Category Archives: Search engine optimisation

Christmas retail: gearing up for Cyber Monday (part 2 – website optimisation)

Posted on by Suzanne Taylor

Yesterday, Ben looked at how careful research and planning is essential to maximising sales on Cyber Monday, and over the course of the Christmas period. Now that you have established your ‘hero’ products, target audience and key messages, I turn attention to your website. After all, dedicating time to research and planning, and increasing investment to acquire traffic over the Christmas period, will be wasted if your website fails to convert that traffic into sales.

With this in mind, and time against you, we recommend you spend day two of five preparing your website for the uplift in traffic you can expect by executing tactics in paid search, link building and social media, all of which we will be looking at as the week unfolds.

Day 2 – Website optimisation

According to Logan Tod‘s Annual Online Shopping Index, the factors most important to consumers online shopping experience last Christmas were listed as delivery options, site search and product availability, and well-written copy.

On this basis, here are some relatively quick-win considerations in each of these areas:

Delivery information and options

  • There is nothing worse than getting to the very end of the checkout to be hit with a larger than expected delivery charge. Ensure your delivery costs are made clear from outset, ideally on product pages
  • If you can, offer a range of delivery options and prices. For some customers next day delivery will be essential. For others, as long as it received prior to Christmas, next day will not be so much of a priority
  • Consider using delivery options as an extra incentive to encourage sales, for example by offering free delivery on orders made between certain dates, or for orders over a certain value
  • Do not make promises you cannot keep when it comes to delivery. Let down a customer by failing to deliver to them what was promised and on time, and they are unlikely to be as forgiving at Christmas as they may be at other times of the year

Site search

  • As we get closer to Christmas, search queries will become more specific as prospects get closer to the point of making their purchase (having already worked through the research and consideration stages of the buying cycle). Does your site search function stand up to this by displaying relevant results for longer tail searches?
  • Ensure that your site search functionality is set up to account for different methods by which customers may search. For example, do you send out a catalogue? Do products therefore have codes attached to them? If so, customers may search using these codes so ensure the site search function will deliver results on this basis
  • If there are no search results to return, be sure to offer alternatives. Nothing is more likely to drive a prospect away than the message ‘sorry this product is not available’ accompanied by little or no accompanying help or advice

Product availability

  • Do not allow customers to add a product to their basket only to get to the checkout and be informed it is actually not available. Or worse still, pay for the product, receive the confirmation email only to then be informed later on that stock is not available (I’m amazed so many retail sites still allow this to happen!). Therefore, ensure your stocking information on the website is as up to date as it can possibly be. If you are utilising an automated back end system that maintains live stocking information on the front-end website this should be straightforward. If not, you need to establish a manual process to update stock levels at least every couple of hours
  • If products are not available, be sure to display information detailing when they will be back in stock. Better still, allow customers the functionality to reserve the product when it becomes available again. If it’s too late to build this automated functionality into your website, add a call to action that encourages the visitor to ‘call and reserve’

Copy (and other types of content)

  • Ensure your product descriptions are accurate, well written and optimised with relevant search terms. Are you REALLY selling the features and benefits of not only the product itself but also why the prospect should buy from you?
  • Ensure your product images are of good quality and tagged with appropriate descriptions
  • Create content that will help support your product descriptions, and therefore sales, especially if your research and planning has indicated that you are targeting a different audience at Christmas to the one you would normally attract. What content can you create that will help a male audience, for example, to make a more considered purchase of ladies underwear? Your aim is to make the buying process as straightforward and pain free as possible. Make sure this complementary content, buyers guides for example, is highly visible alongside product descriptions, downloadable and shareable
  • If you have promotional areas on your homepage, for example a banner, ensure they are pushing the ‘hero products’ and key messages you have established during the research and planning stage
  • When attempting to cross sell, ensure the products you deem as complementary are indeed so in the eyes of your customer. The disappointment of finding a product is out of stock is hard enough to bear, offering alternative products that are almost entirely different just adds insult to injury and will not be seen as at all helpful
  • Make sure your contact details are obvious and if offering support, particularly by phone, have a clearly visible number on every page

Checkout process

  • Importantly, test your checkout process now to make sure it is running normally
  • Assuming you have conversion funnels set up in your Analytics software, you should be able to identify where visitors typically drop out of the checkout process and to what extent. Based on this data are there any quick and easy tests you can run to increase conversion rates, such as:
  1. Removing the need to register an account before making a purchase. This is a sure fire way to have potential customers drop out of the checkout process in their droves yet so many retail sites still insist on it
  2. Where you do have forms, can you remove any of the fields, which if you really thought about it are unnecessary?
  3. Can you add progression indicators so users know how long the process will be i.e. this is step 1 of 2?
  4. Are you providing too many distractions at the point of purchase? Attempting to sell other products at this late stage, although admirable, may actually lead to abandonment, the exact opposite of what you were looking for
  5. Are the payment methods clear?
  6. Do you need to reinforce the security of your checkout. Shoppers may be more wary of fraud around Christmas
  7. Are you communicating the next steps clearly, for example will the customer receive a confirmation email? Will they receive an email when their product is dispatched?

And finally…

Increasing sales over the Christmas period is somewhat wasted if you do not seek to build relationships with newly acquired customers. Any promotional efforts over the Christmas period should be aimed at developing ongoing dialogue with new customers.

