WildDay

First up is WildDay.com, Europe’s biggest online outdoor clothing retailer. Established in the heady dot-com days of 2000, they have consistently remained at the forefront of their sector and stock many leading brands such as Vango, Outwell, Gelert, Helly Hansen and Coleman, all of which are offered at amazingly discounted prices.

We’ll be working with them in the coming weeks and months to help raise their profile even further, particularly in the run-up to the wintersports season.

Oliver Asset Management

We’re also very pleased to welcome Oliver Asset Management on board as a client. The firm specialises in helping their clients understand the ‘truth about their money’, thereby enabling them to make sound plans for their financial future. We’ll be working to raise the profile of the firm and put across their unique proposition to prospective customers.

Partnership Successes

We’re also working for a few clients on a white-label partnership basis, which is going very well indeed. If your agency needs a helping hand with the services we provide, don’t hesitate to contact us and we can have a chat about how we can help.

And There’s More….

…But sadly we can’t talk about them quite yet – as soon as we can we’ll let you know!

Hello Bing, Goodbye Yahoo

Perhaps the most significant recent development has been the long-mooted coming together of Microsoft and Yahoo in a partnership that sees one of the web’s oldest and most revered search engines make way for the Redmond giant’s technology. The two companies had been in a will-they-won’t-they dance for what seems like years, but at the end of July the deal was finally inked.

In exchange for an 88% share of search ad revenue, Bing will replace Yahoo’s search engine and bring much-desired exposure of Microsoft’s technology to the 570 million or so visitors Yahoo currently attracts. The immediate gain for Microsoft is the potential to increase its share of the search market to around 28%, which will bring with it vastly increased search ad revenue. Interestingly, more recent statistics have shown Bing’s search ad market share soaring by around 44%, a seemingly clear sign that advertisers and web users appreciate the service.

Microsoft is of course taking something of a multi-pronged strategy, with its earlier investment in Facebook: see below for more.

The deal also puts another nail in the coffin of Yahoo’s strategy, which through the tenures of Terry Semel and Jerry Yang has been somewhat suspect: remember, this is the company that in 2002 failed to acquire Google for $5 billion – what a bargain that would have been!

What does Microsoft-Yahoo Deal mean for Search?

Rising Traffic – The clearest implication is that Bing is now a much more important consideration for search optimisation and marketing campaigns. Hitherto, our experience of Bing traffic has been somewhat underwhelming, typically our clients see a roughly 20:1 Google to Bing ratio. That is now highly likely to change and as such we’ll be focusing much more on Bing.

Lack of Back-link Data – From an SEO perspective, one of the jewels in Yahoo’s crown is the superb Site Explorer, which provides a very thorough breakdown of the back-links a given web site enjoys. Google’s Webmaster Panel does have a backlink tool, but next to Yahoo’s, it’s rather poor. With the M:Y deal, are we in danger of losing Yahoo’s backlink data? Will it be migrated to the new platform? We can only hope it will as losing it would put a huge dent in every SEO’s toolkit.

Facebook, Friendfeed & Designs on Real-Time Search

One of the hottest topics on in the search community right now is real-time-search and whether the major players are actually capable of delivering updates to their indexes in the same way that the likes of Twitter can. With this in mind, Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed is very interesting, as it brings the social networking site closer to being a provider of real-time search results across your network of friends and contacts. Some have said this pits them squarely against Google and have even spoken of a Google vs Facebook war. Adding the rising popularity of Twitter to the mix, and the scene is set for something of a search showdown.

Thinking laterally, for many people Facebook is the de facto starting point for a web browsing session, so if the site can deliver a rich and compelling search experience it has a very strong change of diverting the searching habits of some of its 240 million users away from Google.

Google Perks Up

We do love a pun here, and Google’s latest Caffeine update provides ample opportunity for them. Silliness aside, the update does represent something of a step change for Google as it aims to tackle a number of persistent challenges: Speed, Relevance and Index Size. Whilst access to the preview system has been limited, early feedback from the search community has been generally positive, particularly on the speed of results (halved in many cases), the ranking of authoritative domains over ones that are less so and a closer alignment of search results with relevance, something that Bing has incidentally been making noises about. Social Media links seem to be rising in rank, but with the recent ‘revelation’ that 40% of Tweets are ‘pointless babble‘ is this necessarily a good thing?

Friends Reunited Perks Down

It was announced a few days ago that Brightsolid, the internet arm of D.C. Thompson Publishing, agreed to acquire Friends Reunited from ITV for £25 million, the troubled broadcaster thereby taking a hit of £150m on the £175m it paid for the site back in 2005. Whilst the popularity of the site has waned (with Facebook bearing down, it’s no surprise), it does allow BrightSolid to develop its interests in the Ancestry and Geneaology market, one into which it has made tremendous strides.

