Big or small, consumer or B2B, local or international, the internet has something to offer every business in one way or another. It’s obvious, isn’t it?

For us, whom live of our life online, maybe, but for the majority of UK small businesses, the internet is still a very daunting prospect.

A recent report by BaseKit, whom spoke to 500 UK small business owners, suggests that 60% of UK small businesses are yet to “get online” and experience the possibilities that the world wide web has to offer.

Of the portion of businesses that have embraced “online”, few appear to be making the most of it.

• just 16% are very proud of their websites
• 11% admit to using out of date technology
• 11% describe their online presence as “poor” or “embarrassing”
• 25% are envious of their competitor’s websites
• 25% are able to process a transaction online
• 9% have mobile-friendly websites
• 18% have non-SEO’d websites
• 19% integrate social media with their websites

It’s perhaps a lack of technical knowledge (and the associated costs) that’s attracting more business owners to free-to-use social networks. Of the 500 surveyed, over a third said that they now use Facebook to drum up new customers, more so than local business directories or print ads. The most popular channels were revealed as follows:

• Facebook – 36%
• Local business directories – 27%
• Print advertising – 21%
• Online advertising – 20%
• Twitter – 17%
• Trade publications – 14%

Mobile

Mobile is, and has been a hot topic of debate for some time now. For businesses, a website alone isn’t enough, unless it performs well on a mobile phone and tablet. It’s a rapidly evolving trend, with almost half of UK consumers now being smartphone owners, a figure that’s almost doubled over the past few years. Put simply, businesses without a mobile-friendly site are missing out on potential business opportunities. In fact, an entirely different study suggests that 82% of mobile purchases are made on the iPad in the UK – a staggering statistic that UK businesses simply can’t ignore.

While just 9% of the respondents surveyed said that their websites are mobile-friendly, only half of respondents claimed to be “concerned” or “very concerned” about keeping up to date with technology. In contrast, 10% are “very unconcerned” and 38% had no opinion.

The report confirmed a mutual feeling amongst business owners; that if they don’t harness the web more effectively, they are in danger of becoming “digital dinosaurs.”

While the huge potentials of the web shouldn’t be ignored, for small businesses, with modest marketing budgets and limited knowledge, embracing it is easier said than done. However, with so many different digital channels out there, there’s no reason for any business to go without a web presence, entirely.

If you’re a small business owner, we would love to hear your thoughts, and how you’re making the most of the web.

Visit http://www.basekit.com/digital-dinosaurs to download the report in full.

Image via andresrueda.

As a child, who didn’t get excited about the prospect of a MacDonalds? As a student travelling around America, it was definitely an everyday staple when budgets were running low. However I’m happy to report a Happy Meal would not be on my 3 and 4 year olds favourite food list (yet!)

MacDonalds seems to generate a Marmite-type ‘love it or hate it’ response in many people and the current blogger relations issue seems to have added fuel to the fire.

Paul Stallward does a good overview here and I agree with many of his points.

Having worked in financial PR for a decade or so, I was fairly familiar with the ethics codes of various financial sections of newspapers about what was and what wasn’t considered appropriate. At the time, the FT had a policy whereby gifts above a certain value were deemed inappropriate and I believe were raffled off for charity. Other newspapers were gradually adopting a similar approach. The outcome was that if an organisation was acting inappropriately there were strict codes of ethics and within reason, newspaper journalists would only be able to write fair, unbiased coverage. And there was always the concern that if gifts were staggeringly inappropropriate or press trips deemed totally OTT, you could always end up with ridicule in a City Diary or column.

But it got me thinking that the same ethics do not seem to apply in the blogger world – or at least not for a number of lower key bloggers. If I had more time, I believe I could prove the point by ranking as a Mummy blogger fairly quickly and seeing how quickly the freebies rolled in. I hope I’d had enough common sense to review things impartially and let my readers know that I’d received samples of gifts for free. After all, the value in my blog would be significantly reduced if I didn’t.

Whereas newspapers are clearly commercial organisations, it can be very difficult for readers to get a handle on whether each blog is a fully fledged business operation, someone writing for fun, or anything in between (paid for advertising, to promote a book or to promote another company).

The onus in the blogger world seems to lie with the organisations rather than the bloggers. I can’t knock MacDonald’s strategy – blogger outreach seems a sensible way to go but may be they need to review the way they go about it.

Too many free parties, vouchers, holidays seems to be like the old school MacDonald’s of my childhood. Their adverts have come a long way since the quite scary-looking Ronald MacDonald took to our screens. Today, the adverts aimed at children/families are all about better ingredients, wholesome living (I’m particularly thinking about the children running around on the farm) but this current social media push seems to be rather at odds to this.

At this point I should say that the blogger outreach in question is in the States and clearly my knowledge of their advertising is UK based.  But the blogger activity issue has very much reached our shores so in today’s online world, nothing can be ring fenced as location specific.

The odd press gift, corporate hospitality really shouldn’t bother anyone – it’s been going on for years and will never stop. But where bloggers are now more ‘persuadable’ than journalists, perhaps there should be a better blogger code of conduct too. I suspect that FMCG and food related companies are more likely to carry out this type of activity too, simply because their product range is well suited to offering mass freebies.

Having said that, I suspect that this may in time become self regulating – it will become clear which bloggers are openly taking bribes and writing promotional blurb for the companies that are networking with. The best writers may of course openly declare what involvement they’ve had with the company they are writing about. And of course, I do some injustice to their readers here. As I said earlier it can be difficult to ascertain how a blog operates but Joe Public is not completely stupid – in many situations they will smell a rat and choose to unsubscribe.