Therefore, ensure you offer newly acquired customers an incentive to come back. Consider how to collect data so you can engage with these customers again in the future. Request that they join your social networks for further offers and add them to your mailing list, for example (the latter with their permission of course).

Now that you your website is ready to go, you can focus on efforts to increase targeted traffic. Tomorrow, Amelia looks at paid search.

Until then…

Christmas retail: gearing up for Cyber Monday (part 1- research and planning)

Posted on by Ben Potter

Back in January, Logan Tod‘s Annual Online Shopping Index predicted that online sales will hit £1.26 billion during the Christmas 2010 shopping season, with UK consumers intending to do 23% more shopping online than they did in 2009.

If you’ve not yet put plans in place to take full advantage of Christmas 2010, you’re not too late…just. Although we’d usually recommend retailers start planning for Christmas during the height of the summer, there’s still enough time to execute tactics to make this Christmas your most successful yet.

Every day this week, we’ll be publishing a post looking at a different area of your online strategy, covering website optimisation, paid search, editorial link building and social media. If you’re in the early stages of your Christmas planning, we recommend you follow suit by dedicating a day to each of your main online marketing channels for brainstorming, planning and execution…but do it quickly…the clock is ticking!

The culmination of your efforts should be aimed at maximising sales on Cyber Monday, recognised as the biggest Internet shopping day of the year. It is the first Monday in December, this year falling on the 6th.

With that target in mind, we start by looking at research and planning.

So, down tools, take some time out and let’s get started:

Day 1: Research and planning

To maximise sales over the Christmas period you need a solid plan in place. Before looking at specific channels, such as paid search, we recommend focusing some thought on five key areas; products, target audience, key messages, marketing channels, and ensuring your business is prepared for the uplift in sales you can expect by executing your tactical plan.

By taking some time out to consider these five areas it will provide much needed focus for your Christmas marketing efforts, ensuring you are selling the right products, to the right audience, at a profit.

Products

Think about the products that are most commercially viable to push over the Christmas period. There is a lot to consider here; first and foremost, are you price competitive, especially compared to major players such as Amazon? If you don’t consider Amazon a competitor, think again; they sell products crossing virtually every market from consumer electronics to clothing…and they do so at very competitive prices. This highlights how you might need to re-think your competitive landscape; run searches across Google for your key product lines to see who is present and their price points.

Also, think about your margins as these are likely to be squeezed as marketing costs, such as those for paid search advertising, increase over the ultra-competitive Christmas period. Once you factor in these costs, you may find that the products you thought you wanted to push may not be the ones that make commercial sense to do so.

In summary, consider products that are unique to you, where you can compete on price or where you offer such a compelling reason to shop with you that price is of secondary importance. Based on this analysis, select your ‘hero’ or ‘champion’ products; those that have the potential to perform best for you, and focus your Christmas marketing efforts around them. And then consider other products that compliment your ‘hero’s’, using cross selling techniques on your website; dynamic merchandising for example, to increase basket values. We’ll look at this further on day 2.

Target audience

Once you have established your ‘hero’ products, consider who you are trying to sell these products to; appreciate that your target audience may be different at Christmas to other times of the year; adjust your web content and marketing messages accordingly to appeal to this new audience. For example, if you sell ladies clothing, your audience will typically be female. But in the build up to Christmas, your site is likely to attract a male audience searching for that perfect gift. Think about the motivating factors for this audience. Unlike your typical female shopper, who may be happier to spend time browsing, men will typically be looking for ease and immediacy. Consider how you can tweak your messaging to account for this. Also, begin to consider additional content you can create to aid the target audience, in this instance helpful advice or buyers guides you can offer to men. Again, we develop this further on Day 2.

Key messages

Talking of key messages, what is it that will make you stand out on Cyber Monday and over the Christmas shopping period as a whole? Are you offering the cheapest prices, the widest selection of products or no quibble returns? Competition is fierce over the Christmas period – establish these key messages as they will be integral to your web content, paid search ad copy, press releases and so on.

Channels

Consumers expect the ability to connect with your brand across a number of channels…seamlessly. You must therefore ensure that if running promotions around Cyber Monday, for example, that they are timed to hit all channels, and therefore customers, simultaneously whether they are on your website, following you on social networks, using your mobile app or of course, in-store.

Ensure your channels are well established before dedicating too much time and resource to them. I would argue now is not the time to be moving into mobile marketing, for example, unless planned well in advance. Focus on those channels you are familiar with and that you have already demonstrated provide the business with a return.

Be prepared to deliver on your promises

For consumers, Christmas is a stressful time. Many view shopping online as means of avoiding the high street, instead enjoying pain free shopping from the comfort of their armchair.

Use this to your advantage by ensuring information concerning delivery and returns policies are highly visible across the website. But, be absolutely sure you deliver on these promises. Failure to do so at any other time of year might be forgivable – but let down a customer in the build up to Christmas and they are unlikely to show you much in the way of festive goodwill. Any future relationship you hoped to build will be destroyed in an instant, not to mention the likelihood of their anger being vented across social networks, thereby spreading this negative experience to a wider audience.

Therefore, ensure the business is prepared for the uplift in sales you can expect. Are you well stocked with the items available on your website (especially those ‘hero’ products), do you have appropriate staffing levels in place and can your fulfilment channels cope with a sudden increase in demand?