With FRU now in the hands of a smaller (and arguably nimbler) owner, we certainly hope that it’s a positive sign and wish them all the best – there aren’t enough internet-based companies in Scotland for our liking!

We’re very pleased indeed to announce that FreeAgent, an online accounting application company, has come on board as our latest PPC client. As the title of the post suggests, we are also a client of FreeAgent: we use their brilliant software to manage all our accounts, bills, expenses and financial admin.

With a keen eye on expansion and after having secured funding for growth, FreeAgent appointed us to work on their Pay Per Click campaigns, with the objectives of improving click-through rate, reducing cost-per-click and reducing cost-per-conversion. Our approach involves a variety of tactics, all of which are designed to bring visitors to the site who have a very good chance of becoming a customer. Without giving too much away: so far, the results are looking very positive.

We’ve found their software absolutely invaluable over the past year (if you’re a freelancer, a small trader or a small business, do check it out!) so we’re particularly pleased to be able to help Roan, Ed and Olly achieve more from their advertising and attract more customers. All the best guys and thanks for choosing us!

The blog previously ran on the Serendipity Platform, which proved to be a little restrictive for their needs. We’ve now migrated the blog to WordPress (of which we are great fans) and applied a customised theme that ties in much more neatly with the design of the main site.

The aims of the move are threefold:

1. Make writing and publishing articles easier, quicker and more frequent
2. Utilise the SEO-friendliness of WordPress
3. Widen the distribution and visibility of the content

If you have a spare few minutes, I’d thoroughly recommend your stopping by and having a read of the delightful little articles Charles and Dee write about their life on the farm, Northumberland and the animals, of which there seem to be many more since our last visit! The blog is at http://www.southlandsfarmcottages.co.uk/blog

By the way – we also redesigned the cottages page to show the cottages in the very best light possible.

One of the key considerations we espouse is maintaining a profile rather than simply setting it up. Why? Because then you’ll know what people are saying and be able to respond accordingly. However, problems can arise from time-to-time, as a recently settled lawsuit involving a review posted on Yelp.com about a Chiropractor in San Francisco. So, what should you be aware of, how can you make the best of it and what should you do when something goes wrong?

Some Background
By way of background, it’s worth looking at what happened with the Yelp Lawsuit: a customer of a Chiropractor in the USA placed a review on Yelp.com, making allegations about the practitioner he had visited. The review was made public and came to the attention of the Chiropractor, who considered it defamatory and sued.

Yelp has just recently launched in the UK, going head-to-head with a host of other sites like Qype.co.uk, TripAdvisor and BrownBook (amongst a number of others) which are becoming busier and more popular by the day.

The Yelp case has just been settled – out of court – so we won’t ever know the agreement they reached, but the stance of the two parties’ lawyers tells us something about the challenge review sites pose by asking an intriguing question: is a review an opinion or a statement of fact? If it’s the former, then in the USA it’s constitionally protected; if it’s a fact, then it’s potentially libellous. Whilst the legal implications on this site of the pond may be different to those over there (of course we’d always advise consulting a lawyer if you’re in any doubt!), the practical implications are universal.

So, how can you as a web site owner take advantage of the situation and deal with the problems that may arise? Are you scared of the potential negative publicity you might face? We’d recommend following our guidelines on dealing with Review Web Sites:

1. Take a Proactive Approach
The first thing you must do is claim the listing with whichever site you’re looking at. The method for this varies from site to site but in most cases it’s a fairly quick, if a little fiddly, thing to do.

Secondly, you should furnish the listing as best you can. Add a good, honest and positive description of your business; add some photos; add whatever else the site lets you. Afterall, it’s another window onto your company and you want to look your best, don’t you?!

Thirdly, you’ll need to drum up some reviews – the best way to do this is to contact a few happy customers and ask if they’d mind writing one for you. You’re best to explain what the site is about, why you’re asking them to do it and how they should go about it.

Remember – the chances are, the more positive reviews you have, the higher up you’ll rank not only when someone does a search directly on the review site but also in main search engine ranking pages.

2. Provide Open Channels for Communication
If you make it easy for people to get in touch with you, then you make it easy to find out about problems before they get too serious.

In addition to making contact details on your web site clear, take care to include them clearly on your invoices, letters and emails. Most importantly, encourage people to get in touch.

3. Mop Up Problems Before They Hit the Web
Whatever business you’re in, and however well you satisfy your customers, it’s inevitable that problems, perhaps completely outwith your control, will arise from time to time. Our strong advice is to mop these problems up and deal with them completely before a customer has a chance to vent their frustration on the web.

During a transaction, or immediately afterwards, encourage customers to tell you how things are going. Ask them what else you can do to help. Are there any little niggles you can take care of? Chances are they’ll let you know and you can sort them out there and then.

4. Be Open and Honest
If you make a mistake, let the customer know and at the same time let them know what you’re doing to fix it. If you can keep the customer on-side even during a difficult time, then the chances are they won’t go spouting off as soon as you’re out of ear-shot. There’s even a chance they’ll praise you for the speed and efficiency with which you sort something out.

