Top Click Media Staff Blog » Uncategorized

PPC School: The rise of Mobile Internet (and what it means for you)

Matt Thomas — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:06:50 +0000

Even the most casual followers of this year’s CES, will have noticed one particular trend emerging amongst the exhibitors, mobile internet. The unstoppable rise of the iPhone in 2009 has finally moved mobile internet from the province of nerds and show offs to actual everyday use. Vastly improved speed and performance of 3G and WiFi connections combined with Innovations like the app store have finally made it actually practical and useful to search the internet on the go.

The CES saw what gadget fans are hoping will be the next wave of mobile internet gadgets in the shape of internet televisions, pocket PCs, and even internet watches. There are even reports that the experiment has escaped the lab – the Detroit Motor Show, which starts this week, looks set to boast a range of web connected cars.

So what does this all mean for web marketing? Well, unfortunately it’s complicated. In the good old days when mobile internet was a pared down version of the real thing, advertisers were limited to 18 word adverts and only really bothered to do mobile advertising when they were selling particular products. We’re talking emergency or convenience stuff here – locksmiths and pizza delivery, yes; networked business solutions, no.

Now however, the lines are blurred. The internet on iPhones, blackberries, etc., is no different to the real internet and so the changes required are that much more subtle. The market is still young enough, and changing quickly enough, that a range of concrete best practices has yet to emerge, though there are a couple of key things that I always consider when deciding whether or not to actively target the mobile market.

The first is whether or not the product is actually suitable. The lines are less clearly less defined these days, with the increased ease of searching there is the chance that someone is actually going to search for IT outsourcing through their iPhone, though it’s best not to forget that people are still searching on a tiny screen with a tiny keyboard, on a train or taxi. Therefore, with the best will in the world, mobile internet is never going to be the venue for in depth research. The way to approach mobile is to think, ‘how much thinking/browsing time will it take someone to decide to purchase my product?’ If it’s a lot then the only traffic you’ll be getting will be people browsing – as people are probably less likely to make a huge purchase or decision when browsing over the phone. If this traffic isn’t important to you, then it might be an idea to avoid mobile altogether.

The other thing is searching. If you have a campaign full of long tail keywords then you probably aren’t going to do too much business online for the simple reason that typing things at length on a pad or on-screen keyboard is a hassle. That’s why the best thing is to work generic for the purposes of mobile. If you can’t afford these in your main campaign, then create new one just for mobile. The costs may well be less when targeting only mobile, as competition will probably be slightly lower as will search volume.

PPC School: Mobile Ads The workplace is becoming less defined by desks and terminals...
Mobile Internet usage becomes the Norm in the US According to research collated by ComScore over the last year,...
Apple controls two thirds of Mobile Internet use Anyone with even a passing interest in the mobile market...

SEO School: Long-Tail Keywords. Part 2

Matt Thomas — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:37:46 +0000

Know your aim and don’t get sidetracked

Keyword choice is the cornerstone of a good SEO campaign. As I’ve said before, SEO campaigns resemble super tankers, in that they are incredibly difficult to turn around if you make the mistake of setting off in the wrong direction. But how do you choose good keywords?

Well, the main thing to keep in mind is what you want out of the campaign. I know that sounds like a stupid question, increased profits obviously, but the trick is not to be sidetracked by unrelated concerns. A lot of people, for instance, get obsessed with the idea that they must rank for big keywords, if they sell printers they want to be number one for printers etc., just as a feather in their cap. But just because everyone else is fighting for that keyword, doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

What if you could make more money by targeting keywords with a fraction of the competition? Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But actually, in many cases it isn’t. Many industries have a whole raft of longer more specific keywords that will generates sales, often in excess of those you’d get with more generic keywords… Why? Stay tuned to find out.

PPC School: Reasons to use Long-Tail Keywords #2: Cost Per Click Okay, this is a big one,...
SEO School: Long-Tail Keywords. Part 1 In this industry SEO professionals tend to live or die...
PPC School: Reasons to use Long-Tail Keywords #1: Minimise irrelevant clicks The fundamental mistake made by people...

Caffeine Explained: Universal Search Changes

Matt Thomas — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:00:17 +0000

Google’s universal search update has been an undoubted hit with searchers. Google users have responded incredibly well to the update that indexes video and image results either above the traditional paid and natural search results or in the middle of the search page. However, the position of the results has been hurting Google’s pocket by quite often distracting people from the adwords ads which, lest we forget, is the way Google makes almost all of its money.