Blogging community – please don’t slate me. I know there are loads of ethical bloggers out there just in the same way there are many ethical SEO agencies.

My final word on MacDonald’s: I think the company has come a long way in the past 20 years. Rather than offering parties and holidays I am sure the company could create something of more inherent value that would still interest bloggers and their communities without running the risk of more coverage of this sort.

A standout stat that hits you early on in the article is that 82% of mobile purchases are made on the iPad in the UK. The post justifiably goes on to state how mobile marketing should really be focused on tablets (the iPad in particular) if you are chasing revenue.

I have written about this before and still feel that the hype around mobile is as much a result of Google Analytics classifying the iPad as a mobile device as it is an explosion of mobile phones / handsets.

There can be no doubt that mobile data usage is growing very quickly and website designers must absolutely recognise that a significant chunk of their audience will not be sitting at a desk in front of a computer (be it PC or Mac).

Here at Browser Media towers, we spent a few hours last week checking client sites on various mobile devices and looking at the mobile stats in Google Analytics. The overall average % of mobile traffic was 11.5%, but it was as high as 22% on one site and as low as 3% on another, so a wide spread. There was no obvious pattern to which type of sites had a higher percentage of mobile traffic.

What Google Analytics did show was that the iPad was by far the most popular mobile device, accounting for an overall average of over 50% of all mobile traffic across all the client sites that were investigated. It was as high as 76% on one site, but as low as 23% on another. However you slice and dice the data, the iPad is a biggie and the iPhone came in at an average of 30% of mobile traffic so you can see why the Apple share price is so high…

It should therefore not be a huge surprise to see that the % of mobile purchases made on the iPad is so high. It isn't just a reflection of particularly high conversion rates on the medium but a reflection of the fact that most mobile traffic is iPad traffic.

I would agree that it is important to acknowledge the importance of tablets and ensure that your website performs well on the device, but would love it if tablets are separated from 'mobile'. Yes, they are mobile devices, but so is a laptop.

What defines a mobile device? If you include tablets, on the basis that they are not stuck to a desk, why is it that laptops are not included? Is it simply a problem of not being able to identify them?

It would be interesting to see a comparison in conversion rates on an e-commerce site between laptop users and iPad users. Which segment do you think would show more impressive stats?

A recent blog post by Graham Charlton at Econsultancy – “What I've learned from writing 2,000 blog posts” – caught my attention earlier this week.

Drawing on six years of experience, Graham lists his 20 blogging tips, all of which should be at least considered by anyone with a serious interest in blogging.

While every tip in Graham’s post is worthy of a mention, here is a handful (that I’ve tailored slightly) that I personally believe to be most important.

Don’t try to be a jack of all trades

Attempting to cover lots of different subjects on your blog can be overwhelming for you, and confusing for the reader. Instead, pick a few areas that you’re highly knowledgeable in, and stick to them.

Keep it simple & avoid jargon

Every industry has complex concepts and terminology attached to it. Using complex terms is often unavoidable, but wherever possible try to explain things simply and clearly.

The same can be said when it comes to using industry jargon – use plain English wherever possible and avoid pretentious industry slang.

Think about headlines

A good headline can make the difference between very few and many page views:

• consider SEO – write your headlines to reflect what people are searching for (within reason). A ‘well optimised’, keyword-rich headline has a much better chance of ranking highly in search engine results.
• descriptive – while search is an important consideration, it shouldn’t be at the expense of a good description. What is the post about?
• keep it short – there are many benefits to keeping headlines short: they will appear in full in search results, they can be tweeted in full, and they are an appropriate length for email subject lines. Econsultancy suggests 65 characters an ideal headline length.

Internal linking

Internal linking is important for a number of reasons:

• it helps Google crawl your site.
• it sends traffic to old posts, that otherwise may not be found.
• it’s useful for your readers, if for example they want to find out more on a certain subject.
• it reduces bounce rates, by giving readers a reason to stay on your site a bit longer.

Consider formatting

Make your content digestible by using short paragraphs, headings & sub-headings, lists, bullet points, charts and images. This is a particularly important consideration for lengthy posts.

Listen to comments

Listening to feedback, both good and bad, can help you to improve your content. If your blog allows comments, be sure to respond to them. Often comments can spark some great discussion, and even provide inspiration for future posts.

Be social

Like it or not, you should never discount the power of social media. Twitter, for example is a great tool for promoting your content, monitoring discussion related to your content, and even sourcing ideas for new posts.

Measure results

By using Google Analytics (other tools are available) you can see what works, and what doesn’t. You can identify trends, and which blog posts lead to the most conversions. This can also be a useful way of measuring the effectiveness of blog titles, for example, a very high bounce rate might suggest the content does not fulfil the promise of the title.

Above all, a successful blog comes down to one thing – good content. Team good content with the points within this article and you’ll be on the road to blogging success. You can read Graham's post at econsultancy.com.

Image credit: jmoneyyyyyy

We have always championed Google's cause and supported the notion that 'good' SEO is all about creating excellent content / functionality and then sharing such excellence with the wider world.

Over the years, we have refused to take on projects where (potential) clients have demanded the purchasing of links or asked for quick fix / spammy approaches to SEO. This is not because we are goody two-shoes, but because I have seen enough evidence of success to be convinced that this is the best approach for long term success.

I also sleep easily at night in the knowledge that we do not expose our clients' brands to any risk.

Not only do we advocate an ethical approach for all client work, we have never been tempted to try to boost our own rankings through dodgy linking strategies and we have made real efforts to increase the output of content on our blog. I can say with a completely clear conscience that our own marketing, whilst usually under-resourced and low priority when compared to client work, has been 100% ethical in nature and strictly compliant to Google's guidelines.

