E-consultancy - Search - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

5 top tips for SEO customer service

Mon, 1 Dec 2008 09:44:00 UT

Usually my articles are directed at the search engine optimisation (SEO) customer, the entrepreneur or marketer looking to boost their online business through search.

Today though, I want to explore how we sector professionals interact with these customers, how we deal with them and how we can get the best out of our working relationships.

Mobile site review: Amazon.co.uk

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:30:00 UT

Amazon's mobile site has been going for a while, and I've been testing out the site to see how easy Amazon makes it to make a purchase by mobile phone.

According to this survey, Amazon is one of the more impressive mobile shopping sites, so what is it doing right?�

Google provides a few answers about SearchWiki

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:45:00 UT

Google's SearchWiki, which allows users to re-rank, delete, and comment on results, was released this week, leaving users with plenty of questions about the new feature.

Danny Sullivan�at Search Engine Land has been talking to Google about�SearchWiki, and has answers to a few questions...�

Google makes search more social with SearchWiki

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:30:00 UT

Google, a company that has built its success in search on the back of a superior search algorithm, is looking to humans as it makes search a bit more social with the launch of SearchWiki.

5 Most Annoying SEO Myths

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:00:00 UT

The world of search engine optimisation (SEO) is filled with mythology and misinformation.

Because it is an entirely online industry, it has one of the most active web communities. This includes forums, blogs and online debate but also endless badly-written articles, misleading guides and just plain lies.

Site review: Fitnessfootwear.com

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:00:00 UT

Fitness Footwear was launched by Luke Barlow in June 2005 as a way of selling Chung Shi sports shoes, which couldn't be found anywhere else in the UK.

Four years on, the site is doing well, and Luke now has a team of ten, and the business is currently outgrowing its warehouse in Hertfordshire, and has even launched a sister site, onshoes.com.

Having started as a family business, the website has been created on a limited budget: �Luke has spent around �100k on the site since launch. So how does it shape up?�

How to get a career in the internet industry (a DIY guide)

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:33:00 UT

Following on from an earlier article on how universities are failing to educate students on the career opportunities available in the internet industry, here�s a how-to guide on how to break in through the back door.

Firstly, don�t wait for your university to catch up. Asking some questions to your lecturers might help the students of the future, but I doubt it will help you in the near term. You�re going to have to figure this out for yourself.

Thankfully there is a wealth of information available to help you do this, as well as some fantastic support networks. Employers will admire your gumption.

Q&A: Richard Weaver of Majestic Wines

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:06:00 UT

Majestic Wines has been in the news this week,with the slowing economy hitting the company's pre tax profits.

Despite the drop in offline sales, Majestic continues to grow online, with an impressive 11.5% year on year increase in website orders compared with last year.

I have been talking to Majestic Wines' e-commerce manager Richard Weaver about the company's approach to selling wine online...

Has YouTube discovered the solution to its monetization woes?

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:00:00 UT

Google's challenges in monetizing the world's most popular online video service, YouTube, are well-known.

More reasons to offer free shipping

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:00:00 UT

We've blogged about the benefits of free delivery as an effective sales driver, and it seems that more retailers are offering it this year.

According to a post on This Week in Etail, the number of US retailers offering free shipping has jumped from 31% to 41% over the past couple of weeks as they attempt to appeal to holiday shoppers.

Judging by some of the emails I've been getting recently, more UK retailers are also offering the incentive this Christmas.

US retailers need to improve SEO - study

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:45:00 UT

Many Fortune 500 companies, retailers included, have plenty of scope�to improve�their natural search ranking for main keywords.

While these firms are spending plenty on search ads for their targeted keywords, 72% of Fortune 500 firms�were not even�in the first five pages on organic search results for these terms, according to a US study (PDF)�by Conductor and SkyFu.

Detecting click fraud

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:40:00 UT

Earlier this week E-consultancy's own Drama 2.0 discussed current click fraud rates with PPC ad programs.

As an active user of PPC marketing, I wanted to chime in with my strategy for dealing with the issue.

ClickForensics - click fraud rate steady, botnet click fraud up

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:45:00 UT

ClickForensics, a company that sells "traffic quality management" solutions, released data about PPC click fraud rates in the third quarter last month.

The results are generated by the company's Click Fraud Index, which collects data from over 4,500 advertisers and agencies.

How charities can learn from Obama's online campaign

Fri, 7 Nov 2008 11:30:00 UT

Whatever your political views, it's hard not to be impressed by the way in which Barack Obama used the internet to get his message across.

From YouTube channels to Twitter and Facebook�accounts, Obama's team showed a real understanding of online media�to campaign and raise funds for the candidate.

There is plenty that charities could�glean from�the Obama campaign's online marketing, and much of it didn't cost the earth...

How can publishers can improve site search?

Fri, 7 Nov 2008 08:40:00 UT

I spend a lot of time on newspaper and other publishers' sites, and am often amazed at how bad their site search functions can be.

A lot�of sites have been redesigned over the past year or so, and have improved a lot, but�their search functions can still be patchy.

Here are a few�thoughts on how they could be improved...

Memo to Jerry Yang: 5 ways to fix Yahoo

Thu, 6 Nov 2008 14:25:00 UT

Yahoo has had a chip on its shoulder about search, aka �Google�,� for years. The brand name synonymous with search isn�t Yahoo. Big deal.

Obviously it is a very big deal for Jerry Yang, but in focusing on the battle for �search� Yahoo has forgotten about what really matters: advertisers.

Site review: Fresh Apps

Wed, 5 Nov 2008 09:15:00 UT

Fresh Apps, currently in beta, aims to make it easier to search and find useful iPhone apps than�is currently possible�on�iTunes.

It can be tricky to search through the sheer number of apps in the iTunes Store, so has Fresh Apps made it a smoother process?�

BBC not passing on link juice?

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 09:30:00 UT

The BBC just can't get its external links policy right, it seems, and is now denying external websites valuable link juice by the way it links out.

Patrick at Blogstorm�has noticed that the site's external links, normally displayed to the right of its articles, are being passed through redirect scripts.

Google trying to comfort publishers in times of turmoil?

Mon, 3 Nov 2008 09:15:00 UT

Last week I received an email from Google that was sent to AdSense publishers.

It addressed concerns�they may have about the economic situation.

Google indexes text from scanned files

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:23:00 UT

It turns out that Googlebot�s addiction to text has reached a new level following the announcement that it can now index text from scanned documents.

By using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology the search engine can now make sense of the content of scanned documents saved as PDF files.