Moreover, those at Google have always maintained that social signals play a part in search results in terms of:

• Faster indexing of content
• Increasing the number of inbound links to your site
• Social likes, shares and retweets etc.to  indicate to Google that the content is interesting and fresh
• Better ranking in the SERPs for people who are connected to you

The role of social media platforms in SEO is set to increase over the coming months with smaller, less publicised changes to the algorithm set to be introduced over the summer. Consequently, this speculation has led industry specialists to share their opinions and develop techniques to better optimise a site.

Apart from helping to ensure better results in terms on SEO, the power of social media should not be ignored for reasons which have always been applicable. For instance, the idea of publishing high quality content has always had the potential to go viral should it resonate with enough people or if it is so off the wall that it becomes an internet phenomenon.

One thing consistent in both of these is social media. Without these platforms it would be nearly impossible for any piece of content to go viral and very difficult for authoritative sites to link to your content naturally. Therefore it is necessary to establish and maintain a social media presence to get a head start in getting your high quality content to permeate the web.

Is social media for everyone?

With a plethora of social media platforms available all with their own specific niche, there is no excuse not to utilise social media whether B2B or B2C. The key point to remember is that social media is not designed for you to make sales but rather as a tool to help build a brand. Many entities have recognised this and it is now common for companies to appoint a chief listening officer whose job is mainly to oversee and track conversations on social media platforms mentioning their brand.

Due to its very name, you may be forgiven for thinking that social media for marketing and SEO purposes was solely for the benefit of those businesses that deal directly with the general public.

However, there are also B2B sector companies that can prosper in terms of building relationships and securing better positions on the results pages of search engines. The social media platform of choice for most B2B companies is generally LinkedIn, but most forward-thinking B2B enterprises also have a presence on other sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Google +.

Social media metrics and SEM

Social media can also help improve website rankings in the following ways:

• Monitor Referral Traffic – Google Analytics allows you to view the amount of traffic to your site directly from social media platforms. The different traffic metrics you can analyse, such as bounce rates and the time spent on site, will help you decide which social media sites are most lucrative and therefore where marketing resources should be allocated.

• Conversion Rates – Google Analytics also allows you to set specific goals for your website including social recommendations. This allows webmasters to become aware when a particular action is performed on their website. Furthermore, the advanced traffic segment allows you to split up the data by source in order to ascertain which social media platforms garner the most conversions.

Taking all this into account there is a comprehensive argument as to why all types of businesses should include social as part of their SEO activities. Moreover there are more and more social media metrics to help gauge the success and viability of social investment to keep even the most stringent of marketing managers satisfied. Google has insinuated that social media’s effect on SEO is set to increase and with the notion of digital Darwinism prevalent in most industries, now is the time to get social.

In this case the courts (eventually) ruled that Marks & Spencer appearing for the search term ‘interflora’ was “confusing as to the origin of the advertised goods and service”. So in basic terms it was the court’s decision that M&S were making you, the searcher, believe that they were affiliated with Interflora.

So, should all PPC advertisers bidding on competitor terms immediately pause these keywords and send a bunch of apology flowers to the competitor in question?

Google’s policy

There is no breach in Google policy for bidding on competitor brand terms. This strategy is utilised throughout almost every market for which PPC advertising is used.  If your competitors’ brand terms aren’t trademarked then technically you could use it in your ad copy.

However, as you cannot appear to be trying to pass yourself off as your competitor it is not advised.  Also from a legal standpoint, approach this strategy with caution.

Interflora’s victory was not due to Marks & Spencer breaching Google policy, it was a legal decision.

The use of competitor trademarked brand names in your ads without the express permission of that competitor is a breach of Google policy.  It would also be wise to avoid any language which suggests an affiliation between you and a competitor that doesn’t exist.

It is far better to avoid trying to find loopholes in Google Policy. The open and honest image of your brand should be reflected in how you define your PPC strategy.

How to protect your own brand name

Quite understandably, you may wish to prevent other companies from using your brand name in their PPC advertisements or from bidding on your brand keywords at all. In this case you need to get in touch with Google and fill out their ‘Trademark Complaint’ form.  This will prevent competitors using your brand terms in their ad copy.  However, this does not provide the same protection if you are not trademarked!

