythm of pen and ink across a sheet of quality handmade, the comforting rustle of a broadsheet cocoon, and even the desire, need and ability to read a book, not to mention the time and application that such pursuits require.

Will e-paper, with its blend of digital flexibility and the feel of physical paper, bridge the chasm between old and new? People may take to this compromise but, if they follow the easiest and most convenient route (which they usually do), then e-paper may well be little more than a bright idea as existing devices take over.

So what becomes of the ‘paperless office’? This concept seems to remain notional as people consume even more paper by printing out e-mails, web pages etc. Of course, this could be no more than a transitional phase practised by luddites who have a foot in both camps; those who value a piece of paper between their hands and before their eyes, despite the undeniable pull and benefits of information technology.

Perhaps the paperless office belongs to the generations being raised within the cradle of information technology. Those highchair cherubs who can navigate an electronic device/virtual landscape with the prowess of a seasoned explorer of Amundsen or Thesiger proportions; who respond to immediacy and things that ‘do,’ such as computer games and voice-activated gadgets, rather than things that ‘don’t’, such as books and board games - things that require something from their users to reveal their joys; things that are fostered and accrue and pay later dividends, not least being face-to-face inter-personal skills.

Has the eco-friendly paperless office merely been postponed? Will it help protect the world's forests or merely confer paper’s market share to other hungry harvesters? Ultimately, how long before information technology absorbs not just everything but everyone, and we are digitised into a mainframe, Lawnmowerman-style, living a virtual life in a virtual world?

Oh, well, just a thought. Now, please excuse me while I print this out for a final reading…

SEO - Off-page Optimisation

2009-10-13T11:22:00.003+01:00

Off-page Optimisation

This is the last in a series of 3 posts covering the main areas of Search Engine Optimisation.

Off page SEO is what can be done off the actual pages of a website to maximise its performance in search engines for the targeted keywords. This is usually generating links.

It's quite a complex process because it is not only the quantity of the links that count but more importantly the quality. Generating these links can be a prolonged process and certainly needs research and a strategy to get the most out of the effort that goes into generating the links.

Link Building

Link building is about generating links but also generating pathways into your site that will increase relevant traffic as well. So, targeting relevant sites on which to obtain links is extremely important.

One-way links
These are the ones that count the most, and the anchor text of each one is key in telling the search engine what the linked to page is about. Typically these will include directory entries, (many industry specific ones) and articles/online pr and news items that have been written that specify links back to the website.

Reciprocal links
These two-way links have been devalued because exchanging of links was seen as trying to manipulate the system to achieve a higher search engine ranking.

Link Baiting

This is a valuable way of attracting links and is all about producing relevant content that naturally gets people to link back into the site.

Link building this way through blogs/forums, news outlets, white papers and social networking are the best methods of doing this because you can build links and get traffic.

The strength and quality of a link depends on:
Authority of the website – e.g. .gov, .org sites are more valuable.
Relevance – relevancy between your site and the linking page.
Using Keywords – keywords in anchor text
Position of link – within the body of the text
Number of links – if there are loads of links on a page then they are diluted

Other Contributing Factors
When looking at SEO there are a few factors that need to be taken into account but that cannot be controlled. Firstly, what the competition is doing – secondly, changes in the algorithm – lastly, trends on search may change (constantly having a handle on SEO should mean you can adapt with the times though)

The blog posts on Technical Optimisation and On-Page Optimisation along with this one give an overview of all of the factors that should be addressed in a comprehensive SEO programme and follow accepted best practice.

If you wish to discuss any aspect of Search Engine Marketing and how it could benefit your business please do get in touch.

SEO - On-page Optimisation

2009-10-07T16:58:00.003+01:00

On-page Optimisation

This is the second of 3 posts designed to give an overview of key areas for consideration when devising an SEO strategy.

There is a lot of discussion about how important on-page optimisation is compared to off-page optimisation and most SEO practitioners think there has been a shift towards content become more important again.

Whichever is more important, it is clear having targeted keywords in the content is crucial. A lot of on-page optimisation comes from researching and identifying the correct keywords in the first place.

