Yearly Archives: 2008

I’m Always Twittering On..

Posted on by Amelia Pratt

And now I get to “tweet” with like minded PPC folk all the time on Twitter!

It is no secret, I was a very late “adopter” of Twitter, only joining three weeks ago {BLUSH}…But since joining, I have found out about every “BREAKING” PPC or Internet news story within minutes. For example, three hours ago Mel Carson (MSN) posted “Who wants a job at Microsoft? Email me – mcarsonATmicrosoft.com – Based in Dublin and they’re Developer roles in Mobile, adCenter and more!” Obviously if I were looking for a new job that tweet would have been a brilliant, timely bit of info!

I follow a wide range of people from Matt Cutts (Google), Hitwise_UK to Special_Noodles (my colleague here at Leapfrogg). Of course, we don’t always talk “shop” – it is also a great way to get to know like minded people who are interested in similar things.

If you are currently on Twitter (or feel the sudden compulsion to sign up and register NOW!) why not follow me (Amelia_Dawson) and Leapfrogg.

If you know any other interesting peeps that I should follow, please leave a comment or tweet me!

Industry News – What are Leapfrogg reading this week? (13)

Posted on by Ben Potter

Ferris Bueller once said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.”

This is particularly apt when it comes to the digital marketing industry and keeping in touch with the latest developments, trends and stories. If you don’t stop and look around you might miss a whole load of new tools, developments or opinions. That’s why we spend a huge amount of time reading. Read, read, read we drill into the Leapfrogg team. So to help you we like to share the stories and articles that we have found particularly interesting each week.

So here goes…

Paid Search

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/08/yahoo.advertising?gusrc=rss&feed=global Yahoo relaunch and re brand its advertising network with claims that its network now reaches 80% of web users in the UK and Ireland.

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2008/09/top-10-resources-to-pass-the-google-adwords-exam-in-a-week.html
Studying for the Google Advertising Professionals Exam – top ten resources to help you pass in a week!

http://www.grokdotcom.com/2008/09/05/why-rank-1-in-google/
Why ads at position number one receive more clicks

http://blog.clickz.com/080904-122927.html

Businesses are focusing too much of their time and budgets on Paid Search instead of ensuring they have usable and customer-friendly websites. It’s one thing getting traffic to your site; that’s the relatively easy bit. If you are failing to present visitors with an attractive and usable website once they get there you are simply wasting your Paid Search budget!

SEO

http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/the-best-damn-web-marketing-checklist-pe.php
About as definitive a website optimisation checklist as you are ever likely to find. Invaluable!

Link Building

http://www.seobook.com/black-hole-seo
Interesting article about the emergence of ‘black holes’ – website owners who choose to link out to virtually no other site.

Social Media

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/14/linkedin-to-launch-its-own-ad-network/
LinkedIn to launch an ad network

http://www.seobook.com/brand-building-tips-budget
Brand building on a budget

Until next time have a marvelous weekend!

We are Twittering

Posted on by Ben Potter

For those of you that haven’t had a look at Twitter yet, it is essentially a microblogging site that allows people to update the world on what they are doing. More informal and easier to use than a traditional blog post, it’s a great place to let friends know what you are doing. Or if you prefer, let clients and customers know what you planning next.

If you want to learn more about Twitter, get in touch. We are here

www.twitter.com/leapfrogg

Google Chrome – Any Good?

Posted on by Ben Potter

There is high probability that you are reading this article through either Internet Explorer (IE) or in FireFox, well if Google have their way that is set to change.

On Tuesday evening Google Chrome hit the internet. Perhaps this was released slightly sooner than Google would’ve liked due to an accidental blog post, but the new kid on the browser block is out in Beta for everyone to have a look at.