As you can imagine there are numerous complications that arise if your brand name is also a generic term. Take for example the keyword ‘order flowers’. In this case the searcher could be looking to simply order flowers from any company, or could be looking specifically for orderflowers.com.

Authorising accounts to use your trademark

There is no need to panic if you have a number of resellers of your products or have an affiliation with other companies who utilise your products/brand name. You can authorise their accounts through Google to use your trademark in their ads.

What does the future hold?

We all want a fair and open platform for PPC advertising. We want customers to be able to find our ads when they might not otherwise, but we also want to protect the brand names that our ads are appearing for. Advertisers should expect the currently conflicting views of Google Policy and EU Policy to be resolved in the near future and this will result in firmer action being taken on questionable competitor bidding strategies.

Search Laboratory were on hand to hear marketeers from across the digital industries offer their opinions on what they think lies ahead for everything from SEO to wearable technology.

Here are seven of the most memorable quotes from the plethora of presentations: 

Judd Marcello, Marketing Director at ExactTarget: “We used to be observers of moments, now we are participants… everything can be tweeted, liked or shared.”

Gerd Leonherd, CEO at Futures Agency: “While designing our future we must be unreasonable… Life is becoming stranger than fiction.”

Will Critchlow, founder of Distilled: “52% of UK smartphone users are using them to search every day.”

Bruce Daisley, Director of Twitter UK: “Plan for the best secenerios. Expect the worst scenerios.”

Toby Barnes, Product Strategy Director at AKQA: “Anyone who spends more than £10 on a watch is an idiot… The reason people spend lots of money on watches is so they can pretend they’re in Top Gun. What happens when Apple bring out a watch? I can tell you now Apple’s watch will cost more than £10.”

Sarah Wood, CMO at Unruly: “Vine is leading the agile marketing movement.”

Graham Cooke, CEO at Qubit: “Internet Explorer users are your highest conversion users, especially after 18.00.”

This change can be explained on the basis of data from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index:

• 38% of the UK population owned a smartphone in 2012.
• 28% of UK consumers have used a smartphone to access websites while shopping.
• 40% of UK consumers using a smartphone while shopping ultimately made a purchase in-store, online or via mobile.

The total revenues attributable to online shopping in the UK over the past decade have come to over £250 billion – smartphones and other mobile devices are considered to be the main contributor to these statistics.

A recent study by Retail Customer Experience makes it even clearer. It indicates that the mobile consumer performs a variety of in-store activities on mobile devices. At least half of consumers owning a smartphone have looked for reviews about a retailer during a visit, 55% have used mobile devices to conduct price comparisons in-store and 34% have scanned a QR code or wrote a review (9%). Furthermore, more than a third of survey respondents (37%) have visited a brand or retailer’s webpage via mobile phone.

These facts demonstrate that the mobile device is a welcome instrument to complement shopping experiences indicating that mobile search and retail are becoming increasingly popular.

Furthermore, the figures mentioned above actually show that it is basically the consumer who has changed, forcing retailers to make progress in research and development in order to keep up with the increasingly demanding customers. In the traditional channel, a consumer could only interact with a retailer when they were near or within the store whereas the mobile channel allows consumers to have constant access to the retailer´s environment.

Empowered mobile consumers have changed the rules

Bricks and mortar retail stores have had to re-invent their business model adapting to an entire new segment; the mobile consumer, empowered with their device in a shopping environment as they are enabled to compare products, prices and services quickly and check customer reviews and post customer reviews in real time.

The integration of mobile devices in terms of information search has impacted on retailers in two ways. The marketplace has become more transparent which limits opportunities for marketers and it has opened up new possibilities to push sales through different channels reaching the mobile consumer within his individual search activities. An adoption to the consumer’s search patterns is imperative in order to stay competitive.

The issues discussed highlight the necessity for retailers to combine high-end mobile technology and mobile infrastructures with marketing tactfulness to assist the customer in their information search, ensuring consistent learning about their individual mobile behaviour patterns in order to win the “battle” for the customer – in and outside the store – guaranteeing a high level of market competitiveness.