With time dedicated to thinking around each of the above areas, you should feel ready to move onto day 2; getting your website ready…

Until then, happy planning…

Google Instant – can everyone keep calm please?

Posted on by Ben Potter

No doubt you have heard about Google’s latest innovation in search; Google Instant. The basic premise is that Google predicts what you’re searching for in much the same way as the Google Suggest feature. The difference is that the actual results for the query are displayed and indeed change as you type.

The first thing to note is that this feature is currently only available to UK searchers who are logged into their Google account. I, for one, would love to know how the % of Google users in the UK who actually have an account and therefore how many people outside the search industry, at this stage, are aware of the change…probably very few. So before you panic about the potential impact of Instant, remember that the average Google user does not have a Google account and at this point of time would not have a clue what Google Instant is!

Anyway, to see it in action, check out the video below:

Speculation is rife as to the impact this will have on SEO. Many of the usual culprits are coming out of he woodwork to claim ‘Instant is the death of SEO’ (yawn!). I’m not going to spend time regurgitating what is being hotly debated elsewhere. Instead, I want to provide a very simple assessment of what we feel Instant means for SEO; in our view, very little. It is certainly not the death of SEO. People are still searching and Google needs to deliver relevant results. Whilst this is the case, there will always be a need for good SEO in some form…period.

Therefore, the basic principles of SEO remain unchanged; create well designed, intuitive and content rich websites TARGETED AT USERS NOT SEARCH ENGINES. Build quality links from relevant websites. Create content your target audience will find of value and market this content to the websites they frequent, and so on.

The only fundamental difference we can see is the behaviour of searchers. Search journeys may be longer because users will be interrupted by keywords and phrases they may not have considered or in fact are completely off-topic. Alternatively, generic searches may decrease in favour of longer tail phrases as people keep typing and refining their search until they see the most relevant results page. For those who have been optimising for both generic and long tail terms this won’t be an issue.

So in conclusion, Google Instant is certainly an interesting and snazzy update to the Google search experience but will it change the face of SEO? – I doubt it.

So with that ladies and gentlemen of search; keep calm and carry on!

Hijacking the news agenda for link building

Posted on by Johanna Hakala

Out of the many editorial link development tactics we use on a weekly basis, hijacking the news agenda is certainly one of the most challenging, but also one of the most exciting and potentially lucrative. Jumping onto a live story requires the team to keep a keen eye on the developing news agenda, spotting an opportunity for a client and then crafting a relevant response.

Our most recent news hijack is also one of our most successful to date and was on behalf of long time client, Ecclesiastical Insurance.

To provide a brief background, 70% of weddings are uninsured and when you consider that the average wedding costs £20,000, this is a huge financial investment not to cover.  Our client Ecclesiastical’s cover is famous for it’s ‘mix and match’ policy, that enables couples to personalise their insurance depending on the elements they are investing in.  Most wedding insurance covers a standard set of suppliers or circumstances so we’re always looking for opportunities to educate the target audience on Ecclesiastical’s offering. So when as a part of our daily scan of the news, we spotted wedding site confetti.co.uk possibly going into administration (22nd August), we jumped into action.

After a quick call to the client (who as a marketing veteran had similar ideas!), we agreed a plan of action.  To speed up approvals, the client’s internal PR team drafted a release for the offline media, which we were allowed to edit and tweak to work for our online contacts and include key anchor text (one of our targets for Ecclesiastical is to improve rankings for the key non-brand search term, ‘wedding insurance’).

As the release was being approved, we drew up a media list of key national and insurance media.

Selling in of the story began on 23rd of August, the day Confetti.co.uk actually went into administration and after our initial sell-in to our key media, we ‘followed the sun’ on the sell-in and handed the release over to the international news wires so it could be distributed to insurance and financial media across the world.

Although we were confident that we’d get some pick up, the response over the next two days was phenomenal. By the end of the week, we had secured 125 links from separate domains for the story – 98% of which featured our key non-brand anchor text, ‘wedding insurance’.  A fantastic result within an incredibly short space of time.

Even more exciting was the calibre of sites that picked up the story.  Yahoo! Finance, Marketwatch.com and the Fox news channel sites all ran our release, amongst many others.

Within the space of five days we had spotted a story, worked with a client’s online and offline marketing team to maximise the opportunity and secured 125 editorial links for key anchor text.  All in all, an exhausting, but exciting week for the Leapfrogg social media and content team, and more importantly a great result for the client.

Learn from the Froggers – News hijacking do’s and don’ts:

So how can you replicate this success? Well, here are a few pointers for both agencies and clients to consider in making this work:

Do read and watch the news…like a hawk!:

Opportunities can pop up at any time, but certain types of brands will always find something to jump on at certain times of the year.  For example, retail brands should always be looking to comment around traditional sales times or seasonal peaks. Travel brands should keep an eye out in the run up to summer – airline strikes give you good opportunities to be the consumer champion, for example.

Do agree a plan of action or process well in advance:

Stories will always need to be turned around quickly – often same day – before the news agenda changes again, so prepare as much templated information and discuss the agency / client processes well before any opportunity arises.  Who would draft the release? Who would approve it?  If key contacts are on holiday, who makes the decisions? And if the media need quotes, images or case studies urgently, who is the go-to to source the collateral you don’t already have to hand?

