Digital Marketing - Numo

Facebook 'eyes up' the driving seat

With the recent announcement that Facebook has begun to outstrip Google in directing traffic to some large sites, it is a clear sign that social networking and social media sites will soon play a significant role in search engine optimization for all businesses and organisations.

However, it is not all that surprising to hear that some sites are receiving so much traffic directed from Facebook when you consider that in the US, it currently receives 1/3 of the volume of Google.

It really won’t be long before businesses have to seriously consider ‘Social Media Optimization’. The simple fact that Facebook has 175million users can’t be ignored by the masses for too long.

Something also tells me that the new changes to the format of Facebook, which has had so many users up in arms recently, is heavily motivated by the organisation’s desire to play a more predominant role in the flow of online traffic.

Search is increasingly becoming a discipline not confined to Google and other search engines and a good agency will consider the best alternative portals to use for each business type. As with any marketing exercise, tracking the success of a campaign is paramount, and some businesses still don't know what route is providing the best results. Knowing this would simply tell you if Facebook works for you.

Twitter what is all that about?

Have only recently signed up to this Twitter thing. Reckon it might be a interesting, but I am wondering how exactly I should use it.

Being of a certain age.. ahem. It could be that I should follow professional contacts and not Britney Spears (as they have the original and actual Twitter person and it is genuine with real comments, with all her pearls of wisdom... or not).

Well after finding out that Britney is eating a Tuna sandwich (sorry Sub), it seems that Hitwise are giving out some little tasters of information that is actually quite interesting. Once you get past the - "its Friday and we are going out for food - yeh"... posts.

I am now looking for someone who has good stories about the economy, as I am sick of listening to the BBC....

Reaction to Digital Britain interim report

The Digital Britain project was launched by Lord Stephen Carter with the aim of securing the UK’s place at the forefront of innovation, investment and quality in the digital and communications industries. The comments below are in response to the project’s initial interim report. 

Firstly, it is fair to say that the 80 page report achieves its main objective of setting out the challenges and opportunities of the digital age and identifying the issues we face, which after all, are issues that need addressing if we are to claw our way out of the recession.

It is certainly not acceptable that in this day and age, we still have 1.7million homes without access to broadband.

Despite the report’s less than ‘lukewarm’ reviews from within the industry and the media, its proposal to extend access to broadband for both households and businesses has to be a step in the right direction, even if it is only a speed of up to 2Mbps. However, there needs to be dialogue between business and government about how the existing set up is restricting business development.
 
Although it would be great for everyone to be able to access video files over the internet in time for the Olympics, which I’m sure increased bandwidth for all will achieve, the needs of small and medium sized businesses vary quite drastically.

Something that does need to be addressed is the way in which ISP’s treat businesses the same as general consumers in terms of file transfer. A business moving large volumes of information from one place to another via the internet, often as essential back up measures, is restricted in the same way that consumers are on peer-to-peer file sharing. Issues like this simply highlight that the requirements for consumers and businesses are very different. A one size fits all approach, no matter what size bandwidth, is not going to enable businesses to embrace our full digital potential.

However, having said this, the report does propose a 'rights agency' to combat piracy and support innovations that allow legal content distribution, so hopefully by the time the full report comes out in May, some of the restrictions on businesses might start being investigated further.

The report does seem to try and address far too many issues in one go and contains elements of a ‘papering over the cracks’ approach. However, the report has created much debate which is good for the country and Lord Carter seems to want to listen. In response to the sheer volume of feedback a Digital Britain Report discussion website has even been created: www.digitalbritainforum.org.uk.

Will Cuil go cold?

It will be interesting to see how Cuil www.cuil.com, the latest would be contender to Google, will fare in the coming months. There have been some bold claims in the media about how much it will go beyond prevailing search techniques, but ultimately, to dislodge Google, it is going to be an enormously difficult task, they just have to ask Microsoft that….

Early viewing of Cuil seems to indicate that it’s not going to be anything like as commercial as Google currently is. Although its search results seem to be exceptionally detailed, it isn’t ranking some of the more recognisable and popular websites in the same way that Google does. This is where I think their biggest challenge will lie.

The major sites that have been made popular by Google are now popular in their own right, and many users still have Google as their home page to find those popular sites quickly and effectively. Users might give Cuil a try, but when they struggle to find the more popular sites, there is a real danger that they will loose confidence and quickly revert back to a system that looks and feels more comfortable.

If Cuil is going to make an impact on Google’s dominance, it will certainly take time for the Cuil brand and its format to ‘bed in’ with web users. After all, if a product or service seems to work well, it takes a serious offering to make people change their behaviour.   

The other thing they will need to do is simply get through the early periods of ironing out the technical issues that will be scrutinised by hundreds of media sources. They are already taking some flack for not being able to keep up with their difficult challenge of providing an image for every search result.

CLIMBING TO THE TOP

Although the benefits of being ranked number one on a search engine giant like Google or Yahoo are clear for any business to see. I’m still surprised that so many aren’t taking the necessary steps to climb those all-important rankings.

With methods for achieving search engine success becoming more secretive and complex, the need for online marketing strategies becomes even more important.

In 2005, the value of UK sales over the Internet was £103 billion. So it’s not surprising, search engine optimisation (SEO), is fast becoming the tool of choice for businesses wanting to raise their profile on the web. SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website by enhancing the success of its natural listings, as opposed to paid-for, advertised listings.

The reason that SEO has come to the fore, is that results found on the second page or lower of search engines, stand about a 1% chance of being clicked on. Studies have shown that web searchers scan results from top to bottom and left to right, looking for a relevant website. So, unsurprisingly, the top result on the first page will get around half of all clicks. Add to this, the fact that a much higher percentage of web users click on the natural listings over sponsored links, you have a real driver behind the growing importance of SEO.

Google do offer guidance and advice on how companies can improve their listings. However, the internet giants guard exactly how the system works very closely.

It’s important for Google to give accurate searches back to their users and I appreciate if they informed everyone about how their algorithms were working they would lose any normalisation for their searches. But it is a continual challenge for us to always counter their changes and adaptations.

Changes often affect a website in only a minor way. A fairly well managed website might take a dip in the rankings but it is unlikely to take a traumatic leap to the bottom of the table. Maintaining a relatively strong position isn’t too hard once the correct systems are in place.

Traditional PR and media relations are powerful in terms of building and protecting a businesses reputation, but optimising digital PR techniques, as part of your SEO package, provides tangible results - you can immediately evaluate the traffic being driven to your website and you can analyse the source of visitors. This has an immediate impact on sales, especially for e-retailers, and drives up your search engine rankings.

The fact that PR disciplines and online marketing boundaries are being completely redefined, is opening up more opportunities for us to raise businesses’ profiles whilst boosting their website ratings and sales at the same time.