I have therefore been somewhat disappointed to see that we have been hit with a penalty from Google for 'unnatural links' following the dreaded message in Google Webmaster Tools on the 19th April:

This was naturally alarming to receive as there has been a lot of coverage of site owners receiving this message prior to a penalty in the form of SERP obscurity. That fear has now turned to reality as we have pretty much vanished from Google's search results.

Whilst pages are still indexed, it is mighty hard to find us! Even brand searches are gone.

You may well ask why on earth I am sharing this with you – it is a potentially embarassing situation for an SEO agency to find themselves in, but I am always one for transparency and I think that there is a sub-plot that is of interest to site owners across the glorious world wide web.

I think that there are two possible causes for the message (and subsequent penalty):

• We published an infographic at http://www.browsermedia.co.uk/2012/04/12/seo-agency-101/ last week and it attracted a lot of attention and links. This would have definitely been seen as a spike in link activity.
• Could we be the victim of negative SEO?

Both these options are reasonably scary and fill me with dread – if either prove to be the catalyst for the penalty, then it doesn't bode well for (ethical) SEO. Let me explain…

1) The 'spike' theory

I personally believe that this is the most likely explanation (and is what I detailed in the reinclusion request that I filed earlier this week) as we attracted a lot of links in a short time and a lot of the links included the word 'SEO' in. If you look at the nature of the blog post, that is hardly surprising but I suspect that Google's radars are more accute when it comes to anything to do with SEO. Coupled with a vastly increased rate of link growth, it is understandable why red flags may have been raised.

If this does prove to be the case, it does not encourage us to make the effort to produce interesting content in the future for fear of future penalties. It strikes me as crazy that working hard to create good content can actually end up doing you more harm than good.

Perhaps more frustrating is the fact that several links were from very reputable sites, so should this not act as a sign to Google that the content was actually good content and worthy of links?

1) The 'negative SEO' theory

There is a growing sense of alarm about the potential effectiveness of negative SEO. In a nutshell, negative SEO is a very shady approach to search engine optimisation that focuses on taking out your competitors rather than trying to build something worthwhile yourself. You do this by spamming the h##l out of your competitor sites and doing every trick in the book to make it look as though they are gaming the system themselves.

Matt Cutts told us last year that this is not possible:

There have been some reasonably high profile examples in recent weeks which suggest that it most definitely is possible and these examples have confirmed my worst fears that Googlee's aggressive stamping out of spam could lead to some collateral damage and that innocent parties could easily be hurt.

I don't actually think that we have been targeted with such a tactic, but it is perfectly possible and we are looking into it. We have a lot of links from statowl.com and updowner.com (neither of which we asked for) but there is nothing obvious when looking at webmaster tools, where the 'unnatural links' messages arrive.

Whether or whether not we have been targeted with dodgy links, it seems only logical to me that Google should be more transparent when serving these notices. Rather than a vague 'unnatural link activity' message, why can't they give more detail about the links and give the site owner the option to tell Google to ignore the links entirely? That would render the negative SEO approach inneffective and hopefully consign it to the history books.

I absolutely support the notion of discounting spammy sites, but it should be the sites that do the linking that should be ignored rather than hitting the sites that are linked to. Again, if there is absolutely no advantage to be gained from getting links from spammy sites, then people wouldn't bother doing it.

Conclusions?

At this very moment in time, I don't have any conclusions as we remain in the dark as to why we received the alerts and subsequent penalty. I have filed a reinclusion request and will be happy to share any progress on that front.

I am concerned that a spike in links (which did definitely occur with the infographic) may prove to be the root of the problems, but it won't stop us producing more content in the future. I can see how difficult it can be for Google to correctly identify spam, but hope that we will not be seeing more examples of good work being punished.

If we don't get an answer soon, I will unleash some of the research I have done into the link profiles of some of the sites that rank well for SEO agency related phrases – it is not very encouraging reading and doesn't support many of the messages coming out of Google…

Please do feel free to add a comment below if you have been an innocent victim of a Google penalty – it would be good to hear of more examples.

I used Experian Hitwise and IMRG’s list of Top 50 online retailers in the UK and did a fairly unscientific experiment: launching at the homepage of the ten largest companies, I visited a couple of category pages and finally added one random item into my shopping basket – sufficient activity I’d expect to require a cookie.

The results?  Not a single one of the UK’s largest online retailers had any ‘obvious’ content relating to the new EU cookie ruling yet. I didn’t go off the beaten track and look for any specific content within each website’s privacy documents but I did actively look for content either in pop-ups, header or footer status bars or in warning bars and came across diddly squat, nada, nothing!

Perhaps savvy consumers will have read up on the new laws and actively search a site before using it to understand what cookies the site requires, but in my experience if I need my weekly shop, my iron had broken or I’d seen a killer pair of shoes, I’d need something pretty overt to grab my attention during the purchase.

That’s of course not to say that these online giants (Amazon, Argos, Apple, Tesco, Next etc.) aren’t preparing for 26 May but they may be choosing to delay deploying their strategy until the very last minute, conscious that competitors may seek to get the upper hand or because it may cause havoc with the user experience, sales, analytics or quite possibly, all three.

We’ve yet to see how this ruling will be enforced, if at all, and so it is highly likely that unless the Goliaths either take action or are caught breaking the new law, the Davids will seek to keep a low profile and hope the whole thing goes away.