Understand that the media is a fickle mistress!:

Sometimes today’s news can most definitely be tomorrow’s chip paper – understand that and appreciate that if you don’t give the media what they want and when they want it, you’ll lose the opportunity.  Conversely (and perversely!) some stories can run and run.  It’s difficult for the news editors themselves to predict what’s going to happen next, so appreciate that your agency will not be able to anticipate the twists and turns of a story.  In this way, trust your team to sell in when they think it’s right and to be real consultants to your client and advise you when it’s time to give up.

Enjoy it!

News hijacking is fast and furious, but when it works like it has done for us this occasion, it is one of the most rewarding tools that we keep on ice in our little link development pond here at Leapfrogg.

If you have any similar experiences, get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

How multichannel retailers can benefit from Google’s new search results layout

Posted on by Rosie Freshwater

If you’ve been searching on Google in the last couple of weeks you may have noticed some changes to the layout of the search results page. Google has launched its new advanced search layout and there are plenty of snazzy things you can do with your search results, some of which were available before but perhaps tucked away and therefore you may not have known about them.

There are plenty of great blog posts (like this one from @dannysullivan) that run you through the different options available and how to use them. However, we thought we would focus on some of the main functions that benefit retailers and how they can use them to improve on their multichannel marketing efforts.

First let’s have a look at the new column on the left where all these lovely new tools sit.

If we conduct a search for “designer handbags” this is the page of results we get.

For a while now Google has incorporated a number of different media types, such as images and video, into their natural search results (this is called Universal Search in Google’s case or blended search elsewhere). Google’s new look search results page now includes a very useful list of search options on the left hand side making it easy to refine your search according to images, blog posts, news, video and so on.

Once you have refined your search,  to view video results only for example, you are presented with a further set of options in the lower part of the left hand column to refine your results still further. In the case of video, you can refine by length, quality and source (amongst others).

We believe this added functionality presents a number of opportunities for multichannel retailers, namely to:

  • Increase brand & product visibility to shoppers
  • Find influential people to review and talk about products
  • Find and engage with customers
  • Research hot topics to help shape a social search strategy
  • Help measure the impact of your marketing efforts and tweak accordingly

Let’s look at each of these in turn:

Increase brand & product visibility to shoppers

Consumers are becoming far more sophisticated in how they search for products online. The new layout from Google will facilitate this and retailers need to be aware of the areas where they must be prominent by presenting relevant content:

Images
Although image search has been a large part of the Google experience for a while now the more prominent advanced search option opens up opportunities to increase the visibility of your products to engaged searchers.

As you can see, a search for “designer handbags” now brings up the normal page of results but with a whole new bunch of refined searches in the left hand column. You can now refine by size, type of image, and even colour.

By creating great imagery in the first instance and then optimising it accordingly, this is a great opportunity  for retailers to have their products featuring for a wider range of targeted searches. Make sure your product images are named according to the type of image (i.e. photo, drawing, etc) and include other details, such as colour.

e.g. /red-d&g-tote-designer-handbag.jpg

The more well optimised imagery you have on your site, the more exposure your products will get within image search. And as retailers will only be too well aware, when prospects are shopping online, especially for higher ticket items, great imagery can have a significant impact on conversion rates.

Video
Video is a further extension of good imagery and allows a higher level of engagement with customers. Product demonstrations or showing the product in a real life situation, such as catwalk style clips for clothing, can have a dramatic impact on conversion rates. And with a more prominent position on the search results page, and numerous options to refine video results, we should see more searchers viewing more videos on the search engines.

With the rise of YouTube and social media it’s been increasingly important to get involved in creating video content for the past few years. Now that Google has opened up its video results it is even more so.

Again, make sure you are optimising your video properly whether you are putting it on your site or on channels such as YouTube.

Maps The maps results option in the new layout shows Google Local Search results overlaid on a map. Therefore those looking to buy a product in a particular location can find the nearest store stocking that item. This has huge potential for retailers, especially as so few currently appear to have local business listings for their stores, optimised with their key products. Look at the results when we conduct our search for “designer handbags”:

Regardless of product range or number of stores there is huge potential in setting up and optimising Google Local Listings to ensure you are visible to regional shoppers, and importantly those searching on smart phones using mapping applications.

Find influential people to review and talk products

As search marketing and PR have converged, an essential component of a successful digital marketing strategy for retailers is engaging with ‘influencers’. In other words, bloggers, journalists, twitterers and owners of Facebook groups whose opinions, comments and product reviews can have a significant bearing on a retailers sales, brand visibility and reputation, as well as search engine rankings (every review can generate a link to a brands site).

There are two sections of the new advanced search layout that we think can help retailers in their search for those all important influencers.

Blogs
Using this advanced search feature, when searching for product related keywords, will yield a list of bloggers most relevant to those products i.e. those people that appear to be most active in talking about, designer handbags, for example:

This gives the retailer a great starting point to select the bloggers they should be building relationships with. It may be that a retailer sends their latest product as an exclusive for the blogger to review, perhaps offer some useful content or ask if they could have a guest blog slot. By building these relationships it gains the retailer extra visibility, traffic and perhaps even a link or two!

The refined search options include ‘by timeframe’ so bloggers can be approached who have been talking about the retailers type of products in the last few days, making this search option fantastic for identifying those talking about the latest trends and topics (particularly relevant to fashion).