Search for information is the key activity

Especially for younger consumers, mobile has already become an integral part of the shopping experience. The key activity is information search, whereby the mobile consumer searches before, during and after shopping. The power that the consumer obtained through their mobile device is reflected in their purchase behaviour. The consumer makes a buying decision when they feel it is the right moment. Doing so, the best deal wins. Hence, loyalty has been highly impacted on purchase behaviour.

This type of consumer does not rely on information provided by the retailers anymore, also the recall of information or experiences from memory is becoming less important for the mobile consumer. In contrast, external search has increased in relevance. External search is initiated when consumers need more information, they seek this from the retailer but also from the media or other people and independent sources from peers, family and the marketplace.

What does this mean for the retailer´s digital marketing concept?

A mobile device provides important touch points for retailers to encourage a purchase through adequate information supply. As the use of mobile devices for commercial purposes is growing, these devices should have top priority in the retailer´s marketing strategy. Apart from the application of best practice mobile marketing strategies as part of their pull and push advertising, retailers should adapt and optimise their digital marketing channels to the individual’s search behaviour.

On the one hand, when a consumer searches for a specific product or service via a mobile device, retailers have to make sure to be within the top Google rankings to direct the consumer to their mobile website. Mobile SEO is therefore key to success. On the other hand, retailers also have to make sure to have the correct (mobile) landing pages for relevant terms in order to lay the foundation for a conversion providing all the most relevant information in one place, to be able to get the sale before the mobile consumer enters a competitor’s site.

Usually it’s not too difficult to delete content that you’ve personally contributed to a reputable web platform. Abandoned social profiles and articles submitted to blogging sites long ago can usually be easily removed – if you still have the account login details.

Removal problems can however arise when your personally identifiable content has been copied onto a third party website.

Securing the deletion of content that someone else has created about you can also be difficult – a fact very familiar to the man whose political opponents began maliciously creating embarrassing fake profiles in his name.

Such content can appear in the search results years after it was written and may provide information to curious searchers that you either do not want them to know, that presents you in an unflattering light, that is outdated, or that is entirely false.

No-one relishes the thought of a prospective employer, or friends and family, searching their name and receiving an inaccurate or downright embarrassing impression of them from the SERPs!

When old tweets come back to haunt you

Whilst an extreme example, a recent incident involving Britain’s first youth police and crime commissioner highlighted the real damage former online indiscretions can cause to an individual’s reputation and career. Seventeen-year-old Paris Brown resigned in April after the publication of offensive tweets.

Whilst the derogatory tweets were barely historic, having been made when Brown was between the ages of 14 and 16 – and no attempt had been made to delete them – the incident raised interesting questions about an individual’s right to have compromising material removed from the internet.

If later in life an older, wiser Miss Brown regretted her teenage folly and wanted to delete all trace of the offensive posts from the internet, should she be able to easily do so? Should an individual have full control over data held about them online – the power to delete incorrect or dated information, a ‘right to be forgotten’?

Sensitive stories in the SERPs

A case currently being heard by the European Court of Justice provides another compelling example of historic online information negatively affecting an individual in the present.

Following a complaint by a man unhappy that an old newspaper story about him appears prominently in the SERPs, Spain’s data protection authority brought a case against Google in a bid to secure deletion of the sensitive and historic information.

The news story dating from the 1990s detailed the auctioning of the complainant’s house due to non-payment of taxes, and it only appeared online many years later when the newspaper decided to digitise its archive. Google challenged the deletion order made by one of Spain’s top courts, arguing that it should not be required to remove lawful information from its index and that it is an intermediary rather than a processer or controller of personal data.

Cases such as these have prompted campaigners to call for internet users to be granted the ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ (RTBF) – the right to request that an online service delete all online data that is held about them, including data that has been made public. The proposal for Right to Be Forgotten legislation, made in early 2012 with the publishing of draft Data Protection Regulation (DPR), intends to give internet users much greater control over their personal data.

At first glance the proposals seem to be wholly positive and appear to represent a wresting of power away from the giants of online data storage, into the hands of the individual.

The proposals have however proven somewhat controversial. Critics argue that in its current form Right to Be Forgotten poses unintended dangers – principally to online freedom of speech.

Is Right to Be Forgotten a threat to free speech?

● Critics claim that compelling search engines and web platforms to delete lawful information about an individual is a slippery slope where all kinds of data could end up being deleted for spurious reasons.

