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The SEO Failings of Major UK Highstreet Retailers

by on Sep 23, 2008 (0) Comments

Posted by Tom_C

I recently read a couple of posts on e-consultancy about the state of play with major UK retail brands and how they perform online. First was 10 things Asda could do better online, which while I enjoyed didn’t touch on any of the SEO failings of these companies. Kevin’s Supermarkets ignoring SEO for major keywords post touched more on SEO which was nice but I wanted to go into a few more meaty things so here’s my review of the state of play with SEO for major UK highstreet retailers.

While the point of this post is to highlight common mistakes and not to call out individual brands, inevitably I’ve mentioned specific names as examples. This isn’t an attempt to cause offence and I appreciate that even if you know what the right answer is it can be difficult to implement using legacy systems.

Keyphrase Targeting

Who said keyphrases were important? Sometimes you’re just too cool for school. Don’t listen to all those other guys telling you how important keyphrases are – surely it can’t be that important can it?

10 SEO and Marketing-Friendly Title Tag Formulas

by on Sep 23, 2008 (0) Comments

You want keywords in the title tag. Your marketing VP wants the brand. You know he’s wrong, because search engines are structured thinkers. He knows you’re wrong, because the title tag shows up in the search snippet and branding matters:

title-tag-snippet.png

Now what?

Blog Marketing & Pay Per Post: They’re Not The Same

by on Sep 23, 2008 (0) Comments

The vitamin supplement company Berocca has been engaged in a vaguely interesting piece of blog marketing over here in the UK recently. Taking their cue from the recent NY Times article suggesting that blogging can be highly stressful, they have put together a blogger relief pack which consists of a number of ‘stress-busting’ desk toys and, of course, a pack of Berocca. In a nice nod to the community-lead nature of blogging, the mini-site always has a link to one of the blogs that is taking part in the campaign.

This campaign, which is hardly revolutionary in its nature, probably wouldn’t deserve a mention on these hallowed pages were it not for a post written by Michael Gray recently. In this post, Michael asked whether Guy Kawasaki, who frequently reviews products he is sent and links to the manufacturers’ sites, should be the subject of a penalty in the same way that sites which operated ‘pay per post’ systems were*.

How Persuasive is Your Marketing?

by on Sep 22, 2008 (0) Comments

We know that SEO can deliver traffic, but we know from experience that traffic alone is not enough.

Skeptical consumers require more from your websites’ proposition to relinquish their reservations. This requires persuasion and persuasion marketing.

SEO, relevant and persuasive copy as well as usability all need to work harmoniously in order to shatter prior expectations about what users need from a website in order to take action. One aspect presented without the proper balance of the other can leave the visitor on the fence when it comes to making a decision to purchase.

Transforming a prospect into a customer involves multiple emotional and intellectual layers to facilitate trust. Often, the resolve of the prospect is weathered by a natural layer of mental and emotional buffers to offset the sales process. Just consider it natural reaction to being bombarded from disruptions from advertisements attempting to breach their awareness from every angle.

If you realize it or not, your pages are waging an argument of relevance, persuasion and validity. If you win, conversion occurs, if you lose, then your just another stepping stone for your competition who has structured a better offer, argument or call to action.

Qualified Impressions Translate Into Sales

by on Sep 20, 2008 (0) Comments

Its not always the quantity, but the quality of visitor impressions that make the difference. Qualified impressions that translate into leads, sales or click through conversion are the true basis of SEO.

Out of every 100 visitors that visit your site, how many fill out a contact form, pick up the phone, download a special promotional? If you answered 15-25 visitors, then your pages are optimized for lead generation and conversion. Granted not every visitor that finds your site is going to want something from it, the idea is to set the stage for quality vs quantity and the right type of visitor who has a genuine need for your product.

What is Microsoft Thinking? Some Thoughts on the Microsoft Commercials

by on Sep 19, 2008 (0) Comments

Reader DjCarbon pinged me this morning with an interesting bit of news. Above you see the first two entries for the search “i’m a PC” in Google – Apple has essentially hijacked the dialogue about personal computers, forcing Microsoft to take a stand through their new commercials. The “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” commercials are odd and insidious but, as we see here, Apple has distanced itself from the profit-averse desktop PC market and created a new category. It’s not a PC you’re buying, fanboi, it’s not a beige box with a keyboard and a crappy LCD. No, you’ll never have to open the case, Mac-lover. You’ll never have to upgrade the operating system. When you walk into the Apple store you aren’t shopping for a PC – a personal computer, to reengage that acronym’s original meaning. You’re buying something much cooler, right?

Google AdWords

by on Jul 29, 2008 (0) Comments

A business can only meet success when its products or services on sale meet their necessary marketing or advertisement. Now, when someone talks about advertising their product/service online, nothing can be more appropriate than AdWords.

AdWords was launched by Google in the year 2000 and by 2007 it was their main source of revenue. Initially an advertiser had to pay a monthly amount for advertising their product/service, but later in order to make room for small businesses and advertisers who wanted to manage their own promotion; Google launched the AdWords self-service portal. Google’s AdWords aim has been to provide the most efficient advertising to businesses irrespective of their size.