Project Management & Digital Marketers

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Calum — No Comments ↓

Digital Project Management is common place in large organisations and businesses throughout the UK. Loosely speaking roles can encompass the web development, infrastructure management or wider digital marketing campaigns. There is massive potential for the fundamentals of project management to be harnessed and applied to our wider digital marketing roles, improving efficiency and the ability for people to correctly measure success.

What about creativity?

Working in the digital industry at the moment, especially in SEO, will see you bombarded with information on the importance of content led creative. “How to get creative”, “how to make the most out of content marketing”, “tips on the value marketing proposition” – the list is endless. All are well and good and creativity should indeed take centre stage – don’t get me wrong. It is essential modern digital marketers are creative, however organisation and good planning is right up there as well, no question!

Why being organised matters

It’s simple, the more organised you are the better you can manage your own work, the work of your team and your ability to convey results (success!). As a granular example, the concept of backing up is lost recently in a lot of peoples minds. With always on cloud services and web apps giving the impression that their data will always be available, its no surprise. In many instances it will, in others it won’t. Take Google Webmaster Tools, if your not exporting it then after 3 months your search query data disappears. This can create awkward moments whereby you don’t have the data you need to measure success / performance – thus poor planning and documenting leads to an inability to measure success.

In addition, version control for documentation is also important. Although a strange concept for many outside projects and development, it can play an essential part of having people contribute to working documents on the fly – without loosing anything in the process. Thus, if you need to roll back due to one of the team being on a different level, then you can!

Some quick tips

Familarise; Read up on both Prince2 and Agile methodologies, as learning the fundamentals will change your mindset before starting up
Big Picture; Think about the bigger picture; what are you aiming to achieve, what is the ideal end result and how will you measure success
Planning & Communication; Plan properly and communicate it and your progress clearly, it’s better to initially include to many people than to little. Make sure you establish who the stakeholders are!
Scope; If you feel that something is spiraling or is suffering from scope creep; take a step back, identify whether or not you can accommodate, reject / accept the additional ideas. You can also speak to a PM in your organisation for a second opinion
Risks & Issues; Document any on-going risks or issues as they occur, its better to see these early and justify them once they have taken place

TLDR; Remember the fundamentals of Prince2 project management and BE MORE PRODUCTIVE! You’ll have well documented benefits and kudos from those around you for doing so. You don’t need to enter documentation hell (although many do) – you can use all the above and still be nimble.

You can check out the Prince2 Pocketbook if you want to find out more, a worthwhile read and its short enough to actually be practical and useful.

Posted in Digital Marketing, Project Management

The Definition of SEO in 2013

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Calum — No Comments ↓

Digital moves quickly. This time of year frequently sees a wealth of blog and industry news focused on one aspect of this, SEO. Camps tend to joust for attention and kudos, producing link bait focused articles which aim to foretell the future. Posts are either plain misguided, or quite notable pieces that are worthy of the coverage they receive. Unfortunately on many occasions its the first of the two that is true, with said articles being poorly promoted with overly optimised headings and content.

Some commentary on the subject and pieces in question;

The definition of SEO depends upon the individual, with algorithm changes and thought leaders driving definitions
SEO has evolved from a “one man know it all show” to something which requires delegation of key aspects to multiple teams – both technical and business oriented
The SEO industry has grown its marketing legs, with a lot of traditional gurus from technical backgrounds now competing for roles with traditional marketers who have adapted to digital (alongside digital fresh faces)
The organisation defines the role in many instances. A small company can see an SEO manager take on multiple roles including content production. In a large organisation coordination becomes far more important, with the role being one of synergy across teams
The breadth of modern, sustainable SEO has seen a lot of people come and go from the industry – of whom the vast majority will all end up working in a role that they encompassed to some extent during their time in SEO (Project Management, UX, Content Marketing etc)
Many SEOs attempt to redefine their role. The truth is, no matter how you describe your current position – true SEO now encompasses a lot of the unpaid digital spectrum – thus is something to be extremely proud of

The industry has changed, the definition has changed and the people have changed – its a form of natural evolution. No matter whether your strengths are routed in technical understanding or marketing prowess, you can still excel as both are still vastly important.

“If SEO is dead, then so is TV. Definitions change and much like TV isn’t just about Mad Men era adverts anymore (just look at product placement), SEO isn’t just about its traditional roots. The only difference is adverts didn’t die, meta keywords did”

What doesn’t die is an evolving strategy, it adapts and innovations – that’s pretty much what SEO should be defined as. A modern digital strategy which encompasses many digital marketing elements. It is an exciting time.

Posted in Digital Marketing, Project Management, SEO, Social, Thoughts & Commentary

Google Adwords Certification Study Guides (Fundamentals / Advanced)

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Calum — 2 Comments ↓

Looking to expand your digital mix? Whether or not you manage paid campaigns, an understanding of them is always useful.