● Those opposed to the draft legislation argue RTBF could be interpreted to allow an individual with something to hide to manipulate their online reputation. Someone who had been implicated in a political scandal, for example, could order the takedown of a truthful article and attempt to wipe the internet of information that would certainly be in the public interest.

● As currently drafted, the legislation would not only compel an online service to delete all the data it holds on an individual, but also to notify others who hold copies of that data, and request its removal. This would greatly impact upon the free expression rights of other internet users, because third-party hosts would be compelled to remove material integrated into their users’ content, commentary, or other protected speech.

● Responsibility for balancing an individual’s privacy rights with the free expression rights of many others is a task companies are unequipped to carry out, claim opponents – and with potentially large penalties imposed for breaking Data Protection Regulation, intermediaries are far more likely to simply delete data than respect free expression rights.

● Existing laws are already in place to allow protection of privacy and reputation, as when juvenile arrest records are expunged from a law-abiding adult’s file to prevent lifelong stigmatisation. These laws are clearly defined, limited, and subject to due process, however – whereas RTBF is arguably unclear and too broadly defined.

● Leslie Harris, President of the Center For Democracy & Technology explains that RTBF “offers no guidance on when claims of privacy should trump free expression and is sure to sweep in and stifle legitimate speech.”

The UK government opposes the EU’s plans, claiming that the title ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ “raises unrealistic and unfair expectations of the proposals”. They argue that the proposed law cannot practically guarantee all traces of data that a person has ever shared can be irreversibly erased, and that it will place large administrative burdens on small and medium-sized businesses – Britain should opt out of the legislation, the Ministry of Justice says.

An evidently complex and polarising issue, watching the debate play out in the European Parliament over the coming months will be very interesting – and a careful balance will clearly have to be found between the privacy rights of the individual, and the free speech rights of others.

With Google’s Pandas and Penguins (all 2.0 of them) doing their rounds purging the web of anything deemed less than pertinent, quality content, it would seem the task SEO execs are charged with becomes clearer with every update. But without successful outreach, even the most awe-inspiring of interactive infographics could go unnoticed; bereft of links, it could’ve been a contender…

Reach Out (They’ll Be There)

So let’s say you’ve put your best foot forward. You’ve identified the targets and influencers most relevant to your client’s business, you ‘get’ what their site is about, you’ve researched their likes and dislikes, and you’ve pooled all of the above into an email with an authorial voice, so befitting of its recipient, it verges on poetic. What could possibly go wrong? Links ahoy, right?

Well, to qualify my somewhat tenuous rephrasing of The Four Tops in this post, there could be another factor with the potential to maximise your outreach email’s performance: the time and day upon which it is sent.

US marketing agency, iacquire.com, produced this white paper after an extensive study of varying email characteristics and the responses they encountered.

They found:

• Monday and Thursday’s emails met with the best open/response rates across a five-day working week.
• Through seven days, weekend response rates were found to be the highest, but it’s likely that a lower volume of correspondence sent at that time might have afforded those emails greater visibility.

The greatest volume of email is sent on Tuesdays and Thursdays, says this study by mailchimp.com. Are those days most popular because they command the best response rates? Mailchimp doesn’t offer a conclusion, instead recommending companies experiment to determine their own most effective days.

Getresponse.com, in contrast, found both the highest open and click-through rates of the seven-day week are to be had on Thursdays, as well as the highest volumes of email sent. Their report also offers statistics on the optimum time of day to send email, noting that:

• Emails sent in the afternoon are more likely to be opened than the morning’s, possibly by virtue of conspicuity;
• The majority (38.7%) of emails are sent between 6:00am and 12:00 midday.

Mailchimp.com arrived at similar results:

• Emails are more likely to be opened after noon, particularly between 2:00pm and 5:00pm.

So, there you have it: for the best results, send outreach emails on Monday and Thursday afternoons! If only it were that simple…

Spare the time to pore over the studies referenced above and you’ll see a myriad of factors that could reasonably be credited as effecting email efficiency. Sending them when they’re most likely to be opened, however, has to be a good starting point!

Having graduated with a degree in Intercultural Communication, this subject has always fascinated me and I call upon it on a daily basis in my job as a German Search Marketing Executive at Search Laboratory.