With some reluctance, we believe that website owners should be taking some steps towards compliance by:

• analysing how many cookies they have and what function they perform
• stripping back any non-essential cookies
• and including some additional information about cookies in a privacy document and ensuring this document is fairly prominent on their site

The EU seems to prefer ‘opt-ins’ over ‘opt-outs’ and general policy statements, but should the powers that be decide to enforce the regulations and threaten fines, then at the very least, the website owner will be in a position to act quickly to comply.

Whilst personally I believe these regulations go too far, all the noise, hype, paranoia (call it what you will) may have some positive effect if Joe Public realises that they can and should have more control over their own privacy settings.

Pinterest has been creating a lot of buzz of late, so I’ve been keen to try it out in a ‘campaign sense’, as apposed to just playing around with it, pinning funny pictures of bears.

Naturally, I’ve been trawling the web for examples of how brands are using Pinterest to good effect, and here are some campaigns that caught my eye:

Harrods

Harrods is asking its consumers to create Pinterest boards – entitled “Harrods Street Party Window” – pinned with images that reflect the theme of the “Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Street Party” (think royal cupcakes, Union Jacks & all things typically British). Harrods is promoting the competition through its Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the winner (the person with the best board) will be flown to Harrods to witness the unveiling of a real-life window, inspired by their Pinterest board.

 The Peugeot Panama Puzzle

French car manufacturer Peugeot created several Pinterest boards – each depicting different models in its range – with some pieces missing. People were encouraged to search for the missing pieces (hidden on Peugeot’s website), pin the missing pieces on their own boards and then share it with Peugeot. The first five people to complete their boards, thus completing a picture of a car, won a prize.

Kotex’s Women’s Inspiration Day

Kotex used Pinterest to source 50 “inspirational” women, looked at what each woman was pinning, then sent each of them a virtual gift based on their pins. They then asked the women to pin their virtual gift, and those that did were sent a real gift in the post.

The 50 gifts that were sent out generated more than 2,200 interactions, with almost all of recipients posting something on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram as a result.

There’s no doubt that Pinterest offers some great opportunities for marketers, and each of the three campaigns shown here provide some real inspiration for anyone thinking of exploring the site further. That said, it’s clear that where Pinterest is concerned, campaigns are best kept simple. The Peugeot campaign, for example, although good in theory, is very confusing and perhaps a little too advanced to those new to Pinterest.

If you know of any inspiring Pinterest campaigns, profiles or work in process, please do share them in the comment box below – I would love to see them.

Thankfully, online advertising platforms allow us to avoid this type of scenario. However, sometimes local targeting still isn’t quite local enough.

To help advertisers make their local ad campaigns more affective, Google is introducing some new features in AdWords to help users create ads that are more relevant to local customers.

Target customers by ZIP code

Google has taken location targeting with Adwords a step further, allowing advertisers to target more than 30,000 (US) ZIP codes in their AdWords campaigns.

Advertisers will be able to add up to 1,000 post codes at a time to search ad campaigns with AdWords Location Targeting. You can also obtain feedback on campaign performance at postal code level, like so:

Location insertion

Advertisers wanting to advertise in various locations can create a single ad campaign that can appear variably in specific locations. Location Insertion allows you to create a constant ad title, text, display URL, and/or destination URL and Adwords will then dynamically update your ads’ address / contact text according to postal (ZIP) code. This allows advertisers to target various locations with the same ad, without the need to run multiple ad campaigns.

More control

Your location targeting method allows you to:

• Target using physical location: Reach customers who are likely to be physically located in your targeted geographic areas
• Target using search intent: Reach customers whose searches or search settings show that they're interested in your targeted geographic locations
• Target using either physical location or search intent: Reach customers with both options

Your location exclusion method allows you to:

• Exclude by physical location only: Exclude customers who are likely to be physically located in your excluded geographic areas
• Exclude by physical location and search intent: Exclude customers who are likely to be physically located in your excluded geographic areas OR searching for keywords related to your excluded geographic locations

These new features will surely be welcomed by AdWords users who seek more affective ways to target local audiences. The only question is, why didn’t AdWords offer this before?

This is what makes working in the industry so interesting – you constantly have to adapt your tactics and mindset in constantly shifting market conditions.

Many people that work in search feel that the industry is on the precipice of a big change. With many black / grey hat tactics now consigned to the annals of history, there is an increasing demand for an ethical, holistic and content-led approach to online marketing.

Here at Browser Media, we have been banging that drum for a very long time indeed…

If everything Google has said about its recent updates is even half true, then this could be pivotal for all involved in online marketing. Spammers may finally be forced to remove their black hat and get a job ruining another digital medium, and content may finally actually be king.

We love all things search related, which is why we decided to document one of our beloved industry’s most exciting points in time, in the form of a delightful infographic.

Desktop research was undertaken to look at 101 UK SEO agencies that were sourced from Econsultancy's supplier directory. All the data is based on information taken directly from the agencies' websites.

Our infographic summarises the current state of our industry, highlighting the services agencies offer, how they describe themselves, their content output and social media media use in an attempt to capture the current state of search at this exciting point for the industry.

There are some interesting revelations to be found;

• Nearly 40% of agencies haven’t bothered to set up a Google+ account, despite pretty much every big name in the industry banging on about the potential of the platform?
• You’ve probably been reading the phrase “inbound marketing” on nearly a daily basis, in recent times. However, we couldn’t find a single agency who brand themselves in this way
• 20% haven’t even bothered to set up a blog!?
• More than half of the agencies published less than 6 blog posts in December 2011
• 40% of agencies tweeted fewer than 10 times in December 2011
• 1 of the agencies doesn't even offer search engine optimisation – something amiss with Econsultancy's directory?

