Google is to be investigated by the European Commission (EC) over claims it has abused its dominant market position by penalising competitors.
In a statement, the EC announced it would look at the alleged lowering of unpaid search results of companies such as price comparison sites that compete with services offered by Google.
Additionally, it will investigate accusations the organisation lowered the quality score of pay per click services that offered functions the search engine could also provide, which could force marketers to pay a higher price to see their ads displayed.
The antitrust enquiry will also examine claims the firm imposes exclusivity conditions on its advertising partners that prevent them from placing certain types of promotions on their sites that could offer an alternative to Google.
Commenting on the decision, Search Engine Land's editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan criticised the investigation, noting that Google, as a publication, should have the right to "publish whatever it wants" and forcing it to do otherwise would ultimately harm users.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
The increasingly social nature of people's internet activities will have a direct affect on companies' search engine optimisation (SEO) and online PR strategies, according to one expert.
Writing for Search Engine Watch, Eric Enge noted businesses would have to spend more time providing a positive experience for users of their websites in order to show they were not simply offering spam.
Individuals are looking for visual experiences, he said, so firms may want to increase their usage of video and graphics, going against the traditional theory that text is the most important part of an SEO strategy.
He added a holistic approach to usability and optimisation is now required and website conversion has become a vital part of a marketing strategy.
Balance is the key to offering a good user experience, the expert stated, explaining there were parts of a domain where large amounts of text may be more appropriate than others.
With companies including Google moving towards a more social experience with features such as Hotpot, embracing these aspects of the web could pay dividends for improving a company's brand, Mr Enge stated.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services
One in ten consumers in the UK will use their mobile device to make Christmas purchases this year, according to a new survey.
Econsultancy reports the figures, complied by Tesco, reveal a third of people take advantage of their smartphones as it allows them to fit shopping into busy schedules and offers reduced stress levels.
The research also showed it is not just those on the move who may be considering this method of shopping, as half of respondents stated they used their phone while watching TV, with one in four accessing online services during their commute to and from work.
A similar trend has been seen in the US, where a recent report by the Mobile Marketing Association found 59 per cent of people in the country are planning to use their mobile for internet shopping, with 13 per cent paying for gifts through their device.
With the use of phones for browsing, information gathering and purchasing set to continue growing, the website noted it should be seen as a key sector for internet marketing services to exploit.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Dr Dave Chaffey discusses why so many businesses still fail to fully exploit the power of internal linking, why it matters, and offers some quick-win suggestions that might help even those with inflexible sites leverage the power of internal links for SEO and navigational gain.
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We all know that quality backlinks from authoritative sites are essential to SEO success in competitive markets. We also know that this is hard work and takes a lot of investment in outstanding quality content to attract the links and PR outreach to obtain these links.
With so much emphasis and effort on external links, perhaps opportunities to improve rankings through internal links on sites we own are missed. Many mid to large companies have multiple sites which give lots opportunities to link between sites highlighting relevant product or service keywords in the anchor text. But if links do exist they often simply reference the brand name rather than the service and they will just provide a link to the home page. Much better to create a targeted deep link to a specific product category, particularly since these types of links are more difficult to obtain from third-parties.
Within a site there are also opportunities to link with relevant anchor text. Typically this is achieved through the navigation, which is fine, but there are other opportunities. Secondary or tertiary navigation links within pages of a section of a site referencing a particular product category, but expanding on the short keywords used in the main navigation can really help improve rankings for that term.
Of course to improve links within navigation or page templates will likely require a redesign and this will restrict many companies who due to inflexibility of their page templates, content management system or budget restrictions will only complete a design refresh every 2 to 4 years! It’s frustrating that in 2010 it’s still so difficult and costly to redesign and change the information architecture.
One form of internal linking is relatively easy and quick, but opportunities are often missed because copywriters don’t know the importance of it, or the importance of search engine optimisation. I’m talking about editorial links which are within the body copy of a page, separate from the main navigation. These links are also beneficial from a usability point of view since they engage visitors and can be used as “scent trails” to introduce visitors to particular products or offers.
Over the years, the weight of editorial links has increased as this video shows since Google has reduced the impact of approaches such as site-wide footer links. However, footer links or mini-sitemaps are another internal linking approach that is still worth pursuing.
Clickthrough Marketing are pleased and excited to announce the arrival of Zoe O’Neil, who joins us to head up our Paid Search division. She joins us with an impressive track record in search marketing, and will be responsible for building on the high standards of campaign management and delivery within our PPC team, and developing new services and reporting systems to best serve the needs of our clients.
Zoe was destined to be a high flyer – her first role was as Sales and Marketing Assistant for Virgin’s Airship & Balloon business (groan!). She was then poached to become the 11th employee at The Search Works; in her 5 years there she oversaw search marketing campaigns as a Senior Account Manager, then took the BidBuddy bid management system into Europe and Asia as a Business Development Manager, and finally built a client services team – phew!
During her time within the industry, Zoe worked her way up to become one of the best business development managers in the business, and has a wealth of knowledge in strategic management, online technology product development, customer service and account management. Now that Zoe is part of the team at Clickthrough, we are sure that her passion for online marketing together with her search marketing agency experience will bring her even more success.