Aspects of on-page optimisation are:

Title and Meta Data
These are important and should be done with individual keywords in mind for separate pages and with description tags designed to encourage click through rate.

Header Tags
H1 tag allows search engines to see headings and view the text as a key indicator of what the page is about. Search engines actively search out headings.

Alt Tags
Alt tags for should be given to all images because they tell the search engines what the images contain, as they cannot see image content on a page. These should be done with page specific keywords in mind.

Main Content
The most important part of on-page optimisation as it influences search engines and customers!

Basics
Content should contain keywords but density should not be too high, as it will appear ‘spammy’ to a search engine. Content should be written well and still contain keywords early on in the text.

Power of copy
Utilising bold copy for particular areas of interest for the customer give it more weight. It is also given more importance by search engines.

Relevance of content
Search engines are using latent semantic indexing more i.e. trying to understand words in the context of all the words on the entire page. Therefore interesting, well-written and relevant copy, regularly updated so search engines are crawling the pages more often, is key.

SEO - Technical Optimisation

2009-10-07T16:25:00.003+01:00

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is easily divided into 3 groups - technical optimisation, on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation. This post and my next two will knit together as a brief guide into the key considerations for any SEO strategy.

Technical Optimisation

There are a number of factors that need to be addressed that all help search engines to crawl the pages more effectively and index the content. It is really important to keep in mind usability whenever making technical changes to a site. The Key areas are:

Site Architecture
All of the pages on a site should accessible within two clicks of the home page. This makes it easier for search engines to crawl the site.

URL Normalisation
The URL’s should be standardised and contain relevant keywords to allow search engines to know what the page is about.

Site Navigation
Search engines should encounter the main body of text as soon as possible. Also flash and javascript should be avoided for navigation scheme because search engines may not be able to crawl the site if they are used.

Internal Linking Structure
Search engines understand anchor text to be a clear and concise description of the page it points to. The inclusion of important keywords into anchor text can have a real baring on the final ranking of a page.

Hosting
A good hosting partner is essential for site security, back up and speed of loading.
This is particularly important if things like video are to be added.

HTTP Errors
These have a negative affect, mean less pages will be indexed and spoils user experience of a site. Redirects should be employed to lessen the risk of these.

Site Map Implementation
A site map provides Google with information about the pages contained in a site. One should be submitted to Google, Bing, Yahoo

Now read about:

On-page Optimisation & Off-page Optimisation

Have Google gone too far....?!

2009-10-26T16:01:00.005Z

Last month Google released Sidewiki, a Google toolbar based plug-in that allows anyone signed into a Google account to comment on ANY page on the web. Yes, ANY! In simple terms, every page on the web now comes with a publicly accessible discussion board that can’t be moderated.

As I’m sure you can imagine this has stirred up a lot of discussion and heated debate from across the online marketing community. Brand managers, website owners, search engine marketers and commentators have been expressing a wide range of views on how this new Google development will affect the performance of their websites and the business. It is fair to say there are many people who are nervous about the consequences of Sidewiki.

There are some controls of these discussion boards by Google. They have an algorithm to determine the most relevant posts and to display these higher up the comments board. This could give rise to a new domain for SEO experts to battle it out in trying to get comments to the top of the list. It certainly is interesting news for SEO’s that some Sidewiki comments have started to appear in organic listings.

Google will also have control over Sidewiki comments by way of features such as reporting abuse. The moderation of posts hangs on the Google definition of ‘abusive’, this being anything that is SPAM, illegal content or content that promotes hate or violence. However it would be wise to point out that on Google’s own information page ‘Report a Violation’ the rules clearly state that because you disagree with someone else’s point of view does not mean it violates any policies.

So far the reaction in our office has been mixed to say the least. We have those who are excited about it and think it will drive up the quality of web content and service, marginalising low quality sites. More often though the reaction has been “how can they get away with this?” The truth is many early browsers had group discussion functions but they disappeared as issues with server load arose. Having got over the initial shock of the appearance of Sidewiki, my view point is rather more positive.