As a result it’s very likely that we’ll see the position of this feature tweaked as part of the Caffeine update. It’s unlikely that Google will feel bullish enough to get rid of such a popular and useful application entirely, though I wouldn’t be even remotely surprised to see the section moved to the bottom of the results. This would be more of a relief for SEOs than an actual opportunity as it would basically mean that number one position would retain its cache, which has been slightly eroded by Google’s continual insistence on placing its own results, Google base etc., atop the search rankings.

Don’t get too excited though, Google are going to have to balance profitability with user experience here (as they usually do, to be fair to them) so where Universal Search actually ends up will be subject to change for a while.

Caffeine Explained: The Basics Let’s begin our Caffeine master-class by talking about the point...
Caffeine Explained: First things first. Don’t Panic! If you’re plugged into the world of SEO or online...
Caffeine Explained: Real-Time Results Google, as has been reported extensively in the past (not...

Online Missconceptions… And what they mean for your Websites and Campaigns

Matt Thomas — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:45:31 +0000

Yesterday we talked about some common misnomers and misunderstandings when it comes to the internet, today I want to talk about what this means in a practical sense and what you need to do to cater to them.

One thing that’s important to remember is the impact on PPC and SEO. It pays to be aware that survey after survey indicates that people have a very limited understanding of PPC and search engine rankings. Something that comes up again and again is that a significant number of people don’t seem to know the difference between sponsored listings and natural search results, they simply assume that everything in on the left hand side is a search result.

This is an important notion to factor in when reducing your maximum cost per click – if you drop below third position the difference in clicks is likely to be hugely pronounced, you will not only experience the natural drop in clicks that comes from a lower position, you will also be missing out on the searchers who would have clicked thinking that your ad was a natural result.

Another thing to bear in mind is people’s technical know-how, this is particularly relevant to the copy on your site. I’m not saying oversimplify or be patronising, but never assume that anybody knows about a technical process or term and don’t use abbreviations without putting the full phrase in brackets, at least the first time you use it. That way you won’t be losing people by using what they view as jargon.

Why use SEO and PPC together Okay, first things first, SEO and PPC are incredibly different...
Online news overtaking print in US This has been the way the wind has been blowing...
Telephone Helpline for the Computer Illiterate If you’re reading this blog the chances are you have...

Beyond the Headline: Online Marketing Overtakes TV

Matt Thomas — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:10:43 +0000

As anyone who reads the technology blogs will know by now, a study conducted by the Online Advertising Bureau and PriceWaterhouseCooper has revealed that spending online has overtaken TV for the first time ever. On its own this is an impressive headline, but it gets even more so when you look even further into it.

Impressive though it is, the money is only half the story. Consider the number of people advertising online versus the number of people advertising on television. Television advertising is only really a possibility for a handful of major brands whereas online advertising is available to absolutely everyone and is an option that is exploited across the board from blue chip to sole trader.

Therefore, the real question to ask is how many more people are advertising online than on TV. It’s a difficult question and probably impossible to answer completely, though there can e no doubt that it’ll be many, many more times the number than are advertising on TV. The point I’m trying to make here is that the really impressive thing about this is the ubiquity of the online advertising rather than simply the money.

Online Marketing For TrackCompare Here at Top Click Media we recently took on a...
PPC School: How to deal with increased competition Online In the old days it was easy. Any old entrepreneur...
New Adwords Feature tested Adwords is beta testing a new budgeting option called ‘Timeframe’....

PPC School: How to deal with increased competition Online

Matt Thomas — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:10:28 +0000

In the old days it was easy. Any old entrepreneur was able to make money online through PPC marketing. In some industries all you had to do was set up a few generic broad match keywords and, even though your account was set up poorly, clicks would be cheap enough to make you a profit. Those days are gone.

Now, competition for PPC positions is such that in all but the most niche of industries it can be difficult to maintain a decent position for a workable price. This is not to say you shouldn’t try, in fact more people are searching for products and services online than ever before so it’s the perfect time, you just have to be a little more professional about how you go about it.

The downside of this is that a professional job requires professional time and lots of it. Chosing to go it alone is an option, although the time required, particularly for a beginner, is going to be extensive, which will take you away from where you work best. That’s why people come to companies like Top Click, we take the hassle out of it by managing the account for you. Sure there’s an extra charge, though almost always we find that the savings and increased profits more than make up for it

Beyond the Headline: Online Marketing Overtakes TV As anyone who reads the technology blogs will know by...
SEO School: International SEO Let’s say you run a business. Your SEO’s great, you’re...
Looking to start building online applications? If you are looking to start building your first online...