Zoe will be introducing herself to our clients over the next few weeks. In the meantime, we will be doing our best to make her feel welcome!
Further to our article about using the tools available for quick wins, rather than the more traditional SEO and PPC strategies, I note with interest that Vodafone are doing precisely this today by dispatching a well-known Twitter personality on an escapade from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
Armed only with a phone and 5 SIM cards, @Documentally has 5 days in which to use multimedia and social networking to travel the length of the country, with no money. As he cadges lifts, coffees, food, sofa/beds to sleep on etc, he is sending out tweets, audioboos, photos and video over the mobile network to Twitter, Facebook, and websites, promoting his journey. And, of course, Vodafone.
These type of social media marketing ‘escapades’ catch the attention of your potential audience very quickly, and as a branding exercise for Vodafone it is very valuable. And very cheap! Because much of the content being created during the journey is being archived, it means that as the story gains column inches, even once it is over, the content will still be there for all to refer to, thereby building on Vodafone’s brand far into the future.
Search and Digital Agencies Need to Continually Reinvent Their Processes and Tactics
It is not just companies and government departments who are needing to adapt to the swiftly changing sands of the internet-driven world. Search engine agencies are needing to think on their feet too, particularly in times of economic difficulties.
What is becoming increasingly apparent is that we can no longer rely on ‘it worked last year’ type approaches. Search marketing agencies need to adapt more quickly than ever before to ensure that the policies and strategies they use for clients are the most appropriate today.
Agencies who are still pursuing search engine optimisation and PPC as their primary tools for winning traffic, sales and social returns are finding that this inhibits the results that can be delivered to their clients. Those who are experimenting with new solutions are often finding quick wins for clients, and discovering that whilst these may not be long term solutions, neither are pure SEO and PPC.
The goal posts move on an almost daily basis and it is those agencies who can be both proactive and reactive who are turning client accounts into pots of gold. The search engine optimisation and PPC only companies are mired in developing systems which are frequently out of date before they can be implemented – a problem being encountered across every sector which uses technology.
When looking for an agency, it is vital to check they understand the latest movements within the tech and Internet spheres and are able to propose innovative solutions for your business that take maximum advantage of developments. Obviously, it is also important that any agency handling your account must also be able to maximise the opportunities from tried and tested solutions, such as search engine optimisation and pay per click, but you should seek out agencies who have demonstrated fast adoption of new applications and services, and made the most of early mover advantages.
Companies looking to enhance their search engine marketing services need to focus on the needs of the user rather than aiming their optimisation at the search engine's algorithms.
This is the view of Ray Comstock, writing for Search Engine Watch, who stated businesses need to understand what their target market will be looking for and how they can best provide that information.
He noted "many SEO practitioners spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on trying to send signals to the engines that they deserve to be listed for certain keyword phrases" rather than ensuring the site itself actually provided the answers individuals were looking for.
Organisations should be trying to determine what makes their service different from its competitors and highlighting their unique selling points as opposed to simply filling their domain with keywords, Mr Comstock explained.
Another factor search engine optimisation companies may need to consider is the impact of Google Instant, as Econsultancy's Graham Charlton has noted the overuse of features such as Flash could be harmful to a website's image when people are using the service.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Searches performed through mobile devices will have overtaken desktop queries in around five years time, according to one executive from Yahoo!.
In an interview with Search Engine Land's Gord Hotchkiss, the group's senior vice-president of search products Shashi Seth stated he believed growth would be strongest in European and Asian markets, with the US "a couple of years behind".
He went on to say the increases in the sector would offer an opportunity to "break down the artificial boundary between search advertising and display advertising" as he noted there would be key differences in the approach internet marketing services would have to take on mobile platforms.
Searching on portable devices would not work in the same way as on desktops, the expert explained, suggesting mobile apps would be a format users may be more likely to engage with rather than established query methods.
The executive was speaking as a recent report by web monitoring service comScore revealed 35.1 per cent of mobile subscribers in the US accessed a browser in September, while 33.1 per cent used downloaded apps.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
Rob Stoubos, SEO Manager at ClickThrough, gives a quick introduction to Facebook Per Page Impression Data.
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Facebook has introduced page post impression data to all accounts – it was previously only available to pages with +10,000 likes.
The statistics will be available to the page admin, and give information on the number of ’impressions’ for a page (how many times it has been viewed – same metric used by display ad and ppc marketers) and also a new ‘feedback’ metric.
This feedback metric is a percentage, dividing the number of likes and comments for each post, by the number of times that post has been viewed. This is a reasonably good proxy for user interest in a post, and can help you obtain more information on what posts resonate best with your fans.
For example, with one of our clients we could see that the best time to send out status updates were 4.30pm and 8.45am – just before the start, and end, of the working day.
This new data source also helps you get an idea about what type of Posts are the best. For example, for one of our clients we found that:
These new statistics are only available for posts after June 25, 2010. Also, don’t expect to see clicks or video plays – it’s like and comments only.
Analytics continue to add additional insight to social media marketing campaigns, and this new data source from the biggest social platform of them all can only be welcome.