We all know the internet has blown much of the concept of ‘spin’ out of the water. Brands and companies rather than trying to control information about themselves, are better served using the multiple channels of communication we now have as ways of conversing with their customers and improving their services. Consumers and clients all know they have a voice and that if they want to make it heard then they can. All Sidewiki does is bring that opportunity to voice an opinion straight to your company doorstep (website), instantly!

Of course there are many questions to be answered about how Sidewiki will evolve, and there are many scenarios to be played out with different circumstances and business online. My first reaction has mellowed the more I’ve thought about the application of this tool and I’ve now got it installed on my tool bar and have even managed a few comments of my own. Lets face it, if its out there then as marketers at the cutting edge of the web we need to be involved. I’d love to hear your views and how you intend to deal with Sidewiki...

Who ranks for your brand name?

2009-10-26T15:42:00.003Z

Type your own brand name into Google and you would hope to come top of the list. You will probably have one internal web page listed underneath the home page to your site. How about the other 8 results which make up the first page of results that appear whenever anyone searches on your company name?

Could this be a problem? Well yes, it could be!

Reputation management is something all companies should be aware of. Most people have heard of horror stories where something has gone wrong for a company (or an individual who works for that company) and the story is picked up and appears all over the web. What if one of these stories appeared on a webpage about your company or an employee, even in a blog or forum post? What if every time your company name was searched on, this negative story appeared in the SERP (search engine results page)? That kind of thing can really harm business!

To head off this potential damage companies have a fair few tactics at their disposal. Firstly, if a brand is big enough then a Wikipedia page will certainly appear on the first page of results, so looking into creating a page would be a good start. However, unless a company is of a certain size then Wikipedia editors will probably pull the page as it may not be deemed of interest.

Social media is another excellent way of taking up results. By having profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and by having real content on these, you can add more pages that remain in your control to the SERP. Investment of time can be an issue here but a little bit of updating can go a long way. To make these profiles more likely to rank in your first page of results you can link from your site into them. LinkedIn also allows you to specify nofollow links to 3 sites - these should include one to your own website and perhaps two other social media profiles.

In addition it is also a good idea to create business profiles on industry specific sites. Along with well-known national directory listings these can rank well and are relevant for other areas of SEO and general marketing purposes as well.

It is also possible for companies to explore the use of other domain names for related projects that will also rank highly when your brand name is searched. BT is a good example of doing this. The top ten search results for BT are all returned as their primary domain, or other brand related websites used to cover their products and services.

The overall idea is reputation management, and being in control of the top results for searches on your brand name. Your brand may not have current issues with reputation management but that is not to say it won’t be an issue in the future. Being on top of the situation before it happens is a lot easier than trying to put fires out at a later date!

Brand New Brand?

2009-10-20T17:25:00.002+01:00

I've just a read an interesting interview with Javier Diez-Aguirre, director of communications for Ricoh Europe (B2B Marketing, October '09), in which he talks about his strategy for building the awareness of his brand in a very busy market. If I may be so bold as to quote the article:

"...for Diez-Aguirre, it's not just about how Ricoh is perceived, but it's also about how the company works from the inside, out. He tries to take a 'holistic' approach, he says, adding that employee engagement was a key focus of the sponsorship. "Lots or marketers don't take this seriously... but it shouldn't be seen as an HR issue. It's important to invest in your corporate brand." He says the greatest challenge in in his role is to successfully create a 'one Ricoh' culture internally."

How refreshing!
Maybe it's because, by training, Mr Diez-Aguirre is actually a molecular biologist (and, I'm guessing, probably quite clever!) and not a 'qualified' marketing manager, but I genuinely found his take on the importance of investing in a corporate brand really quite refreshing! In an age where things evolve so quickly and the number and variety of channels for presenting your brand is constantly growing, it is more important than ever to ensure that your brand communicates properly what it is that your company is all about – clearly, unambiguously and, perhaps most importantly, consistently.