Web Design School: Tips for writing good Web Copy

Matt Thomas — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:44:46 +0000

#2: Formatting

Never forget that a solid block of text is a very easy thing to ignore. A way to make it less so is to take advantage of the myriad different formatting options available to you I’m talking about bullet points, bold, underlining. These options, when used sparingly, can break up big sections of text, drawing people’s eyes to the relevant parts within the message.
You can’t put every other word in bold, as obviously this will dilute the actual effect of the ploy, but three or four in every 500 words should be fine. Make sure they are evenly spaced throughout the text and highlight only your key messages.

The main thing to remember is that people expect to interact with online content rather than to passively read it that’s why you have to add value by dressing it up. A good way to build an element of interactivity into text is to include hyperlinks to other content within your site or sub-sites, this not only gets people reading more actively, it encourages people to interact with the site increasing the chance that your message will be heard and understood.

Web Design School: Tips for writing good Web Copy #1. Keep it Simple The first thing you need to...
Analytics School – Ten Top Tips As more and more people get into the exciting world...
YouTube embarks on Redesign YouTube has begun a redesign that will, amongst other things,...

How to minimise the effects of Comment Spam

Matt Thomas — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:00:06 +0000

Comment Spam tends to be an issue for any site that allows users to leave comments on articles or content. As anyone with a blog will know, message boards tend to be awash with fake comments, often in Pigeon English. These are not designed to add to the debate really, they’re basically just ways of getting a link to an external site onto a website. In fact, they’re often not even done by people, with a lot of comment spam coming from custom designed bots.

This might sound like a harmless annoyance, though it can have serious negative effects on your site. The first, and most important one, is PageRank. Unfortunately, it seems Google does penalise the PageRank of blog posts that have ‘spammy’ comments. This is particularly annoying as spammers will, of course, target the highest PageRank areas of the site and therefore affect the most useful blog posts.

The good news is that this penalty is usually easily reversed once you delete the offending posts. So a good way to combat the negative effects of comment spam is to have someone on staff whose job it is to monitor the comments on the site regularly. In addition to this, there are great tools out there like Aksimet that allow you to catch the spambots in the act. However, this is not a substitute for a human moderator.

The simple fact is that if you have comments you have to have regular oversight of those comments.

Concerns over the SearchWiki Comment Function We’ve been talking a lot about SearchWiki this week. However,...
Comments Pros and Cons Cons As Jenny articulated very well yesterday, blog and article...
Spam Emails killing the Planet Email spam is one of the most annoying phenomena of...

Comments Pros and Cons

James Oliver — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:00:01 +0000

Cons

As Jenny articulated very well yesterday, blog and article comments can be very useful tools for a website, though I’m afraid there are most definitely downsides. All of which stem from one simple fact – you’re allowing people you cannot control to edit an element of your website. No matter how small that element might be, you cannot help but open yourself up to potential problems.

One of the main issues encountered through comment functions is spam. Users often complain about their message boards being used to build links for the websites they have nothing to do with and, in many cases, aren’t even related to the subject of the blog. The annoying thing about this is that the spammers target the pages of your blogs that have accumulated the best page rank, so often the most read blogs finish with untidy spammy comments.

These comments have to be deleted and monitored by someone, which brings us the next problem with blogs, workload. Writing a blog takes up enough time on its own, though what also has to be factored into the decision is monitoring time, you need someone watching the comments everyday to make sure there’s nothing defamatory or overtly spammy going up and with big or popular sites this can be almost a full time job.

Well there you go, that’s the pros and cons of Comments for you, you can make up your own mind whether tits worth it. If you are interested, we’ll be discussing how best to implement comments functions in the next few days. In the mean time, feel free to comment on this blog if you like… No spam though!

Comments Pros and Cons Pros We get a lot of questions from clients about...
How to minimise the effects of Comment Spam Comment Spam tends to be an issue for any site...
Am I liable for anything defamatory said on my Comments Board? Firstly let me state that I am not a legal...