Please click on the thumbnail image above to view the infographic in all its glory.

If you would like to publish the infographic on your own site, please feel free to use the following embed code:

<!— start embed code —>
<img src="http://www.browsermedia.co.uk/images/UK-SEO-Agencies-infographic.jpg" width="200" height="236"><br />UK SEO Agency infographic from <a href="http://www.browsermedia.co.uk/2012/04/12/seo-agency-101/" title="Browser Media">Browser Media</a>
<!— end embed code —>

What do you think? Leave a comment below if you have any questions about the data, or thought on how this information reflects on the search marketing industry.

Over the past few years research agencies eDigitalResearch and IMRG have been tracking the growth of mobile commerce in the UK market, and to demonstrate their findings have created the following infographic.

Some key findings include:

• Today, 54% of smartphone owners are using their phone to shop, whilst 38% have already purchased something through their device
• Over half (51%) of the UK population now have access to a smartphone
• Clothing and footwear have seen the biggest growth in mobile orders and are now the most popular products to purchase through a smartphone
• Other product areas that have seen significant growth include food, drink and household supplies, as well as health & beauty products
• Over the past two years, Nokia has lost its edge in the smartphone market, while Apple has gained much more traction
• Smartphone user demographics have shifted hugely, with young females showing the biggest growth

On average they found that 89% of the traffic generated by search ads was not replaced by clicks on the organic listing when paid search ads were paused, and this was consistently high across all verticals tested. They ran in excess of 400 studies in total, on paused paid search accounts to come to this conclusion.

Earlier this week Google released some new findings in which they tested the correlation between organic search results and their impact on ad impressions and clicks, using a sample of 390 “Search Ads Pause” studies.

From the study they concluded that 81% of ad impressions and 66% of clicks occur without an organic listing of the same domain appearing on the first page of the search engine results pages.

They also found that half of the clicks on ads for advertisers that appeared in the top position in the organic search results were not replaced by organic clicks if their ads were paused.

Finally they discovered that if an advertiser’s organic listing was placed in positions 2nd to 4th then 81% of ad clicks were not replaced by organic clicks if their ads were paused and if the advertiser’s organic listing was placed in positions 5 or lower, then 96% of ad clicks were not replaced by organic clicks if their ads were paused.

For full research visit: http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/impact-of-organic-ranking-on-ad-click.html

Some people often think that it is a sensible idea to pause keywords within a paid search campaign if the advertiser ranks on the first page of the organic results for that term. However this research shows that that isn’t the case.

Whilst choosing to pause paid search ads for keywords that you rank on the first page of the organic search results for will save you money on click costs, it could lose you up to 96% of your traffic.

Google does clearly state that these figures are averages and encourages advertisers to carry out their own research to see if these values are similar for them, as results are going to differ from advertiser to advertiser, and keyword to keyword.

Twitter has come a long way since it launched back in 2006, and has since then clocked up an impressive (and aptly numbered) 140 million active users, who now send 340 million tweets a day.

Twitter blogged;

Without you, of course, there wouldn’t be a Twitter. We mark our sixth birthday with you in mind, and celebrate your myriad ways of engaging, enjoying, and emoting on our platform. As Jack noted when he posted his sketch of the service he envisioned, “I'm happy this idea has taken root; I hope it thrives.” Thanks to you, it is.

So as Twitter nurses its birthday hangover, I thought I’d take a look at some notable moments that Twitter has presented us with over the past six years. While it would take forever to list every tweet or piece of Twitter-related news that’s caught the world’s attention in one way or another, here’s a few that have stuck in my mind.

The first update

21 March 2006 – When Twitter was Twttr. This is the first tweet, sent by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Arrested

April 10 2008 - Journalism student James Karl Buck and his translator were arrested in Egypt while covering an anti-government protest. While being taken away by the authorities James was able to tweet a single word: “arrested”. This tweet sparked action from his followers and friends and helped lead to his release just days later.

Obama wins US election, thanks followers

5 Nov 2008 - Barack Obama elected the first black president of the United States. He took to Twitter offer his thanks via this tweet:

There’s a plane in the Hudson!

15 Jan 2009 - Within minutes of US Airways flight 1549 landing in New York's Hudson river, Twitter was buzzing with the news. The image in the tweet below spread like wildfire across the web and was picked up by numerous blogs and news sites.

First tweet from space

22 January 2010 - NASA astronaut TJ Creamer made Twitter history by tweeting from outer space. He tweeted this from the International Space Station:

First footballer charged for improper conduct

January 2011 - Ryan Babel became the first (but not the last) professional footballer to be fined by the FA for improper conduct for his actions on Twitter. In response to some questionable decisions by referee Howard Webb, Babel tweeted, “And they call him one of the best referees? That's a joke. SMH [shaking my head]” and this mocked-up picture of Webb in a Manchester United Shirt:

Charlie Sheen wins Twitter

1 March 2011 - Charlie’s public breakdown made interesting viewing and attracted widespread attention from across the web. So much so that he set a new world record – fastest time to reach 1 million followers (25 hours and 17 minutes)… #winning

Osama killed

2 May 2011 - News of Osama Bin Laden’s death spread across Twitter 45 minutes before President Obama announced it officially. This tweet from Keith Urbahn was the first credible source of information:

Riot clean up

9 August 2011 - On the wake of the UK riots, Twitter was used to mobilise volunteers to help clean up the damage caused across London. The #riotcleanup hashstag quickly became the UK's number one trending topic and this image tweeted by user @Lawcol888 went viral:

RIP Steve Jobs

5 October 2011 – The tragic passing of Steve Jobs provoked the biggest online reaction of any event in recent history. Figures were estimated to peak at 10,000 tweets per second.