Updates
The ‘updates’ section in the advanced search results shows what’s happening on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. These networks are highly relevant to retailers as many of their prospects and customers will be active in talking about, sharing and reviewing their latest purchases. Like bloggers and journalists, individual customers can also have an influencing affect over their friends, colleagues and peers.

Using the updates results section retailers can look through the list of people mentioning their specific products, or similar products, and what they are saying about them. They can then click through to visit relevant Twitter or Facebook profiles to see how many followers/fans/friends they have to determine their level of influence.

Engaging with prospects and customers across social media channels, in an open and public way, can lead to a positive mention of a particular product which will be seen by all the influencers followers. In addition to this, updates from networks such as Twitter, are increasingly being featured in search results, and in real-time, so regular mentions of a retailers brand or products in these spaces will start to have more and more impact on their search engine visibility.

Engage with customers

There are 2 areas of the new layout that retailers can utilise to engage on a one on one basis with customers:

Updates
This section as we have mentioned previously not only allows a retailer to research influential people who are talking about their products but also allows them to engage directly with them.

This great blog post by Danny Sullivan shows that by searching using terms such as “anyone know + key product” it will show all of the updates from people likely to be asking questions about those products. In turn, the retailer can answer those questions publicly therefore engaging with a customer or prospect, whilst also demonstrating to anyone else who might see that conversation that they are personable and care about the individual customer.

Discussions
In exactly the same way as an update search, the discussions search will show discussions happening in forums across the web related to particular products. This, again, is a great opportunity for retailers to get involved where their target audience is hanging out and provide the answers to their questions in a completely transparent manner. Be informative but friendly and the added brand visibility, loyalty and back links could have a dramatic affect on sales.

In the example below we have used the “anyone know” search again.

Again, there are a number of refined searches that can be used to filter by time and length of discussion, for example. Retailers should utilise these to make sure the discussions they get involved with are timely and on topic.

Research hot topics for a social search strategy

Central to the success of a digital marketing strategy for retailers is creating great content, in a wide variety of formats.

Creating useful content aimed at prospects and customers increases time spent on site, conversion rates, brand visibility, loyalty and search engine visibility. But how do retailers decide the type and format of content that will be most useful to their audience?

They use Google advanced search features, such as News and Updates of course!

News
Retailers will know the key products they want to create content around (the ones that yield the most sales and/or best margins). Using relevant search terms within the News section of Google search gives great insight into what is being written around those products at the moment and by who, as well as further insight into changes in the retailers industry that might affect core customers.

Retailers should look at what is being said within the online publications that their target market would read. If there is talk about “designer handbags being stolen” then write a guide to keeping expensive accessories safe or insuring against theft. If there is a key celebrity endorsing a certain handbag then write a blog post about how a particular range would suit the outfits they wear.

Again the search can be refined by date so retailers know they are writing about hot topics.

Updates
Researching using updates can give great insight and ideas to help shape a content strategy.

A key piece of information is the time line at the top of the page which shows peaks and troughs in mentions of a certain product. Retailers can therefore plan to release fresh content around a certain product at the time where activity online is at it’s highest. Strike while the iron is hot!

See the impact of marketing efforts and tweak accordingly
The Update tool is also extremely useful to measure the impact that a marketing campaign is having on brand mentions and conversation online.

The example below shows the conversation around the Burberry “Art of the Trench” campaign. It combines Facebook and Twitter updates and shows what people think of the campaign and the way they are engaging. Burberry can use this data to tweak the campaign to address any issues people have with it and focus the content around the campaign to fit with the language their target audience are using to talk about it.

As the updates are in real time, using these search filters can give an instant picture of online sentiment surrounding a campaign as it is launched to allow tweaking for better engagement and results.

Retailers can find the people who are evangelising about the campaign, engage with them and get the message spread further, deal with any confusion others may have about how to get involved and tweak the optimisation of content according to the language people are using online.

This type of response tracking works equally well with other types of marketing material likely to form part of a multichannel marketing strategy. Just sent out a catalogue? Then check what people are saying online. Are they happy to have received it, what do they think of the layout and so on?

Or perhaps track people’s immediate response to a new advertising campaign, such as this search for ‘M and S’.

Summary

We have only really touched the surface here on the opportunities offered to retailers with the new layout from Google. We have not even mentioned Google Shopping Search!

As mentioned before many of these options for search have been around for a while but many people using Google will not have been utilising them. Now they are right there in front of the customers eye retailers should be working hard to ensure their digital marketing efforts tie in with them.

The additional research tools offered are absolutely free! Any retailer who can’t afford sophisticated buzz monitoring and social media research tools should view Google’s added functionality as a viable alternative.

So where should you place the new asynchronous Google analytics code?

Posted on by admin

Google recently released the new asynchronous analytics code but there is some confusion about where this should be placed due to an apparent error in most analytics accounts.

The old code used to go just before the closing </body> tag as it could slow the page down, however the new code takes advantage of browser support meaning the code loads much faster and can ultimately be placed much further up the page.

However, if you log into you analytics account you will see the following instructions:

But if you click the learn more link you will see conflicting information that states the code must be placed in the header of the page.

 

So which is it? After the opening <body> tag or before the closing </head> tag?

Luckily we are not the first people to spot this and a discussion on Analytics help boards has provided the answer. Simply put you should opt for placing the tag in the head section of the page ideally before the closing </head> tag.