Chrome has been built with web users in mind, from the ground up. We all like media rich content and web based applications and Google have recognised this. In doing so, they have built a browser designed for us. It loads quickly, you can have quick access from one screen to your most viewed sites, it offers extra protection against spyware and malware, it runs multi process applications making it more stable, it offers an incognito mode so no trace of you browsing activity is left on your computer, you can stream video without slowing down your other windows. And it does all of this whilst being quicker than the competition

Although Chrome has not been built on entirely new technology, the way it has been designed is new. By using a multi processor approach, Google have been able to crank up the download speeds and stability of Chrome. Each element of the webpage is assigned its own section of memory, in essence, this allows a page to load even if there is a dodgy piece of javascript running or a video hogging too much resource – in fact it goes further. You have a specific ‘task manager’ for Chrome so you can highlight the process hungry plug-in or page and close it down.

Probably the most stand out difference with Chrome is the way you navigate and search. Google has done away with the separate address and search boxes that the other browsers have and replaced them with OMNIBOX. If you know the url, put in the box and off you go. The box will bring up suggestions from your history as you would expect. However, put a search term in and watch what happens – Chrome pulls up suggestions for you, and this time it’s not just from your history and favourites. Omnibox presents information from Google’s most popular searches for the terms you have entered. It took me a couple of goes but I like it.

Perhaps more importantly, Google have made Chrome safer than most browsers. Each tab is ‘sandboxed’ meaning that what ever happens on that tab, stays on that tab and cannot affect your computer. It also means no pop ups, or pop unders, ever. Not even javascript ones. This also contains any malware or spyware that may be lurking on the site. Chrome automatically updates from Google’s ever growing list, making sure you are always up to date.

Chrome has another couple of cool features including

Incognito Mode: which allows you surf the net without leaving any evidence on your PC – no cookies, no history, no footprint, no nothing.

I’m not sure what this would be called but I also like that you can pull the tabs out of you current Chrome window and they form there own window, not happy with it being on it’s own? You can put it back in with the rest of the group

It is worth noting that Chrome is still in Beta and therefore not really production ready, it lacks any add ons including the popular social bookmarking buttons but I am sure they will be along soon enough

The future is shiny, the future is chrome

Google, dmoz and Meta Title tags

Posted on by Suzanne Taylor

A client recently asked us to investigate what was happening with the title of their Google listing. When searching for their company name, Google was dropping the optimised Meta Title tag for the home page and displaying a different title which was not on the page anywhere. This was not happening on Yahoo and MSN, only Google.

After some deeper investigation, we noticed that Google was ignoring the optimised Meta Title tag and instead, was pulling the title from the company’s dmoz listing.

The Meta Title tag on the page was optimised with search terms relevant to the home page however in doing this; the company name had been omitted from the Title tag. The problem here is that when searching for the company name (which does not appear within the title tag), Google will automatically use the dmoz company listing as this is obviously more targeted to the search query.

For the client in question, their original dmoz listing was an old listing that was set up with information that was no longer fully accurate.

So what do we learn?

If your company name does not appear in your Meta Title tag, Google will display your dmoz title as a default for searches relating to your company name. However optimising your Meta Title tag is still an important factor that search engines use to determine the relevancy of a page against the search query.

In this case, to maintain your optimised title tag on Google’s listings for company name related searches, you must include your company name as well as a relevant home page search term(s) in the home page Meta Title. This will not only support your brand but it will avoid Google using an old dmoz listing in favour for your optimised title tag.

Industry News – What We Are Reading This Week (12)

Posted on by Rosie Freshwater


What have the ‘Froggers‘ been spending their time reading in the last week? Here’s a rundown of our favourite stories and articles from the world of search:

Paid Search

http://www.promotionworld.com/se/articles/article/080827doyougoogle.html
Interesting demographic data on the users of the 2 major search engines Google and Yahoo.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/headsmacking-tip-6-test-with-paid-search-before-you-target-with-seo
Tips from SEOMoz on how to utilise your paid search campaigns to aid search term research for your SEO campaigns

