PostsGetting to page one of Google is becoming almost irrelevant! 25th July 2013 12:42 PM Yup physical visits to server. Thinking about it, I thought Bing now powered Yahoo, so if we are optimised (as it would appear) for Yahoo, then why not Bing? Or is Yahoo using a blend of Bing traffic and homegrown? Getting to page one of Google is becoming almost irrelevant! 25th July 2013 11:31 AM “Totally agree yet again Steve. There is a gaping hole in the search market. You must be bored with my "I totally agree Steve" !!!! Can I ask which data you are using? I'd be very interested in studying further.” lol if you're agreeing I must be talking sense for a change! Data wise is GA Source traffic for our UK Directory (non mobile). Interestingly, our UK Directory mobile site shows a different picture which I hadn't noticed till now: Yahoo currently 20.6% up from 8.6% in April, with Bing a lowly 1.39% but up from 0.6%. Google is currently 77.9% but down from 90.64%. So maybe Yahoo is making a play after all, or at least on mobile traffic?? Plus it looks like Bing hates our mobile site... need to investigate that further  Lead Generation Ideas 25th July 2013 11:18 AM “That said, from enquiry to sale, my conversion has consistently been at around 90% for a few years.” Now that's what I call a conversion rate!  Its been said many times before, but is so true. Word of mouth will always be the best marketing tool in your armoury. All it takes these days is to do what you said you'd do and have a bit of customer service. My glasses fell apart last night. Popped into Specsavers this morning where I bought them. Although they are well out of warranty, without any hesitation they said they'd repair them as a goodwill gesture. So where will I buy my next pair from? Doesn't take much, but a bit of customer service can generate some good leads, from word of mouth and repeat business. Getting to page one of Google is becoming almost irrelevant! 25th July 2013 11:07 AM “The odds to not suggest spending too much time on organic listings. And while I'm on the subject - all this Panda and Penguin is supposed to be about 'improving search'. What utter nonsense. The quality of SERPS has been appalling since the beginning of 2012. After working with Search for 14 years, The Search World has changed forever - yet again.” I've been saying it quite a lot recently, but don't you think there is currently an amazing opportunity, as web designers, site owners and even end users start getting disillusioned. Bing or Yahoo should be charging through with a slick marketing campaign, wooing us all over, and start grabbing market share. Instead where are they? Radio silent  The only way Google is going to reign in it's aggressive update policy and this shift to Google only utopian SERPs is to have some serious competition. But when is it going to happen? How much will people take before they start voting with their mice? Bing seems to be slowly on the rise, looking at our UK stats, currently 9.4% of our traffic, versus 6.3% back in April. Yahoo is 4.4% up from 2.7%. But this still only scratches the surface compared to Google... So the baby was born 24th July 2013 9:36 PM My eldest reckons he should be called Charming He'd have a right laugh at school. Lead Generation Ideas 24th July 2013 9:34 PM This got me thinking, and is a very good point. Someone I know well does a lively trade on eBay, making decent margins and still hasn't got bored of posting things But advertising wise, it's a cheap and cheerful advert in the local newspaper, asking for any unwanted model train stuff. What he found is, rather than kids train sets, it's older blokes who have passed away, leaving a room full of train layouts and stuff. So he offers a price, and takes it all away. No PPC campaigns, no SEO, no Google, just big markups by breaking up large collections into smaller lots. So maybe sometimes we can overlook the obvious or forget more traditional avenues. Getting to page one of Google is becoming almost irrelevant! 24th July 2013 9:23 PM “SEO is not dead. But organic traffic has declined and will continue to do so. Getting 20 SEO Tricks You Need To Stop Using Right Now 24th July 2013 4:34 PM Came across this interesting article today: Bad SEO: 20 SEO Tricks You Need To Stop Using Right Now All good food for thought, a good few topics worth of debate, article marketing springs to mind, but refreshing to see a list of what not to be doing. Buying links and spinning content has hopefully sunk in with most people by now as a steer clear, but things like too much automation is a valid point, as we get busier and more lazy with our social media. Something I've definately been guilty of Local Carousel and semantic search now live 24th July 2013 3:21 PM So for anyone who wants a visual understanding of what all this structured data and semantic search rubbish is all about, then go check out your Google search results. It only shows on some searches at present, but here is a good one: Museums London In case this disappears or Google changes it into a neon sign with dancing girls, then here's what it currently looks like:  Interesting eh? Now in this example you can still see some organic results, but other searches show sponsor ads, meaning organic results show below the fold, which is an increasing and worrying trend. Each result in the "Carousel" isn't a link back to the relevant website as you might expect, but a refined Google search, that then allows Google to populate info panel on the right hand side of the search results, and hopefully give relevant results in the search results (assuming no sponsor ads). Interesting developments, and I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Anyone rolling out a new website now should seriously looking at structured data mark up, and if you're webdesigner doesn't understand it, find one who does! How do we recover after Penguin Updates? 24th July 2013 11:16 AM Closing thread as it's good spam bait and run its course! |