This could however mean quite a few CMS updates will be required to ensure code is now placed in the correct place. For those people who can only add analytics code via their CMS the real question is will this new asynchronous code still track correctly if it isn’t in the header?

If this code is placed in the body of the page it will still work, however Google is keen to ensure it catches as many visits as possible. By placing the code higher up the page in the header it is more likely it will capture every visit (and bounce) as it will load before anything else.

Google should have already updated the Analytics advice and this thread suggests we are simply waiting for the update to filter through to all analytics accounts.

However I always think its better to be safe than sorry so make sure you place the new asynchronous code before he final </head> tag rather than in the <body> of your html. Also make sure you test the site after the new code has been installed. Make sure it works well in all browsers as there are some reports of issues in IE6 and make sure you check the data in analytics after 24 hours to see what was reported in case there is any data missing.

A beginners guide to: real time search (part 2)

Posted on by admin

Last time I introduced you to the concept of real-time search. In this second installment I look at how you need to adapt your search marketing efforts to take full advantage of this potentially game-changing development. Although it’s early days for real-time search all the signs are that it will become an increasingly important part of how search engines deliver highly relevant and newsworthy information to users. Therefore, the winners will be those online marketers that adapt early.

I’m going to begin by looking at the sources search engines use to populate their real-time search results because naturally that leads to the activities you need to incorporate into your online strategy.

While Bing currently concentrates on Twitter as its primary source of real-time information, Google includes sources such as Google News links, Google Blog Search links, Google Buzz posts, as well as Jaiku, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, MySpace and Facebook fan page updates.

With most, if not all of these sites having a social element to them, the introduction of real time search reinforces the importance of a well-thought out content and social media strategy to complement ‘traditional’ SEO efforts. On this basis, I recommend you consider the following action points, not only to take advantage of real-time search, but also to widen your reach and engage directly with your target audience:

  • Set up accounts or profiles across the above websites even if you do not plan on using them quite yet. By doing so, you are at least taking ownership of those accounts under your brand name (before somebody else does!)
  • If you are going to use one social network to take advantage of real time search in the short term, choose Twitter and establish a strategy for its use (assuming it is relevant to your target audience)
  • Develop a robust content strategy. Success in social media, and therefore real-time search, is dictated by the quality and relevancy of the information you publish whether this is 140 character tweet or a video masterpiece. To help…
  • …invest in buzz monitoring software. Not only can you monitor where your brand name is being mentioned online but you can also monitor hot topics to see if they are relevant to your brand or line of business. This in turn will help you shape the content you create and in what format. Getting involved in the most newsworthy conversations makes it more likely you will gain visibility in the search results
  • Once you have created relevant content consider the most appropriate channels by which it can be pushed out. For example, press releases are likely to feature in Google News so ensure you create and distribute them using the right tools when appropriate
  • Get blogging; consider how you can publish regular blog posts relevant to your business / industry. The steady stream of fresh, newsworthy content, particularly in response to the major changes / events/ developments in your market place will, in time, ensure your target audience favours you as a source of up to date and valuable information. Search engines may well begin to so the same
  • Ensure that all of the above is keyword driven. Integrate targeted keywords into your content, utilising hashtags where relevant

The efforts described above will inevitably require additional internal resource. However, the relationship between search, social media and content demands that brands take a more holistic approach to their search engine optimisation efforts. With social media activity having an increasing influence on search engine performance brands cannot afford to sit on the sidelines of social media.

Conclusion

In recent months I’ve introduced you to the latest developments shaping how search engines display their results. What I hope this highlights is that search engines are in a constant state of flux as they seek to provide the most relevant results to their users.

What we must do in instances such as these is to remain clear-headed and focused on making sure that the innovations in question do not catch us out. We must therefore be innovative ourselves. Change can be good as long as you know how to tackle it. With that in mind, keep your eyes peeled for regular updates and advice.

Digital marketing benchmarking report for premium home and garden retailers

Posted on by Ben Potter

Over the course of 2010, Leapfrogg is conducting a series of surveys investigating premium retailers’ use of, and attitudes, towards digital marketing. We are looking at a number of very specific niche markets beginning with home and garden. Further surveys will look at premium fashion, health and beauty, and food and wine.

This first survey was sent to 80 premium home and garden retailers with just over a quarter taking part. Respondents included well recognised high street brands and smaller retailers.

The full report is available to download here. Below we have included some of the key findings:

Use of marketing channels

The top five online marketing channels being ‘heavily’ or ‘partially’ used by premium home and garden retailers are articles and press releases (75%), email marketing (67%), search engine optimisation (67%), paid search (66%) and voucher codes (48%).

Respondents are ‘just getting started’ with social networking (38%), micro-blogging i.e. Twitter (33%), blogging (30%) and involvement in forums and communities (25%).

Interestingly, respondents have ‘no intention of becoming involved’ in the creation of audio (55%) or video content (35%), mobile marketing (33%) and shopping/comparison engines (33%). And although a number of retailers are adopting the use of voucher codes, a further 33% have no intention of using them.

It is suggested that premium home and garden retailers take the time to investigate the opportunities presented by video and mobile in particular. Video and the use of mobile technology to access the Internet, read product reviews and download coupons/vouchers are experiencing significant growth with consumers.