‘.cm’: Explaining the fuss

Matt Thomas — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:51:44 +0000

If you’re one of these people that has to register a lot of domain names for your job, or just likes to play the domain name lottery, then you’re likely to have heard about the ‘.cm’ domain name craze, especially if you’ve been anywhere near namejet.com. For the uninitiated, the aforementioned site was, up until today, taking pre orders on .cm domain names. .cm being the official URL ending for Cameroon… Of course.

But why should anybody, other than Cameroonians of course, buy a domain name for Cameroon? Well, it turns out they’re actually quite valuable in terms of search traffic, not because they’re from Cameroon but because ‘.cm’ is awfully close to ‘.com’. Think about it, whilst typing quickly into an address bar one day, I’m willing to bet that you’ve made that mistake at least once.

The practice of taking advantage of these typos first came to light thanks to Mr. Domain name himself, Kevin Ham, who did a deal with the Cameroonian government to instigate a wildcard redirect of all unregistered URLs to a particular site (agoga.com). Ham then sold advertising space on that site. Because it was a redirect, rather than Ham actually buying trademarked URLs, which obviously would have been a breach of copyright, he got a huge amount of traffic from things like Microsoft.cm, facebook.cm, etc.

For a while it was a great scam, sorry, ‘marketing policy,’ but it couldn’t last, in June 2007 either the operator or the Cameroonian government got second thoughts and stopped the redirect and new .cms became unavailable… Until now.

Namejet.com has recently been granted exclusive rights to sell new .cm URLs. However, to prevent a feeding frenzy, the system is working like this; from the 15th to the 31st of this month the URLs were available for pre registration, if more than one person pre registered a URL they were to be offered the option of bidding against the other parties in an online auction – auctions start on the 4th of August. According to Namejet, business has so far been brisk.

So, should you be thinking about loading up on various generic ‘.cms’. Well if you’re a big-ish company it might be an idea to grab your url, just as a redirect to your site, in case people do genuinely make a mistake. However, if you’re reading this and thinking about making your fortune with casino.cm, I would strongly discourage you. Sorry if I’m raining on any parades but the benefit in terms of traffic is likely to be much less than you think, as access to most sites comes via search engines. The only names that would make you any real money would be big brands like facebook, or miss spellings thereof, which could be viewed as cyber-squatting.

Canonicalization? Canonicalization is one of those weird computer words that a...
Are Keywords in the URL really that important? There are some people who swear by keeping their URLs...
Changing domain name without changing ranking position So, you’ve spent months, maybe even years building up a...

SEO School: International SEO

Matt Thomas — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:10:12 +0000

Let’s say you run a business. Your SEO’s great, you’re ranking well for all your major keywords and doing well, well enough that you decide to expand your business to Canada. You immediately buy the web address www.examplecompany.ca and set about building your new website, but what about the SEO? How do you maintain your position now that you have a range of international domains?

Well, there are a number of international SEO tricks you need to master if you’re to maintain your advantage in your new overseas adventure and helpfully, I’ve decided to list them.

1.Location of Hosting

Hosting a site in the location it serves is a well recognised technique for SEO, as Google uses IP data to discern where a site is based. If that data is the same as the URL address, it appears that they view that site as relevant to the national market and adjust its position accordingly.

However, there are two things you need to make sure of. Firstly, some hosting companies have their servers in different locations to their main offices, so it’s important to make sure your server is where you think it is. Secondly, Google appears to also lend weight to the geographic location of the Domain Name Server (DNS) record, so try to buy your domain name from a local provider, even if it’s a little more expensive.

2.Duplicate Content

Okay. Obviously duplicate content is bad and ideally you should be rewriting all the content from your old site onto the new one with lots of references to the new country to increase relevancy. Unfortunately, for bigger websites this just isn’t realistic – can you really ask your PR department to redraft 3000 pages of content?

If you have a big site, it might be an idea to simply duplicate the whole site onto the new domain, maybe with new homepage copy and a site wide footer that contains your new address, this will get lots of location specific words into every page of the site.

As far as the duplicate content penalty goes, don’t lose too much sleep. The downside won’t be too severe; stuff like this is a natural part of expansion and will most likely be viewed as such by Google.

3.Link Neighbourhood

Just as with regular SEO, link building is the most critical part of international SEO. It’s crucial that you get a good number of inbound links that are relevant to your region in order to get you up the local search listings. A good source of these kinds of links is a location specific directory.