The following are all related to the recent changes to the Google AdWords Algorithm
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080822-182348

http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2008/08/25/google-first-page-bid/

http://www.ppchero.com/google-is-reshuffling-the-adwords-deck-again-prepare-for-another-quality-score-update/

http://www.traffick.com/2008/08/adwords-27-beautiful-plumage-and.asp

Google News

Here is a round up of what we have been reading about our friend Google this week!

http://searchengineland.com/080825-201142.php

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/at-loss-for-words.html
Google launches its new “Suggest” feature on its home page

http://searchengineland.com/080827-082906.php
Google Checkout is being promoted further within AdWords listings

http://www.reuters.com/article/mergersNews/idUSBNG33978920080829
Google is progressing with its AdWords partnership with Yahoo despite a probe from the US government

SEO

http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/index.shtml
A 17 mini-chapter tutorial on html that every online marketer should know

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/08/31/geographical-modifiers-and-relevancy
Google has furthered its customisation of results by locality

http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/61afebf8cb502be7/
A thread on Google Groups clarifying how Google handles Flash

That’s it for this week, keep up the reading!!!

Industry News – What are Leapfrogg reading this week? (11)

Posted on by Ben Potter

Us ‘froggers‘ are a busy bunch! We spend a huge amount of our time hunting down the best of the weeks search marketing news and articles so you don’t have to!

Here are this weeks top picks!

Social Media

http://searchengineland.com/080812-122300.php
Some really boring products that have rocked the world of social media. If a blender can cause this much of a stir (sorry!), anything can!

Paid Search

http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/blog/?p=165
Some nice research from the guys at Site Visibility exploring advertising opportunities around the Olympic Games.

http://www.ppchero.com/how-to-use-google%e2%80%99s-insights-for-search-to-improve-your-ppc-management/ Google’s new Insights for Search tool and to how to use it to improve Paid Search performance.

http://searchengineland.com/080813-085240.php
Bidding on competitor terms – the debate continues – should we be advising or condoning it?

SEO

http://sphinn.com/story/64405
If you are focusing on rankings as a measure of your search marketing efforts, think again!

http://contentranch.com/google-geo-search-tool
Wow! What a great tool. This allows you to see how Google results appear in different locations.

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4266/Forget-Community-Forget-Conversation-Business-Blogging-Is-About-SEO.aspx
Too many search marketers forget that blogging is great for search engine rankings! Yes, its great for the fluffy stuff (community, conversation, brand building, etc) but blogs continue to have great weighting in the search engine results!

Usability

http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article4885.asp
Managing the multitude of passwords we use online is a nightmare. Here are some nice tips to help your visitors keep track.

Until next week…

Search Made Simple – SEO, Star Wars and The Force

Posted on by admin

Please excuse this post but I just couldn’t help myself. In my quest for analogies I was just sat here thinking if there were any parallels that could be drawn between SEO and Star Wars? It didn’t take me long to come up with the following:

Just like the force SEO has a dark and a light side.

These are more commonly known as Black Hat and White Hat, however for the purposes of this post they shall be referred to as the Dark and the Light side. Essentially the Dark side will intentionally try to trick or deceive the search engines, whilst the Light side will focus on user led techniques that actually add value to your site.

The Dark side often employ some of the following techniques:

  • Hidden Text

  • Cloaked content

  • Doorway pages

  • Duplicate Content

  • Splogs – Blogs made of nonsense that link to your site.

  • Link farming

The Light side are more likely to:

  • Make sure you have the right relevant keywords in your site copy

  • Create pages that are integral to your site and add value

  • Create interesting useful content

  • Make sure you are mirroring your offline PR online

  • Get you involved in your online community

  • Encourage you to blog and share your wisdom

The light side can often require a greater amount of work and as we have seen with Luke in the Star Wars films there is often temptation to give into the dark side, however we all know that eventually the light side will emerge triumphant.

If your black hat SEO campaign is like the Death Star it can often appear that nothing can stop you from dominating the universe of SERP’s, however just like the Death Star there is a weakness and this can be exploited by your competitors.