Importance of marketing channels

The top five online channels that are considered most important to the success of the business are search engine optimisation (76%), email marketing (50%), articles and press releases (33%), paid search (30%) and reputation management (25%).

The areas that are felt to be unimportant are voucher codes (33%), social networking (30%), audio (27%), mobile marketing (24%) and shopping and comparison sites (24%).

Understandably, premium brands may feel the use of voucher codes ‘cheapens’ their offering. However, Leapfrogg would consider it a concern that so few companies rate the importance of social networking and mobile marketing, in particular.

Channel rating according to return on investment (ROI)

The key channels that are claimed to deliver return on investment are search engine optimisation (SEO), email marketing, and articles and press releases.

In respect of the other 13 online channels the majority view is that the return on investment is indifferent.  Social networking is perceived to have a very poor return on investment by one quarter of the respondents, suggesting that premium home and garden retailers have not yet implemented appropriate systems to measure their social media marketing efforts with accuracy and in line with business goals.

Channel resource plans

The online activities where resource is being increased in 2010, compared to 2009, are social networking (65%), email marketing (60%), micro-blogging (58%), SEO (57%), activity in forums and communities (43%) and blogging (44%).

Plans to increase resource in social networking is interesting when it is considered that a quarter of respondents perceived social networking to have a very poor return on investment, whilst a lack of internal resource (see later section) was also deemed a significant barrier to the success of social media efforts. It is therefore suggested that premium home and garden retailers need to carefully consider objectives from social media activity, set up appropriate systems to measure performance and ensure adequate levels of in-house resource are dedicated to managing social media effectively.

Multi-channel marketing

Results indicate that respondents combine more traditional online activities, such as SEO, PPC and email when running multi-channel campaigns. Social media and blogging also represent popular channels, yet integrating mobile is very low, despite consumers growing use of smart phone technology to access the Internet.

It is recommended that premium home and garden retailers consider all the ‘touch points’ between brand and consumer and implement multi-channel marketing campaigns that ensure a consistent offering and message is present across all of them.

Management of marketing channels

Marketing is the department responsible for managing all online activities except PR, of which there is either a dedicated department or it is outsourced.  IT is responsible for search engine optimisation (SEO) in just over one third of the retailers who responded, which might suggest it is viewed as a technical discipline as opposed to a marketing activity.

Knowledge of customers

Generally, premium home and garden retailers feel that they need to know more about the behaviour of their customers online. 82% do not know how their customers behave on social networks and 66% do not know what their customers are saying about their brand online.

The latter is a particular point of interest as consumers are increasingly willing, and easily able, to share their thoughts with hundreds, possibly thousands of others through blogs, forums, reviews sites and social networks. In turn, purchasing decisions are heavily influenced by the positive and negative reviews a retailer may receive online. It is therefore suggested respondents investigate the use of buzz monitoring tools to quickly identify the conversations happening around their brand and products.

55% feel informed about their customer’s behaviour on their website suggesting respondents have implemented, and are using analytical tools to good effect. However, 45% appear not to be using tools, such as Google Analytics, to great effect therefore limiting the opportunity to make informed decisions on optimising site performance.

Knowledge of search engine ranking factors

Premium home and garden retailers rate keyword placement (67%), website architecture (57%), Meta tags (55%), the user experience (48%) and external links (43%) as crucial to achieving high search engine rankings. Rich media content and blogging were considered by the majority as important but not crucial to improving search engine rankings.

A quarter of respondents were unsure of the impact on search engine rankings of choice of technology and social media activity. Concerning the latter, it is recommended respondents investigate the relationship between search and social media as these channels cannot, and should not, operate in isolation of one another.

Goal setting

Half of premium home and garden retailers used past performance as a benchmark for setting goals for digital marketing activity along with basing predictions on financial goals.

One third of respondents do not currently set goals for digital marketing activity. It is highly recommended that premium home and garden retailers work to establish objectives using SMART methodology to ensure there is direction and focus for digital marketing activity. In addition, appropriate tools and processes should be put in place to measure goals accurately.

Ability to track goals accurately

Respondents rated their ability to track search engine rankings (57%), online conversions (48%), email marketing performance (47%), behaviour of site visitors (35%) and affiliate marketing (33%) as good.

Areas not being tracked accurately include conversions from social media activity (74%), mobile marketing (73%) and customer lifetime value (71%).

59% do not currently track overall return on investment from digital marketing activity.

This would indicate there is still a great deal of progress to be made in the area of measurement. Retailers should be implementing the appropriate tools and processes to measure the impact of each online channel. Better tracking will not only enable return on investment to be calculated from each channel but also provide invaluable data for forecasting and developing future strategies.

Agency relationships

The split between managing work in-house and the use of external agencies is 50:50 with a slight preference for conducting more of the work in-house but using specialist agencies where needed. Those that use external resources use specialist SEO agencies, full service digital agencies, web designers, affiliate marketing and PR companies.

Premium home and garden retailers rated the ability to deliver results (95%) as the most important factor when working with an agency. Specific knowledge of the customers’ market (76%), and having open lines of communication (67%) also rated particularly highly.

Premium home and garden retailers believe it is ‘crucial’ that an online agency has knowledge of the clients’ target audience (80%), their key performance indicators (73%) and knowledge of the business plan (53%). Yet only 40% believe an agency should have knowledge of the clients’ offline marketing strategy (40%).  This indicates that premium home and garden retailers need to better communicate offline activity with their agencies therefore ensuring a consistent, and properly integrated online/offline marketing strategy.