So how does communication affect the search marketing industry?

(Mis)Communication is everywhere

The way we dress is communication (i.e. which ethical/religious group do I belong to), the way we look at others is communication (Germans tend to stare more than the British), and our bodies talk before we do (i.e. rejection/insecurity). As you can see, communication starts before we even say a single word.

With human communication being complex we are predestined to miscommunicate. In our job however, it is important to communicate clearly: among ourselves in an international business environment and especially with our clients and partners.  

The Four Sides Model

To visualise miscommunication and the root of it, German psychologist Friedemann Schulz von Thun developed the Four Sides Model in the 1970s, which can help us all to avoid miscommunication and understand one another better.

Synopsis of the model

Every message that a Sender sends out and a Receiver receives has four sides/channels. The model sometimes talks of the Sender with four beaks and the Receiver with four ears.

• Factual information: Focus is on dates and facts – we send/receive factual content.
• Appeal: Focus is on desires, appeals, advice, instructions, and effect – underlying wish to influence the person we speak to/receiver’s perception of being influenced.
• Relationships: Focus is on the relationship between the sender and receiver – they send/receive what they think of each other and how they communicate (non-verbal communication/body language/intonation etc.) is more important in this situation than what they communicate about.
• Self-revelation: Indication of what is going on inside us – implicitly or explicitly by sending ‘me-messages’.

If the Sender and Receiver communicate on different channels (different sides of the model), it can lead to miscommunication. They speak the same language and understand the words, but they are both left with the feeling that the other person just didn’t get what they meant. Being aware of this model, reflecting on your own communication skills and trying to figure out which channel a message is being sent out on can help with understanding one another better.

The Four Sides Model and SEO

Albeit being a science and having a technical focus, the search marketing industry needs professionals who communicate well. On a daily basis we communicate in several different ways:

Internally

Different hierarchies, origins and professional backgrounds are challenges to successful communication in a multicultural business environment. When talking to our British colleagues for example, we multilinguals had to learn the very basics, such as that the question “how are you?” doesn’t require an answer. Members of other cultures might hear the Factual (“how are you” as part of the greeting) on the Relationship side of the message and feel invited to open up.

With partners, influencers, journalists and bloggers

We regularly speak to influential journalists and cooperation partners. The way we communicate with them is a key factor for our success. These relationships require us to build trust before asking for links etc. Whether over the phone or via email, it is important to focus on the Relationship side before we send Appeal-heavy messages.

With clients

A simple message like, “Your website structure needs improvement,” can lead to all kinds of misunderstandings. Even though a technical SEO professional might send this message on the Factual or possibly Appeal side, the client of a SME might feel offended, because they put a lot of work into it (Relationship side) or patronised (Self-revelation side) and the SEO comes across as faultfinder.

These example-situations show how easy it is to miscommunicate. The Four Sides Model can help us as private persons and as professionals in the search marketing industry to communicate better.

The event took place at House of Fraser’s head office in London, where the press rooms had been transformed into beautiful showrooms filled with pieces from the Women’s, Accessories and Home collections.

We were invited to take a look around the displays and choose our favourite pieces from the collections. Not only were we thrilled to have a sneak peak at the up and coming trends, but our suspicions were confirmed – sequins are in fact going to make a comeback! From the sequin mini dress (left) to glitter accessories, this autumn and winter are set to be sparkly affairs.

As well as the great evening wear this winter office chic is going to be better than ever. The presence of A-line skirts, shift dresses and the like certainly point to longer length skirts becoming increasingly prevalent and it looks like they are going to be at the forefront of our fashion choices later this year.

For anyone who has a love of leopard print or fur, you’re no doubt going to be in luck, as fur trimmed jackets and leopard print coats are set to fill our shops this winter.

Search Laboratory was, of course, not only there to get a head start on the next season’s trends but also to chat with bloggers face to face about the ways that we work together.

We were lucky enough to speak bloggers such as Alina of The Provocative Couture  and Florrie of intrinsically florrie, about what is really important to them when working with big name brands.

The ladies made it clear that quality content is the most important thing to them and that they want their readers to enjoy what is on their blog. This means that any content has to first of all fit with the theme of the blog and second of all be genuinely interesting

Talking to bloggers confirmed that our ethical approach to search works and that being upfront and honest are qualities bloggers value highly.