But a very common pitfall with rebranding exercises is to focus solely on the facade – the logo, the business card, the natty new fleece jackets – without considering the really important stuff: the brand values. If a company is serious about a rebrand, then I think it's vital that they look deeper than just the skin and really ask some tough questions about themselves, their company values and what that means (or should mean) to their customers. Now I appreciate that this isn't an easy thing to do – self-evaluation is at best fraught with danger – and that's where we agencies come in. We can come at the issue without any corporate baggage, ignoring any internal politics, and ask the kinds of questions which sometimes are very difficult to take from a colleague, a manager or a director, no matter how well put.

In the last couple of years, we at B&V have worked on a number of rebranding projects in very different areas, from a GP's practice to an engineering company. Before designing anything, we go through a period of consultation with the client, talking to people from management and key decision makers down to admin and clerical staff, trying to get a feel for what people believe to be their own company's strengths (and, sometimes, weaknesses). This is, I believe, crucial to the future of any new brand as it ensures that people throughout the organisation feel as though they have been consulted, that their opinion is valued and, ultimately, gives them 'ownership' of the new brand. In simple, old-fashioned terms – pride.

Once the design process is under way, of course there are various permutations to be tried, tested, discarded and generally ummed and aaahed about – but eventually a new brand emerges. The logo is settled on, but as I've already said, a brand is more than a shiny new logo! Colours, fonts, imagery, even the tone of any text all needs to be considered in order to successfully do what the brand should do: communicate with the customer.

And this is where that inclusive consultation process can really pay dividends. By including people right through the company strata and making them feel valued and involved in the process, they will hopefully be more inclined to fully embrace the new brand and what it stands for. This, in turn, will mean they are less likely to undermine that brand as it is rolled out. Given the number of avenues by which you can get your brand seen these days, from the web & other digital media to traditional print and advertising, it really is more important than ever to ensure that, wherever it appears, you brand is represented in its best possible light. After all, what is the point of spending any amount of money, large or small, on a rebranding exercise only to undo all that hard work with a couple of badly produced leaflets, or an advert that completely fails to communicate the company message?

Ultimately, as far as Mr Customer out there is concerned, your brand IS your company. It defines how people see your company and, as often as not, how your company sees itself. In short, your brand should be worth its weight in gold. So, while I'd certainly advocate that rebranding can revitalise a company's fortunes (look at Skoda!), it's important that it's done well and that everyone is on board, from the top down (or the bottom up!) – then we can really help make that difference.

SEO in brief

2009-10-05T17:08:00.002+01:00

SEO is the process of improving the amount of visitors that a website gets from search engines, such as Google, via the natural search results. Usually, the higher a site ranks in the list the more visitors it will attract.

In less than a decade years search marketing has gone from a niche and widely ignored marketing tool to one of the most important methods available to marketing professionals. Even in recession, research shows that there has been an increase in search marketing budgets - bucking the trend of traditional marketing budgets being squeezed. The change has been phenomenal and SEO is now something that should be on most business agendas.

Search marketing is a young practice, constantly changing and developing, and as such even senior figures in the industry lack formal education and training in the field, and accepted knowledge is regularly moving out of date. As a consequence some prefer to cast themselves in the role of providing ‘dark arts’ practices, which are only understood by those in the know. This isn’t a good idea.

Although it may suit some search marketers to portray their activities as elitist it’s not in the interest of the wider marketing community. SEO companies need to be transparent and open when educating their clients as to exactly what they can achieve and by what means. Only with greater understanding of the potential of search marketing, will businesses be able to realise the maximum benefits of this channel of marketing.

The UK search engine market is dominated by Google, with Yahoo, Bing and Ask all taking very small percentages of the market. YouTube, the video posting site, is now actually the 2nd biggest search engine worldwide. Search engines use a complex mathematical equation known as an Algorithm to rank sites, and these factor in lots of variable aspects of a website. The Algorithms are updated regularly meaning SEO practitioners must try to keep up by constantly developing their techniques.

SEO has grown exponentially and continues to do so as businesses realise the value of their online market. If you haven’t already considered investing in it, now is the time to do so.