Barriers to success

The barriers that prevent premium home and garden retailers from maximising their online marketing efforts are lack of internal resource, lack of budget and a lack of understanding.  Board approval and not having an appropriate measurement tool are also cited as significant barriers.

The ‘lack of internal resource’ is of particular interest as a high number of companies choose to manage digital marketing in-house yet do not appear to possess the necessary capacity to do so to maximum effect.

Download the full report here. If you would like to discuss any aspect of the report findings, please get in touch. And remember to keep a look out for future reports covering premium fashion, health and beauty, and food and wine.

Infographic – the online retail wheel of fortune

Posted on by Rosie Freshwater

With ever-increasing competition online and the demand to deliver a multi-channel shopping experience, online retailers have a never ending list of actions they need to take in implementing a successful digital marketing strategy.

Add to that the growing sophistication in how search engines display their results; the introduction of blended search, personalised search, social search and real-time search demand a much more holistic approach to search engine optimisation (SEO); an approach that combines traditional activities, such as keyword selection and link building, with more contemporary tactics in social media and content marketing.

A successful online retail strategy is therefore made up of many parts that are continually growing and repeating throughout the customer buying cycle. This can at times be overwhelming as retailers struggle to find the resource, time and skills to succeed in every necessary area.

Understanding this, we thought we would lend a helping hand to online retailers by creating the infographic to end all infographics; the online retail wheel of fortune. This is a graphical representation of the main elements to be incorporated into your online strategy to maximise success.

And here it is! Now being rather large, and very detailed, you will need to download the pdf version to digest it fully, which you can access by clicking here.

As you will see we have split our graphic into four main sections, representing key stages of the customer buying cycle as follows:

Reach
Covering the top line projects and tactics aimed at maximising your online exposure, therefore enabling you to connect with as many prospects as possible, which in turn drives more of the right traffic to your website.

Engage
The tools and techniques you can use to ‘talk’ to your audience once you have found them.

Convert
How to turn those engaged prospects into customers by optimising the user experience on your site, for example.

Retain
The actions you need to take to encourage repeat sales and develop advocates of your brand.

For each key stage of the buying cycle, we have detailed areas of attack, top level projects, specific actions within those  projects and some of the key benefits you will experience. Start with ‘reach’ before working your way out and then around to the next stage.

We realise it is a lot to take in…but this should also highlight just how much is involved in researching, planning and implementing an integrated digital marketing strategy for retailers.

We’d love to hear from you with your comments.

A beginners guide to: real time search (part 1)

Posted on by admin

In my recent quest to introduce you to the latest developments shaping how search engines display their results I have already talked about personalised search and social search. This time, I’m turning my attention to perhaps the most exciting (and potentially game-changing) development; real-time search.

What is real time search?

First off, ‘real time’ refers to something that occurs immediately. In the online world, the most obvious example of where content is published in real-time is Twitter. Compare how long it takes to write and publish a tweet compared to say, a blog post. With the latter, it takes minutes, hours or possibly days to research, write and publish an article to a blog. With Twitter on the other hand, content is written, published and visible within seconds.

The benefits of real-time information from sources, such as Twitter, have not been lost on the major search engines. In recent months, both Google and Bing announced agreements with Twitter to include tweets (real-time data) in their search results.

This means that for certain searches carried out on Google or Bing, users will be presented with search results that contain information published just minutes, or even seconds ago. This is very different to how search engines traditionally display their results where there is a reliance on spidering content, storing it in a database and then presenting it back to searchers. This process takes time meaning information can be out of date quickly.

How are results featured?

There is a difference between the two search engines and their integration of real time results into their respective search engine results pages (SERP’s). If a user wants to view Bing’s real time results they go to www.bing.com/twitter. However, Google is different in that real time information is incorporated right into its normal search results, and often at the top of the page.

It is important to note that you won’t see real time results on Google for every search you carry out. Real time search is only triggered if Google believes information in real-time will be seen as valuable to searchers. A great example is the recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland. Searchers want the latest information on what is happening. They cannot wait for Google to spider content in the traditional fashion (although Google is pretty quick at doing so these days). Instead, searchers want the very latest news as it happens.

Check out the screenshot below for an example:


As you can see, Google considers the volcanic eruptions to be a “hot topic” (I imagine all those people stuck in foreign climes unable to get home would agree!) due to the mass spike in information being published online. Therefore, in the “Latest results for volcano news” section you can see a scroll of real-time information, from sources such as the Guardian and most notably Twitter.

Why has real time search been introduced?

In theory, real time search means that both Bing and Google can provide their users with the most up-to-date information around a search query, therefore increasing the relevance and usefulness of their search results.

It means that when searching for information on key events, such as the Icelandic volcano, users can see what happened minutes or even seconds ago. And this information is present right where searchers want it to be; incorporated into the search experience.

This is obviously fantastic for accessing news as it happens but what about the impact on brands. If, as expected, real-time search continues to move beyond news related items to be more widespread, a disgruntled customer venting their anger on Twitter, may not only be seen by their followers on this specific social network but their tweet may also feature in Google’s actual search results…and all in real-time!

Next time, I’ll be looking at this issue in more detail, as well as the other means by which real-time search impacts your digital marketing efforts. Until then…