The key takeaway from the day – asides from the exclusive snaps and first glances at what we’ll be wearing this autumn and winter! – was the reaffirmation that bloggers want to build working relationships with search agencies and enjoy being involved in collaborations with people like ourselves in order to create great content for their readers.

Myth 1 – “The more keywords you use, the better the search engine results”

When it comes to keywords always base the content on quality over quantity.

Over-optimising keywords within your content is one of the biggest mistakes you could make. Faultfinders often believe that the more keywords they use, the better the content results will be. This is not the case. It is those that over-optimise their keywords and put too much emphasis on links with exact-match anchor text that benefit the least.

Undoubtedly keywords are a crucial element of any SEO campaign, but they should be on an equal balance with the content quality.

In recent updates to Google’s algorithm, the search giant has warned that ‘keyword stuffing’ will be punished. It is already a fundamental part of its webmaster guidelines, which all webmasters and SEOs should aim to follow.

Another key point to consider is that repetitive linking on keywords, particularly those that are exact-match, does not only look particularly spammy but is instantly recognisable to Google as a way of trying to manipulate rankings and will be penalised. Keywords are the key to a campaign but the emphasis should be on creating natural links – not inserting links for the sake of linking.

It is crucial in SEO to remember that the overall objective is to create and provide valuable content that readers and visitors will want to share. Writing pointless articles, or creating pages with no relevance or context, for the sake of SEO purposes may work in the short-term but as a long-term strategy, expect to get no joy in terms of a successful campaign.

Myth 2 – “SEO is all about outsmarting search engines”

The second myth that is prevalent in the industry is that SEOs and webmasters should try to outsmart Google by finding new ways of manipulating the search results.

At the end of the day, the likelihood is that any new tactic will be found out and Google will implement a new update, such as Panda or Penguin, that will penalise anyone undertaking bad practice.

As an example: lifting trending content from other sites, editing it badly and stuffing keywords into the content may well boost your readership for a while – but this will in all likelihood never aid your long-term campaign to get higher search rankings.

Google is gradually weeding out the poor quality websites and penalising those with backlink profiles that are spammy or full of black hat techniques. Google Penguin 2.0 was released on Wednesday and Matt Cutts (on his blog) has already stated that they have based a particular focus on advertorials and guest posting. In essence, those who sell links through poorly written articles on irrelevant websites will find their sites falling away from the top of the results or disappearing altogether.

SEO is not about outsmarting: it is about thinking logical and giving users (and search engines) what they want. Instead of finding loopholes in Google’s algorithm and constantly manipulating the SERPS through black hat techniques, time can be better spent proactively producing good content.

Myth 3 – “I can pay my way to No 1”

This myth is particularly hard for companies with little knowledge of SEO to understand. Let’s make this clear, money – with exception to PPC – is not the currency traded on Google’s SERPs; you can’t simply buy your way to No 1.

Many organisations often fall victim to the “we can get you to number 1 in SERPs” promise from agencies offering cheap services. This may produce short-term results but will labour your site with a portfolio of bad links that are tantamount to a ticking time bomb.

SEOs should be honest and transparent about their practices, beware bold ‘guarantees’ and claims.

Understandably, in competitive markets such as fashion retailers, terms such as “party dresses” are highly prized because of the amount of traffic they bring and the likelihood of that interest being converted into sales. It is understandable that people see these claims and look to take advantage.  It pays to focus on specific durable keywords and Google’s other products, with the overall outcome of long-tail keywords becoming easier to rank in the search engines.

Good SEO is about building an informative website with unique and relevant content, encouraging the sharing and distribution of the content and driving organic publicity and links back to websites.

Content is king image sourced from Discovery Communications.

The Multichannel Performance Marketing event in London was organised by Internet Retailing magazine and focused on how various digital marketing methods can deliver customer profitability.

Concentrating on search engine marketing and how this is critical to online selling John covered how SEO and PPC can make a big difference to an internet retailer’s profit margins.

Some points from John’s talk included:

• Search is a science, not an art
• That SEO is just traditional marketing done differently
• Online retail is up 16% year-on-year
• The UK is the global leader in online retail
• Search marketing is still the biggest driver of traffic to websites