Lady Gaga hits 20 million followers

March 4 2012 - The singer set a record, becoming the first person to attract 20 million followers on Twitter. While the singer didn’t seem to acknowledge this achievement, she did tweet this a month earlier:

There are many events I haven't included here, but if you can think of any events in Twitter’s history that you think are worthy of a mention, please feel free to add them in the comment box below.

According to Search Engine Land, Matt Cutts said that the new penalty will be rolled out in the next few weeks. Cutts claimed that the purpose of this looming penalty is to “level the playing field”; penalising sites with poor content, little information but good SEO and rewarding sites that have great content but don’t rank so well due to poor optimisation.

Cutts stated;

“All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimisation or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect."

Google has revealed very little in terms of what constitutes ‘over-optimisation’. Once again, for site owners it’s a case of wait and see what happens.

This update is the latest in a string of algorithmic changes made by Google in an effort to improve the quality of its index; little over a month ago Google announced an algorithmic tweak that penalised pages with too many ads ‘above the fold’.

Despite numerous efforts, Google’s ability to detect ‘overly optimised’ sites has been less than impressive until now. Even post-Panda there are endless examples that highlight Google’s staggering inability to identify what can only be described as high-ranking webspam. How much “smarter” Google becomes after this update is yet to be seen.

There’s no doubt that this update will affect a proportion of sites in one way or another when it comes to rankings, but for everyone else its just another reminder to focus on making quality websites with quality content, and not trying to game Google.

Sitelinks are only eligible to appear in ads that qualify for a spot at the top of the search engine results page. So if Google deems your ads to be performing well enough, it will now suggest which campaigns you could add sitelinks to, if you don’t have them set up already.

Once logged into Google AdWords and within the Opportunities tab, advertisers will now see up to four tabs on the page, offering suggestions on the following:

• Budgets – suggesting how an advertiser could increase the exposure and traffic to their site by increasing the daily budgets of restricted campaigns.
• Bids – suggestions on how an advertiser could increase their CPC bids, and therefore average position and CTR, for particular keywords.
• Keywords – suggestions for additional keywords that are currently missing from particular ad groups, that could help an advertiser get more impressions and clicks for their ads.
• Sitelinks – lists the campaigns that an advertiser could potentially add sitelinks to and suggests  ‘at least’ how many to add.

Google also provides information about the potential number of extra clicks, impressions and the potential cost of each ‘idea’, based on the previous week’s data.

When clicking on the ‘Add at least X sitelinks’ links within the sitelinks section, you will see a pop-up screen where you can add up to six sitelinks and preview how they will appear alongside the ads within that campaign.

Like most of Google’s suggestions, or ‘opportunities’ they are primarily made to encourage advertisers to spend more, which ultimately means more money for Google. Consider this when implementing changes, because what’s best for Google, isn’t always best for the advertiser.

The main issue with the sitelink suggestions is that they can only be added at campaign level, i.e. not all sitelinks that would be suitable for one ad in the campaign would be suitable for another. Unfortunately Google does not seem to take this into consideration when making its suggestions.

If you have any thoughts about this subject, please feel free to leave a comment below.

What is a cookie?

Cookies are small text files which are stored on a user’s computer, tablet or mobile device. They hold a small amount of information about a user that’s specific to a certain website. When the user visits a website, the server accesses these cookies, essentially allowing the site to ‘remember’ the user.

Cookies are used by many different websites for many different reasons, but they’re most commonly utilised by e-commerce sites and web analytics packages.

For instance, sites that run Google Analytics issue cookies that allows the site to identify unique visitors. Amongst other things, this enables site owners to analyse site performance based on new vs. returning visitors.

Who is affected by the cookie law and what they can do about it

Put simply, the law applies to any site that sets cookies. From the 26 May, sites that set cookies must:

• tell people that the cookies are there
• explain what the cookies are doing
• obtain a visitor’s consent to store a cookie on their device

The requirement for sites to provide information about their cookies is not a new thing. However, whereas before a site had to provide people with the option to opt out of cookies being stored on their device, the new law states that a site must first obtain consent to store cookies on a user’s device, or ‘opt in’.

There are several potential methods that sites could use in order to display their cookie information and gain consent from its visitors, such as warning bars or status bars.

That said, there’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution here as every site is different. The aim should be to display a clear call to action while minimising intrusion to the user – easier said than done.

Real-life examples of how sites are approaching the compliance are few and far between (it seems everyone’s waiting to see what everyone else is going to do), but this post offers some good insight in to different approaches and associated implications.

Is the cookie law a good thing?

While some would wholly agree that the cookie law is a step in the right direction in terms of protecting privacy online, it’s evident that the vast majority believe the bad outweighs the good.

Econsultancy surveyed 700 marketers for their opinions on the EU cookie laws – here’s what they found:

Q. In your personal view do you think the EU e-Privacy Directive is a good / positive development?

A. 82% said no

When asked why not, there was  general feeling that the new law would “kill” online sales and have a negative impact on user experience.

Q. Have you read the guidance from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)?

A. 64% said yes

While the majority of respondents had read the ICO guidance, the majority felt it was fairly useless – “the blind leading the blind.”

Q. Has your company done an audit of cookie usage in preparation?

A. 54% said yes

There was a mixed response from this question; some respondents said that the audit actually improved site performance; others seemed to have no intention of carrying out an audit at all; and some felt this was a big ask for small businesses with no in-house technical knowledge.