5. Don’t Worry About the Crazies
With a little luck, you won’t ever need to worry about it, but in case you find yourself on the receiving end of an inaccurate, misleading or exaggerated review written by that frankly infuriating customer you had a few weeks ago, don’t be too concerned.

Some sites will provide you as the business owner with the ability to respond to a customer’s review, so you can balance things out. For example, if other customers knew that the person who made ridiculous statements about the cleanliness of your hotel also made off with two pillows and half the towels, they might take the review with a pinch of salt.

Likewise, as humans we’re fairly capable of filtering out the overly bad or overly good reviews to make a balanced assessment of how good a restaurant, shop or guest house actually is.

6. Don’t be Daft
Please don’t write your own review, really, don’t do it, even if it seems like a good idea at the time, it’s really not, in fact it’s a terrible idea and you’ll be found out sooner or later. You’ll probably find rotten fruit coming your way at high speed as disgruntled customers convey their anger.

Need Some Help?
If you need help or advice on claiming, setting up or managing your organisation’s listings, we can help. We can take care of everything for you, and ensure your listings are as smart as they can be.

Get in touch with us on 0845 224 7428 or drop us an email at hello@mackerelmedia.co.uk

It’s simple because it doesn’t necessarily rely on getting people to your site, rather it relies on getting them to spend more once they’re already there. Like a waiter offering you a gin and tonic before your meal, or a coffee afterwards, it’s a fantastic way to increase sales at a low cost.

It’s easy because you’ll be sending them the products anyway, and all you need to do is calculate how great an uplift you need to justify absorbing the cost of delivery, then set the threshold accordingly.

As an example of who’s doing this well (in my humble opinion) let’s take a look at Semichem’s new site, which originally inspired the post. They offer free shipping on orders over £35.

Home Page Graphic

Landing on the Home Page, the Free Shipping offer is immediately made clear by the graphic on the right hand side of the page. Top marks for making it clear from the start.

Sub-Pages

If you happen to arrive at the site on a deeper page, the offer is stated in text at the top left of the page – not as clear as the home page graphic but it gets the message across.

Shopping Cart

This is the feature I particularly like: immediately beneath the shopping cart summary on the right-hand side, there’s a handy calculator telling you how much more you need to spend to hit the £35 threshold. This is updated as soon as you add a product to your cart and as it’s about the same size as the cart summary, you’re never in any doubt.

Room for Improvement

Whilst I stated at the beginning of the post that this method doesn’t rely on getting people to a site, I wonder if there’s room for improvement on Semichem’s part?

Their Google AdWords campaign doesn’t mention the availability of free shipping, so a new advert variant could be created that does mention the offer.

Nor is there a mention of the offer in the SERPs when you perform a search for Semichem. Perhaps a short message could be inserted into the meta-description to make searchers aware of it and encourage higher-click through to the site?

Conclusion

All in all, I think they’re doing a great job of encouraging their customers to spend more. Of course, the proof will be in the sales figures, to which we obviously don’t have access!

How We Can Help

We provide a wide range of expert consultancy services to clients that help with exactly this kind of improvement to a site. Call us on 0845 224 7428 or email us on hello@mackerelmedia.co.uk to discuss how we can help you improve your ecommerce sales.

Prisoners aren’t allowed to process cash and therefore need a proxy they can use to remunerate each other for services they provide – haircuts, legal services and so on. Until 2004, when smoking in federal prisons was banned, the currency of choice was a packet of cigarettes.

Now, foil packets of Mackerel fillets – known as ‘Macks’ – are the currency of choice. They’re conveniently sized, cost around $1 each and can be brought into the prison from outside. Hence, they’re a perfect choice.

The problem is of course that their value stops at the prison gate – no matter how many macks you’ve accumulated during your time inside, there’s not much you can do with them on the outside. Unless, of course, you’re happy to eat them, which few of the prisoners seem to be.

You can read the full article on the Wall Street Journal Web Site.

Funky Frog produces ‘Zootopia’ – a CD of original, professionally performed children’s songs. The company was established by musician and singer-songwriter Sally Stapleton.

For more information on the company and the CD, visit the Funky Frog web site.

For more information on our offer – visit the Free AdWords Review Offer page. We have three left to give away.

We hope you enjoy reading what we have to say over the coming weeks, months and years (fingers crossed!)

Our approach will be to take an honest, considered, humorous and irreverent approach to the world of digital marketing, the business of the internet in general and technology. We’re not going to be particularly strict about articles – they may drift a little. We will try to be interesting, however, or at least introduce a slightly different viewpoint on something.

Lastly, we might shout a little about new client wins, or developments within the business. We’re proud of the work we do and proud of the relationships we have with our clients. So for that reason, forgive us if we blow our own trumpet just a little.