Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

The SEO community starts to test social media search optimisation strategies

July 2nd, 2010

When we think of search we think of external search i.e. search engines like Google that act as windows onto the web. From these windows we can find and access news, videos, social media forums, maps – as well as a wealth of branded content and information about businesses, products & services.

But of course people search elsewhere on the web. After email communication search is the primary web behaviour. And there is another kind of search engine: internal or enterprise search. In the US in March of 2010 Facebook’s internal search engine, for example, saw its usage soar by 48% to total 2.7% of all US searches carried out on the Web in that month. OK, so compared to Google’s 64% share of the US search market that might not seem to impressive. Still, that’s a whole lotta searching going on – and mostly for people’s names.

As brands and businesses start to saturate social media properties like Facebook, SEOs are already trying to fathom what the ranking factors are, so that they can lend their services to help brands become more visible in social media search. This article by Marty Weintraub entitled “Facebook SEO Ranking Factors, 2010 Study Results” suggests that criteria such as the Facebook Suggest Box, inserting generic keywords into name fields, population of the Interests field, encouraging as many Fans and “Likes”, might become the focus of SEO test strategies.

However, as Weintraub points out it’s early days in terms of cracking the social media search algorithms. But that won’t stop the more innovative and curious SEOs from having a go!

Blog post by Amanda Davie, Managing Director of Reform

Search Engine Marketing in Korea – International Search Review Issue 3

June 18th, 2010

Reform continues on its world tour with issue number three of the “International Search Review.” After the first two issues covered China and Russia, this one looks at a search market that many western marketers struggle to decipher. Download a copy of the full “Korea Search Review” issue here.

South Korea (like China and Russia) is another one of the top ten markets in the world when it comes to internet population and is a market that adapted broadband faster than most western markets – to the point where viewing TV via the internet is far from a new thing. TV might also be the last chance for Google to crack this market, as rumours circulate about Samsung and Google partnering on a TV and mobile internet service – and “mobile search” usage being something that Naver may be a step behind on.

Still, Naver and Daum are the main search engines in South Korea, and SEO in this market is much less of a consideration for marketers here. For one, SEO is not nearly as important – taking up only a small portion of a search engine’s results. At the same time, it’s not nearly as advanced either, as engines like Naver opt to fill the results with links to their own sites, along with various different types of PPC and paid placements listings. Users are content with this, showing a brand loyalty that reflects in browser usage too (Internet Explorer has a 98% share in this market), thus making the chance of changing user preference even slimmer.

Yahoo!/Overture Search Marketing provides the only real opportunity for western marketers to partake in PPC here (though local sites are still given some priority), while SEO has little to do with tags, content and link strength, but more to do with saturation such as via social media and user generated content.

South Korea is also a big market when it comes to online communities, such as gaming and social networks. Over 90% of South Koreans in their twenties have accounts in CyWorld (the biggest social network in Korea), while Facebook and MySpace have failed to crack the market at all. CyWorld has also become a place where companies effectively promote products, including via endorsements that fans can integrate with.

Download a copy of the full “South Korea Search Review” issue here

Key findings in the document include:

- Search engine usage: Naver 77%, Daum 11%, Yahoo 5%, Google 2% (source: Nielsen, Jan 2010)

- 37.5 million internet users (source: Internet World Stats)

- 95% broadband penetration (source: Arstechnica, 2009)

- South Korea’s two main search engines Naver and Daum have inspired a lot of recent western search engine innovation, such as Yahoo! Answers and Google Universal Search, though both engines serve search results that are predominantly paid links and their own sites.

- South Korean search users demonstrate a different attitude to those in the west; users in South Korea anticipate that their search engine knows what they are looking for, and will find it for them, where as western searchers are more ‘DIY’ and use search engines as tools to find something for themselves.

- Commercial or paid-for search coverage is prevalent in this market. Natural search plays little or no role in this market.

Reform also works with sites that are looking for a global SEO strategy in markets such as Korea. The England 2018 Bid website at www.england2018bid.com recently expanded content across various markets, including Korea.

Search result in Daum

As a result, we are now a featured result in natural search there (result in Daum search shown above) and the England 2018 site appears for Korean language variations of “world cup”, making it the second most common language for search traffic on the site in June 2010 so far (after English).

To get more details on this and everything else, download a copy of the full issue – and let us know any comments/feedback. Contact us, and we’ll get the next issue out to you before anyone else gets it.