Q. Do you have a clear understanding of the user interface options to get consent?

A. 61% said no

Exactly how websites will gain consent from users to store cookies is still unclear for many. What is clear is the concern that user experience will be seriously jeopardised. This comment sums the mood well;

“The option mechanics are simple enough. The issue is when/whether they should be used. They will scare people about something that is in most cases innocuous. Are we asking people that forcefully if supermarkets can profile shoppers, or if shops can monitor behaviour or if they are OK to be filmed on CCTV?

Do people really feel exposed and do they really understand how things would work without such business intelligence being gathered. Perhaps we should ask in the pop up "click here if you want to damage the economy, make the UK less competitive and risk unemployment and damage the UK's position as a top digital economy".

What next?

Love it or loathe it, the cookie law can’t be ignored.

First step is to run a cookie audit to check what type of cookies your site currently uses. You should then download read the ICO’s guidance on the new cookies regulations, assess how intrusive your cookies are and decide on the best solution for obtaining consent on your site.

If you have any thoughts, advice or questions relating to this subject, please feel free to leave a comment below.

I am passionate about online marketing and will often evangelise about emerging technology, but I have been hearing the fuss about mobile for a number of years and have become bored of hearing every year being touted as THE year of mobile.

We discussed this at the end of 2011 when Google was making noises about how mobile was really taking off, but I have been reading quite a bit in recent weeks about how 2012 is (surprise, surprise) going to be the year that mobile finally delivers.

There is no doubt that mobile devices have developed to the point where (half decent) browsing is a reality and the availability of cheap data plans has certainly helped fuel the growth in mobile media consumption, but the stats (if you look beyond activities such as checking email, using apps, texting, etc.) have rarely lived up to the hype in my humble opion.

Mobile search is naturally bundled in with 'mobile' and it is true that more and more people are using search engines on their mobiles, but this is another area where I feel that things have often been over hyped.

Browsing through some Google Analytics data this afternoon may have just changed my mind and perhaps 2012 will actually be the year that mobile finally starts to justify the hype.

The graph below shows mobile traffic to one client site, but the pattern is repeated across a large number of the profiles that I have been looking at:

The numbers are still not enormous, but there is a marked increase in activity towards the end of 2011 and it has continued into 2012.

The rise in mobile traffic is interesting, but it is the fact that search remains such a big driver for traffic that really stands out to me and hammers home the fact that you really must make sure that your site is 'mobile friendly'. As devices improve, you could argue that the need for dedicated mobile sites is reduced, but you cannot ignore the fact that people WILL browse your website using a mobile device.

Due to commercial sensitivity, I cannot show you revenue data, but the site in question is an e-commerce site and I can assure you that this traffic is converting to revenue. Organic search traffic accounted for 67% of the mobile related revenue, so it does affect the bottom line and needs thinking about.

Convincing evidence? Is 2012 the year of mobile after all?

Digging a little deeper revealed that tablets (mainly the iPad) account for the lion's share of revenue – traffic volumes for the iPhone and iPad are very similar (and, as an aside, account for almost 60% of all mobile traffic) but the iPad generated almost 4 times as much revenue as the iPhone.

I have read other reports showing how tablet users typically spend more than any other mobile device, but is it really that much of a surprise when you consider how much better the browsing experience is?

More importantly, is the iPad really a mobile device? Yes, if you define it by the fact that you can carry it around and can be connected on the go. Hang on, I can do that with a laptop, so why isn't that deemed to be a mobile device?

Therein lies the true essence of my cynicism about 'mobile' hype – devices are converging and it is becoming very hard to know what mobile really means. I am not convinced that tablets should be included in the mobile category, with their desktopesque browsing capabilities.

New devices are emerging that really challenge what a mobile is. Take Samsung's Galaxy Note – it is hardly pocket friendly and is more powerful than desktop PCs of not that long ago. Certainly a very different device to my trusty old Nokia 6310i (which was arguably the best phone that I have ever had).

If you include all the new devices, especially tablets, there is no doubt that 2012 is going to be big in mobile. If you are a bit stricter about how to define mobile, I still have some doubts.

What do you think? Hype or fact?

Things that seem new and fresh are often just re-creations of the old ways of working. It’s really interesting to see how many of the ideas that were fresh and exciting in 1995, when we were starting to do ‘new media’ consulting are still valid.
 
But one new idea is very old indeed. I love the prospect of social and what it means for communities and developing online products, but it isn’t new. In fact nearly everything I’ve heard about in social media is merely a new way of doing a very old thing indeed.
 
Social discourse – people coming together in small and large groups, looking for advice guidance and support, and creating and inter-dependency that helps all the members of the group – is as old as the very first tribes.

Humans have always operated in this way. One might argue that the rise of digital through the 1990’s actually subverted these core activities and instincts. The revolution of digital was that, for a brief period, people worked in different ways. But we’re reverting.
 
Social media platforms allow us all to interact with the world in a way that’s embedded in the very nature of our existence as human beings. We profoundly need the support of our tribes, we are by nature co-operative and collaborative beings. What those platforms deliver is amplification and ease, but they don’t actually change any of the basic instincts of human interaction.
 
Which is why, when people talk about the ‘new’ and debate if it can be made to work, I ask if they’re a little too caught up in the wonder and excitement and are not looking to the past.

But there’s also a lesson to be learnt here. One of the defining features of good new stuff is that it allows us to do what we have always done, but in a better way. Whether ‘better’ is more effectively, on a grander scale or just more often – any of these are really good indicators that something will work.
 