4.Use Webmaster Tools

You can use webmaster tools to demonstrate to Google that your intentions are honourable (or at least white hat). What you need to do is manage both domains with the same Webmaster Tools account and use the programme’s functions to identify each site’s targeting – that way Google will get a clear idea of what you’re up to and silence any alarm bells.

If you are expanding internationally then good luck to you, it can be a complicated process, though the potential rewards are huge. The above tips should help you to manage the international expansion of your website without too many SEO hitches along the way. So that’s one less headache.

Server Location: does it matter? Okay, so we all pretty much know that a regional...
Duplicate content: What are the Rules? This old chestnut again. People keep on asking about duplicate...
SEO School: .edu Backlinks, Yes or No? The subject we’re tackling today is one of the hot...

Can Firefox stay relevant? (Part 1)

Matt Thomas — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:15:30 +0000

For years now Firefox has been the web geek’s browser of choice, steadily growing its share of the market at Internet Explorer’s expense. Better customisability, a perceived superiority when it comes to web born viruses and the simple fact that it isn’t made by Microsoft have helped it gain a thoroughly respectable market share.

Another reason for the independant’s opportunity to play with the big boys has, of course, been Google’s backing, financial and otherwise, without which the browser would, in all likelihood, have vanished without a trace. This arrangement has worked perfectly well until everything changed with the release of Chrome, Google’s first foray into the browser world. The question on everybody’s lips is now, can Firefox handle the jump from Google beneficiary to Google competitor?

If you were to look at the user figures right now then you’d say absolutely, Chrome’s stats are currently in the fractions of a percent territory hovering somewhere around the level of fringe browsers like Opera, though few expect the search top dog to struggle for long.

(More Tomorrow)

Can Firefox stay relevant? (Part 1) The fact is that Google simply have too much money...
What does the future hold for Firefox? Google Chrome has been performing well so far; it got...
Chrome in last place. Well, apart from Netscape Anyone looking for a reason why Google are considering offering...

Obama Appoints technology Czar

James Oliver — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:43:25 +0000

Ever since he took the oath of office there’s been fevered speculation amongst the technology industry about what a Barack Obama presidency will mean for the tech sector and, in particular, for online and computer-based industries. Well, President Obama has made one of his first and boldest moves in this area with the appointment of Vivek Kundra as the federal government’s technology Czar.

Kundra has a solid background in this field after taking charge of tech operations for the district of Columbia two years ago, when aged only 32. During his time in this role he introduced a raft of new innovations such as, use of YouTube, Twitter and Wikipedia to improve services.

Essentially, Obama wants Kundra to take on the same job on a much larger scale, for the federal government. He certainly has some big ideas. For example, he wants to make the government’s information use more efficient by allowing government agencies to share information and even computers – something that’s bound to create some political tension along the administrative channels of America. He also wants to put an end to the US government’s policy of building all of their websites and systems from scratch ‘leveraging innovations from throughout the world.’

Interesting ideas, though only time will tell in America’s Bureaucracy is quite ready for something like this.

CNN and Microsoft to Photosynth Obama CNN and Microsoft have decided to team up to try...
Download Function coming to YouTube? For years now one of the main complaints of YouTube...
A Ratings System for Websites? Minister for culture, Andy Burnham, has told the Daily Telegraph...

It’s now easier than ever to do a Friend a Favour

Matt Thomas — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:32:10 +0000

Amongst the readers of this blog I’ll wager that there are one or two people whose friends consider them computer experts, even geeks. If you come under this category then the chances are you get asked to fix desperate friends’ and relatives’ computers fairly regularly – fun isn’t it. Well, you’ll no doubt be delighted to hear that Symantec have developed an application to make it easier for you.

It’s called Guru, when you sign up you can add people to your network and then remotely troubleshoot issues on their computer. Yeah, I know, whoopee, more free work, but in all seriousness if you find yourself fixing a lot of computers this might be a way to save time. You know there’s no way you’re not going to help your mum get that virus off her computer, but there’s no reason you have to schlep all the way over to the other side of town to do it.

Software to do this already exists in the shape of PC anywhere, also sold by Symantec, though this is a step up, mainly because it utilises a secure browser connection. It is also though that a range of tools will be developed to make this the benchmark online support tool.

Free Security Software from Microsoft Microsoft will protect your PC for free. The computer giant...
Apple Software: not as secure as you think It has long been the prevailing wisdom amongst Mac users...
Beta Version of Microsoft Security Essentials out Tomorrow Tomorrow the world will finally see a beta of Microsoft’s...