Even if your black hat techniques are not detected by automated bots just one carefully aimed spam report can see your whole campaign explode into a million pieces leaving you with no option but start the whole thing again from scratch and your business in tatters.

I am sure I have only skimmed the surface here and want to really get as many Star Wars / SEO analogies as I possibly can.

So please post your comments no matter how absurd they may sound.

Image available as a poster from www.firebox.com

Leapfrogg shortlisted in business awards!

Posted on by Ben Potter

We are never ones to blow our own trumpet but sometimes it just has to be done!

We are delighted to have been shortlisted in three categories for the Brighton and Hove Business Awards (BAHBAs) which acknowledge and celebrate organisations and individuals who help build the ‘Brighton brand’. We have been shortlist for the ‘Business Growth Award’, ‘Best Customer Service Award’ as well as the ‘Best Place to Work Award’.

The awards application process involves the completion of a questionnaire for each of the awards being entered. This is a great chance to really think long and hard about every aspect of your business, identifying both strengths and weaknesses. From here companies are shortlisted before then enduring a ‘Dragon’s Den‘ style grilling from the judges. I highly recommend using the application process for awards of any nature as a fantastic opportunity to review your business in a structured way and by involving all of your staff in the process.

The ceremony itself is to be held on the 26th of September and Leapfrogg, along with 32 other businesses, will take a table to find out the winner of each of the 13 awards. The venue for the illustrious Brighton award ceremony is the Hilton Metropole and we’ll be enjoying a full champagne reception as well as a four course meal. Woo hoo!

The award scheme is supported by some of the city’s most affluent companies including iCrossing, Legal & General, Brighton and Hove City Teaching Primary Care Trust, MDHub, Hilton Brighton Metropole, First Capital Connect, NixonMcInnes, Brighton & Hove City Council, The Argus, University of Brighton and award organisers, Midnight Communications. The sponsors were this year also joined for the first time by Royal Mail and Allied Irish Bank.

Wish us luck!

Yahoo’s “Optimise Ad Display” and the case of the paused ad groups!

Posted on by Amelia Pratt

Have you ever, like me, navigated through the ad copy in your Yahoo Search Marketing campaign and found random ad copy variations paused?

The first time this happened I called a member of Yahoo’s customer service team and asked them what could have caused this? They had no idea, and asked me to monitor it. I duely did so, and downloaded/uploaded bulk sheets of all of the campaigns, altering the component status of each ad groups’ ad copy to “ON”.

All went well for a couple of weeks, but then i started to see these “phantom pausings” of ad copy within each of our clients’ campaigns.

By this time we had been allocated a dedicated account manager who finally gave me the reason for this anoyance. In each ad groups’ settings we had “Optimise Ad Display” enabled. This means that Yahoo will predict which ad it feels will work best, and pause the others in the ad group – gee thanks Yahoo!

If you, like us, want to manually test the performance of ads and serve ad copy of different messenging, you will need to do the following:

In each campaign click:

This will open a bulk download of that specific campaign.

You will then need to go to Column C and alter the status of each ad from Off to On (assuming you want to resume all ads)

In order to keep this setting you will need to turn off the “Optimise Ad Display”. To do this go to Column AD, and change any status’ that are currently ON, to OFF.

You will then need to save the spreadsheet you have been working on as a unicode type(under “Save As Type”). Then name the spreadsheet whatever you wish, but ensure that you attach a “.csv” onto the end of it. Both the unicode and .csv components are necessary to import successfully to Yahoo.

You will then need to go to the Import option under the “Campaigns” tab.

Upload the file that you have just ammended and give it an Import Name. Note, that the Import Name is for your purposes and will have no effect on the upload being successful or failing.

Then UPLOAD.

If the upload fails, you have probably not saved the spreadsheet correctly. REMEMBER, Unicode & .csv.

I would be interested if this has bugged anyone else!!

Happy PPC-ing & have a great weekend!