But it also suggests that, however caught up in the 21st century we are, it’s always worth looking over our shoulder to the lessons to be drawn from 15,000 years of human tribal behaviour.
 

When encrypted data arrived Google claimed that it would only affect “single-digit percentages” of search data. However, there are numerous reports that suggest otherwise, with some site owners seeing up to 33% of their keyword data listed as “(not provided)”.

According to Google the update was rolled out to help improve the ‘user experience’. While this may be true to an extent, the more cynical among us would suspect that it’s actually part of a bigger plan to get us all to buy more ads.

At the time of launch this update only affected logged in users on Google.com with no evident suggestion of a global rollout in the near future.

However Google announced earlier this week that encrypted search is being rolled out internationally over the cause of the next few weeks.

This presents further problems for site owners who rely on valuable keyword data. Not only is keyword data important to show how users entered their site, it also helps them make informed decisions about optimising landing pages and improving user experience.

The ability to grant third-parties full verified access to Webmaster Tools data has been around for a few years now, but as any user will know this scenario isn’t always ideal. The new feature allows site owners more control by restricting what data third-part users can see.

Not only is this good for websites that require access from multiple parties, but it also means that site owners no longer have to share their personal login details, meaning others can login without being able to modify account settings.

Managing user restrictions

On the Webmaster Tools homepage you will see the ‘Manage Site’ drop-down menu to the right of the page. When you click this you will see an ‘Add or remove users’ option (previously this read ‘Add or remove owners’)

Selecting the "Add or remove users" menu item will take you to the new User administration page where you can add or delete up to 100 users. This is where you can specify each user’s level of access.

There are three levels of access available; ‘owner’, ‘full’ or ‘restricted’:

• Owner – have complete control over their sites. They can view all site data and perform all site actions. New owners are added on the Site verification page. Once you've added a new owner, that owner will need to add your site to their Webmaster Tools account.
• Full – will be able to view all data and take most actions, such as changing site settings or demoting sitelinks
• Restricted – only have access to view most data, and can take some actions such as using Fetch as Googlebot and configuring message forwarding for their account. Restricted users will see a “Restricted Access” indicator at various locations within Webmaster Tools.

Visit the Webmaster Tools Permissions page to see a complete list of features available to each level of user.

If you have any questions about this new feature, checkout the Webmaster Central help forum.

With this in mind, I was reasonably excited upon learning of a Football based social network – Bantr. Finally, somewhere I can ramble on about selection mistakes by Stuart Pearce to an 'audience' that would appreciate my opinions and engage with me. This seemed preferable to alienating my 'friends' further on Facebook who “have no time for football” – a concept I clearly have yet to grasp.

Of course, there are other places where you can discuss football; from fan forums to podcasts – or even pop down to the local with a couple of mates. However, being part of a social network dedicated to the beautiful game appealed to me, so eagerly signed up and started exploring my new world.

Bantr Features
It was clear within minutes of logging in to the website, Bantr clearly took inspiration from a number of higher profile social networking services and applied them to football.

Within minutes I was 'checking in' to a few matches I was planning to watch over the weekend, voting on whether I supported Harry Redknapp as manager at Tottenham Hotspur; all safe in the knowledge that one of our spirited academy players was about to have a nap (having said this, aggregating player Tweets was one of my favourite features).

The next time I accessed my account, I was being 'followed' by a couple of people and was rapidly earning points that could one day lead me to become the Bantr 'Chairman' of my beloved Spurs.

I wrote a couple of 'status updates' and started to get a few responses that led to conversations. This was going well.

A few weeks later though, I had lost almost all interest.

What I Learnt from Bantr
When I was an active user, Bantr was still at an early age in its life and had a few technical problems, some of which weren't particularly important in the grand scheme of things and most have been fixed since, but were frustrating none the less.

All ambition of becoming a club Chairman had disappeared as there was no real incentive to be 'king of the manor'. In my eyes, Bantr valued you on how often you used different features of the site and more importantly, how many people you could get to sign up. On the one hand this seemed a sure-fire way of generating more members, but on the other it lost sight of what the main selling point of the site was, an online football community.

One of the other main issues was that there wasn't a version of the network dedicated to mobile devices. It's hard enough to keep on top of my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts with the odd mobile app, so Bantr simply couldn't keep up.   

Embracing Facebook
However, the biggest stumbling block in my opinion was that Bantr, in its attempts to reach as many potential members as possible set up their own accounts on the more mainstream social networks mentioned above. LinkedIn and Twitter I could understand just as they had different functions to what Bantr was trying to achieve, but I struggled to come to terms with their presence on Facebook.

For example, having a group on one social network to engage with members about your own social network didn't make sense and went against why I joined Bantr in the first place. When you look at the number of likes and the level of interaction from people on the group, I think a lot of members felt the same way.

After a while members were able to access Bantr using their Facebook account. However, this came with the inevitable automated Facebook status updates alerting my friends (including all that fell into the “had no time for football” category) that I had taken my obsession to a new level. Not only this, but 'I' wanted all of said friends wanted to join me for some football-themed banter. I'm reasonably sure some people blocked me as a result of taking up most of their news wall with irrelevant Bantr updates – I have done the same thing with in the case of Farmville.

Reasons for Optimism
This post may read as being a little harsh on Bantr, but creating a successful social network is not an easy thing to crack. One thing that was excellent about the service was they constantly invited  feedback from members in terms of how to improve the experience; and making those changes.

With their recent partnership with The Daily Telegraph's Fantasy Football game, it will be interesting to see how they evolve as an offering and whether joining forces with a second online football community will be the winning tactic in reaching the Champions League of social networking.