So 2012 is as begun, what does this year have in stall for us? Lets have a quick look at what my predictions were for seo 2011.
1) Integration between ppc, seo and social media
There is definitely and has been more of an integration between seo and social media last year. From my personal experience with the panda update we did far more blogger outreach as a way of link building. The social media team in my last agency doubled in size from mid 2010 until the end of 2011. SEO predictions for 2011
2) Local search
With the introduction of Google Places in September 2009 and then the merger of the local business centre in April last year, local search played a very important role in 2011. A client at my last agency was keen to ensure for every store they had a Google Place. Therefore we had to get all their stores whitelisted in order to automatically verify all the new shops.
3) Mobile
Last year I said that people have been jumping on the mobile apps and mobile site bandwagon. I mentioned that mobile would be increasingly important in 2011 and it did. For our clients, we had to have a mobile ppc strategy as well as a desktop strategy. We had mobile ppc ads with our own ad groups and campaigns.
So after reviewing 2011 predictions, we can now move onto 2012
1) Less spam
2011 we saw the Panda updates in an effort to crack down on the content farms on the web. This will mean there will be less spam out from these content and article syndication sites and therefore they will be less important in terms of link building. Google will continue to role out alogirthms to make sure users are getting quality search results, making sure that very low quality links to a site have no weight.
2) SEO and Social will be one package
Link building through social media will be paramount to an seo strategy. Blogger outreach where clients have content placed on third party authorative sites will have far more weight than using article sites. An agency that offers seo without a social media strategy incorporated within it will find it harder to compete in the market place. Updates from Google such as Google + means seo needs to use social media if it wants to stay ahead as Google added Google+ brand pages in the search results in December last year.
3) Personlised and local seach
This was a prediction for last year and will continue to develop in 2012. Personalisation of serach results is one of the many reasons us in SEO have difficulty in explaining rankings to clients. Now with the tablet, more users will be searching away from their desktops. Google will give users more relevant results based on the users’ search history and location.
Searchmetrics will be sponsoring our last Search London event for 2011 which will take place on Wednesday, December 7th.
The meetup “The Value of SEO and Social” will have two speakers:
Steve Overton from Searchmetrics and Richard Kirk from Performics. I am sure some of your clients may be asking what the return on investment is from seo and social and sometimes it is a bit hard to quantify. Steve will be talking about the value of SEO and Richard will be speaking about the value of social, he has recently been studying the impactof social inputs on organic search.
searchmetrics logo
Searchmetrics is the global expert in search analytics software, empowering marketers to increase visibility and market share on the world’s leading search engines.
I would like to thank everyone who has come to Search London during the year. We have had 7 meetups and the group has gone from 200 members to over 460. Please RSVP to the last Search London of 2011
The Google Doodle changes everyday and today is no exception.
Click on the video below to see how the Google employees build their Google Doodle out of pumpkins.
Halloween Google Doodle
Google Halloween Doodle
Here is a post a wrote a while ago regarding the history of Halloween.
Where does it come from?
Halloween comes from the pagan festival Samhain, which the Celts celebrated on what was their New Year Eve, October 31st. Samhain marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter which brought the evil spirits. The Celts believed that on this night, the barrier between our world and the spirit world was at its weakest and the spirits would return to the earth. They built bonfires and in England carved out faces in the turnips to warn off the evil spirits. The festival was celebrated by lighting bonfires and sacrificing crops and animals. The bonfire was also believed to protect them during the winter months.
Read more »
Search London – SEO & PPC In House Or Agency – Sharon Harris
Sharon Harris, Head of Search at IG Group will be discussing the benefits of taking SEO & PPC In House. IG Group is a FTSE 250 leader servicing over 130,000 clients across 130 countries. The sheer size and scale of IG Group proved a challenging yet rewarding online platform for search integration.
IG Group encompasses IG Markets, IG Index and Nadex. IG Markets CFDs offer traders the ability to take a directional position on market movement. IG Index acts as a gateway into spread betting across a range of markets including the fast paced world of forex spreads. Nadex is a fully regulated US Exchange.
These markets offer complex derivative products yet understanding remains at the heart of IG Group. Integrating search enabled IG Group to tap into the users desire to learn at the point of inception, targeting both the newbie and professional trader. Increased online exposure across multiple keywords significantly enhanced visibility and conversion rates on a global scale.
Financial markets are fast and dynamic – Sharon Harris has fine tuned global SEO & PPC to react accordingly.