Update – Latest news shows that Daum is closing the gap on Naver, with various sources cited at http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2010/07/133_69058.html

Also, at the end of June, Google launched Korean voice search – http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-launches-korean-voice-search.html

While the reviews on how well Google voice search works on your mobile (don’t try using it anywhere loud for instance, such as outdoors) have been mixed, moves like this at least help to give Google some channel that they have a slight advantage on (Google Korea is pushing mobile co-branding as a way to get in this market), so it is something to keep an eye on.

Blog post by Niall Madden, Director at Reform

Thinking outside the search box.

May 28th, 2010

I’m not going to bang on about how great search is, or about how you should make sure that your site maximises the use of SEO with PPC as part of an integrated strategy involving all types of media. Chances are you hear that all the time anyway if you work with us. However, I will look at some of the things that, for me, make natural search a unique experience – not just in marketing terms but in the way that people approach it, the way their minds work.

Clients are becoming increasingly involved with and interested in SEO, which I think is great. I have no idea why some companies still try and make SEO such a top secret operation. By now everyone on the ‘practitioner’ side ought to know that the best projects are the ones where we can help the client understand how natural search truly works, pushing aside the mystique. Once the client understands and believes in it, they are more likely to make changes. Just as the search algorithms constantly evolve, so does the need to clarify with more depth. We want clients to ask about our recommendations, or suggest recommendations of their own, as we’ll be glad to discuss and explain what we feel works best.

Of course, there is never just one right answer. There are so many factors that influence natural search that it is imperative that we continue to think outside of the box. For example, for one of our clients the biggest influence on their SEO traffic is daily news stories. It is not a news site, but if a subject is not on the news then no one searches for their related terms. Another example is a site which sees increased traffic whenever specific episodes of certain shows are shown on TV. The trick is spotting these trends and attempting to capitalise upon them. We’re not necessarily saying look out for every wave of traffic, but when you see one wave coming in, think about how you might catch the next. A referral from a search engine may not result in a sale right away, but other influences can help you convert it into a sale further down the road.

The worst thing you can do in SEO is think “if I do ‘A’, then ‘B’ will happen immediately”, and it is crucial that agencies and clients communicate to avoid this kind of assumption. When clients understand more about the process, hopefully conversations around SEO will go far beyond the ‘As’ and ‘Bs’, to questions such as the right way to link several sites together, or how to sculpt ‘link juice’, ‘page rank’ or ‘link strength’ within a site. Or on the PPC side, whether to use keywords with ‘free’ in them if you are targeting something that users have to pay for.

If you’re keeping score by the way, the short answers are: you can build some strength by connecting your different sites, but it needs to be done in a way that seems natural; for link strength if you don’t want a link to be followed, it’s not going to improve the other links on your page, in fact it can hurt the site overall as retaining link strength is unnatural; and last but not least, for the PPC question, yes, some of the best ‘paid’ conversions came from ‘free’ keywords.

As for the long answers, well that’s another conversation or blog post. Still, here at Reform we like being asked questions, because in the world of search there is always at least one answer…

Blog post by Niall Madden, SEO Director of Reform

The importance of search

March 25th, 2010

In a world where technology has evolved so quickly over the last few decades it is good to see an increasing understanding that technology in its own right is of little consequence. The key is the way that technology interacts with its users. An MP3 player is not much use without its headphones, a mobile phone is not much use unless two people want to communicate, 3D films need an audience and for all their GHz and RAM PCs have not yet learned to think for themselves.

So when one looks at technology in the marketing space it is probably important to consider how capable the human body is to interact with digital traffic. For the most part consumers have two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, ten fingers and millions of taste buds, but only one mouth. This suggests that they are immensely well equipped to enquire of their environment but their ability to establish a presence in their environment is very limited. Messages can be received by hearing, seeing, smelling, touching and tasting but can only be actively delivered verbally.

Perhaps this explains why the emergence of Search is fundamentally changing the way that marketing works. Over the last 30 years the technological advances have provided new platforms through which marketers have been able to broadcast their messages to recipients who are largely ‘programmed to receive’ – one message, multiple recipients. Now the tables are turning and the increasingly ‘aware’ consumers are extending their receptor attributes and using accelerators such as curiosity and self-help to go in search of a more fulfilled life.

As these consumers take control of what they want, where they want it and when they want it, the brands that will succeed are the ones that will be ‘found’. So if someone has a product or service that they want to be seen, heard, smelled, felt or tasted, then they need to make sure that they have optimised their delivery through both SEO and PPC.