The event “SEO & PPC In House Or Agency” will take place:
When: Wednesday, October 26th, 7:00pm
Where: Theodore Bullfrog, 26 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6HL
RSVP to Search London to guarantee your place
I attended a Facebook session last week which went into the updates of the social networking organisation. Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more connected. It certainly has achieved this since its launch in February 2004. I learnt a lot at the session and wanted to share some of the stats with you.
Facebook cupcake
Key Facebook Facts
There are 30 million active users of Facebook in the UK (not including those under 13 years)
Each person has an average of 218 friends
20 million people use Facebook daily
There is a 50/50 split between male and female users
Quickest growing demographic are those over 35 years old
13- 24 year old are the most active
There are more than 3 billion stories posted each month.
Read more »
Last week I was fortunate enough to attend a Google Mobile Workshop and they confirmed what everyone has been saying
“2011 is the year for mobile”
Finlay from Google talked at New Year Search Club in January this year where he mentioned mobile would really take off and it definitely has.
Google Mobile Search
(Image from www.koozai.com/blog/search-marketing/mobile-search-tips-and-best-practices-8276/)
Mobile search queries have increased considerably from last year. Here are a few interesting stats:
Travel queries on mobile have risen from
4% (2010) to 11% (2011)
Retail queries
4% (2010) to 13% (2011)
Tech queries
5% (2010) to 10% (2011)
Entertainment
7% (2010) to 18% (2011)
Do you use your mobile while out shopping? Apparently 45 % of us do and 15% use it to compare prices.
The study carried out by Google, also found that with mobile, people always have them with them and are searching while at home and on the go. 74% of people use them at the same time as consuming other media.
Read more »
After a summer off networking, Search London has its first networking event of the autumn.
Judith Lewis, a well known search professional in the industry and blogger at mostlyaboutchocolate.com and SEOChicks will be speaking at the event. She will be sharing her experience and learnings from seo along with the best ways to get clients to implement seo.
The event “SEO – Making it work” will take place:
When: Tuesday, September 6th, 7:00pm
Where: The Doggett’s Coat and Badge, 1 Blackfriars Bridge.
Over 60 people have RSVPed so far, so hurry and reserve your place today.
Please RSVP on meetup.com/search-london to guarantee your place
Last month, Google launched Google+ which is pretty much their attempt to jump onto the social media bandwagon. Before we jump into the stats from Hitwise, lets have a quick recap of What is Google+?
Google vs Facebook
(source: thenextweb.com/google/2010/11/10/google-vs-facebook)
Google+ brings all your contacts in one place, and lets you organise them into different groups. You can have a group for your work friends, school friends and so on. Google+ is made of five key areas:
* Circles — your friends hub. Instead of grouping everyone together as your “friend,” you can create different circles for the different types of people in your life like colleagues, relatives, tennis partners. It is very easy to make new groups and add contacts – drag and drop.
* Hangouts — this is where you can send a broadcast to your friends that you are online and want to chat face to face. You have everyone “hanging out” together – only virtually though. It is like a massive three, four way skype chat.
* Sparks — Designate your interests in Sparks, and Google+ will collect articles, videos, and photos of the things you love from around the web to read when you’re free (like an RSS reader). You can share these items with specific circles of friends instead of all of your friends.
* Instant Upload — With Instant Upload, your mobile photos and videos are automatically uploaded to the web. (So no worrying about backing up your media, you can have it stored online in your own cloud)
* Huddle — A group messaging system, Huddle allows you to chat with a number of friends on the go via your mobile phone.
So do you think Google+ will take off? Only time will tell. Hitwise have come up with the following interesting stats, so it looks like people are using it. I doubt they will give up on Facebook, so the battle between to the two search giants will continue.
- Google+ received more than 1.79M total visits the week ending July 23, 2011. That is a decrease of 3% vs. the previous week (July 16th). The site received 1.86M total visits the previous week
- The average time spent on the site was down as well by 10% from 5minutes and 50seconds to 5minutes and 15seconds
- Among the top 50 Upstream sites, 59% of Upstream traffic to Google+ last week came from other Google properties. Google.com accounted for 37% of Upstream traffic to the site. Gmail accounted 15.59%, a 9% increase from previous week
- 40% of Upstream traffic to Google+ last week came from Search Engines (8% increase). Email provided the 2nd largest amount of Upstream traffic accounting for 19%.
- 59% of visits to Google+ are from Males.
- Among age demos, 33% of visits are from users age 25-34 for the 4 weeks ending July 23rd.
I have yet to really engage with Google+. At the beginning, only those with invitations could use Google+ but now everyone has an invite.
Paid Search, Search engines | Jo Turnbull | 
January 9, 2012 8:50 pm | 
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