Blog post by James Kilpatrick, non-Executive Director of Reform

Looking Into China’s Search Market & Social Networking Usage

January 7th, 2010

To kick off the new year, Reform is releasing the first of several in a series of their “International Search Reviews”.  The first one concentrates on the search market in China, which is rapidly evolving as we speak – even in the past week or so, where we’ve seen Microsoft announce how its making the market a major priority for 2010 – and how they plan on trying to get a better understanding of what Chinese users need.  Download a copy of the full “China Search Review” issue here (updated 13/01/10 with recent info regarding Google’s threat to leave the Chinese market).

And lets not forget Baidu’s announcement earlier this week to team up with Providence Equity Partners, who are an investor in U.S. video-viewing site Hulu – as they look to make a move in the online video marketplace.

We felt that the International Search Review series would be a good way to consolidate research and our own insight into these markets – and also helps answer the many questions people have when trying to find out the market share in China, the user internet population, or the effect of mobile search and social networking in China, the latter of which has proven not only profitable, but to be a lot different than how we may perceive it in the west.   For example – we look at how Social Networks in China have found a way to become profitable, without relying on advertising, and how the reasons users go on to social networks are quite different than why people in the UK or US might do so.

The SEO and PPC insights about China takes a look at Baidu’s natural search algorithm, along with their recent change of handling paid search campaigns – via their “Phoenix Nest” platform, along with how search works in the Chinese market, and local perceptions about what SEO and PPC are in the first place.  For example, “paid placements” were considered part of SEO.

We also look at what might lie ahead for this market in 2010, as big brands and technologies from the west focus stronger on what is now the biggest internet market in the world.

Of course, if you just want the stats, we’ve got that too - here’s some recent stats about search usage in China.

Baidu 64% / Google 21% / Others 15% (China Daily)

Baidu 62% / Google 29% / Bing 1% (Analysys International)

Baidu 76% / Google 20% / Yahoo & Bing 1% (Comscore – July 2009)

360,000,000 Internet users as of Sept, 09 and only a 25% estimated broadband penetration.

To get more details on this and everything else, download a copy of the full issue here – and let us know any comments / feedback.   Contact us, and we’ll get the next issue out to you before anyone else gets it!

You can also leave a comment below.

Blog post by Niall Madden, SEO Director of Reform

The reinvention of an all together more grown up search

November 19th, 2009

Search, for some has always been a dirty word. Swathed in mystery for a long time with images of wizards in ‘black hat’s’ springing to mind whenever SEO was mentioned. Lots of nerdy types claiming to have the magical fairy dust to get to number one in Google and such like. Then things started to change. Every man and his goat was ‘doing search’ with hundreds of agencies claiming to be the experts. Confusing for the client and a bad user experience all round for those of us in the industry.

Google’s tools in particular mean that literally anyone can do it, but it is now starting to be recognised that, although anyone can do it, in order to really benefit from search’s efficiencies, clients need to take more responsibility for how search is actually working for them, instead of just switching it on and waiting to see what happens.

These days change is still afoot but new trends are emerging in the way people purchase and manage their search marketing. Many of the UK’s biggest online retailers now handle all matters pertaining to search in house, with roles filled by ex agency gurus or mathematical whizz kids who are very good at excel. J There are plenty of reasons for looking after search in house. Often, dissatisfaction with agency service levels, or lack of transparency, but also the realisation that search is an integral part of marketing for any business nowadays, and it needs to be positioned within the overall strategy and understood by all stakeholders in the business.

In the agency world too, things are changing. Search is being given a new value at different ends of the process chain. Design and build agencies are being asked by their clients to work on their search strategy, PR agencies are overwhelmed with requests to manage online PR, and they all need to pull up their socks and get stuck in, and ask for help where they need it from bona-fide search experts if they want to maintain their quality of offering across everything they do.

There isn’t any mystery to search, but it requires a lot of patience, and analysis, and it can be laborious, tedious even and, well, it’s not very glamorous. But, one thing is clear: it’s undergoing a reinvention, which Reform is glad to be a huge part of, where search is at last a big cog in the process for all sized and shaped clients from the first website ideas to their 10 year business plan.

Search has come a long way in its early years as a marketing channel. But it is still immature, and we all need to take responsibility – clients, agents, engines and trade associations – to take the industry to a new level of innovation and efficiency. It’s time for search to grow up. To be reinvented.

We are conducting research into how people use search as a marketing medium. If you would like to take part, please click on the link here: www.reformdigital.com/research