Get some Google Adwords study under your belt in advance of sitting your exams! The best Google Adwords Certification study guides that will get you through both the Fundamental and Advanced Search exams are listed below. It is perfectly possible to pass your Google Adwords exam without the need for expensive guides or revision packages. If however you do need a head start and are trying to break into the industry, check out Google AdWords For Dummies from Amazon.

Some notes;

Check out the Google Adwords Professional website to get a better idea of where to start.
Resources from 3rd parties tend to be out of date and don’t match the current Google Adwords Interface, nor the Exam material.
Google resources are similarly out of date but tend to be a better match for the exam itself.
There is no better way to learn than spending time in the interface itself.

Let’s get onto the Google Adwords Certification study guides for your Fundamentals / Advanced Search Exams!

Google Professional (Individuals) Website
Provides all the initial steps to get you up and running. You will be able to access to seminars, study guides and much more via the Education Tab. Essential for you kicking off your Google Adwords Certification study.

Visit Google Professional Website.

Google Adwords Interface

The Adwords interface will give you the best exposure possible help for you to pass your exam. You will need a valid Google account alongside a name, address and credit card. Don’t worry, you can remove your card once you are setup.

The real value is assigning budgets and getting some campaigns live. Google regularly provide vouchers of around $50 to new customers via email to get people up and running, so look out for these in the days after activation. The Adwords Coupon page is also useful and currently has £75 free for a £25 spend.

Visit the Google Adwords Coupon Website.

Visit the Google Adwords Website.

Google Adwords Learning Centre

Without a doubt, the primary place for learning everything you need to know to study for your exams. Split between Fundamentals, Search, Display and so forth. Recently overhauled – this is almost always used by people looking for the ultimate Google Adwords Certification study guide.

Google Adwords Help Centre

Provides help resources for terminology and a run through ranging from basic setup and basics to billing. A strong resource for referencing as opposed to studying for your exam directly.

Visit the Google Adwords Help Centre.

Google YouTube Adwords Playlist

Various videos on anything and everything Adwords. You can find a specific playlist for all the introductory videos for adwords via the link below.

Visit the Google YouTube Adwords Overview Playlist.

Other Websites
Please note, these are additional resources and could be out of date. They do however provide a bit more context for you if you have additional study time available.

Slideshare Slide Deck by Emily Liedblad
General Certification Guide by Tom Demers
Quiz from Mr McSheeny

I would recommend downloading the free uCertify trial, as they do offer an extremely robust package with a nice trial. However, as mentioned above if you are extremely new to Adwords in general, check out Google AdWords For Dummies from Amazon.

Good luck and let me know how you get on with your Google Adwords study!

Posted in Digital Marketing, Thoughts & Commentary

Yelp Edinburgh’s Winterfall Wonderland @ Ghillie Dhu

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Calum — No Comments ↓

I recently had the pleasure of attending a Yelp! Edinburgh event in an official capacity as part of my role at VisitScotland. The aim was to learn about the community, what the events are all about and how we can potentially work with each other moving forward.

The event was titled Winterfall Wonderland and was hosted at Ghillie Dhu Edinburgh. The evening was truly fantastic, with some excellent businesses and Yelpers turning up. The way these events showcase some of the fantastic produce on offer, whilst getting people excited about visiting local business is truly commendable.

Attendees seemed engaged throughout, whilst the ever apparent social updates were in full flow. An excellent example of how physical events are so lovingly communicated and promoted online whilst the event is in full swing.

You can read all about it via my write up on the @VisitScotland blog.

Yelp Edinburgh’s Winterfall Wonderland @ Ghillie Dhu

Posted in Thoughts & Commentary

Is Structured Data Prioritised over Search Intent?

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Calum — No Comments ↓

The Semantic Web is an interesting concept, fuelled from a desire to be able to establish set identifiers for information on the internet. The end goal of structuring unstructured data on the internet is an ambitious one, which I don’t think will ever totally come to fruition in its current form. Turning the internet into the equivalent of a giant database is great, but will need wide spread support within HTML5 and via CMS creators.

“The Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) [1] that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web of unstructured documents into a “web of data”.” – Wikipedia

With the Wall Street Journal highlighting a renewed focus in this area for Google (as reported by Search Engine Land), it again raises questions about search engines use of this semantic data. Webmasters and marketers adopt semantic web mark-up to help make the proposition possible, in turn dedicating their own resource and time. Google has long strived to be able to use this data effectively, pretty much one of their long term goals in fact. This approach could stem as far back as when Google began to provide search results for synonyms, as opposed to results for an exact match of the search query used.

Search intent considerations

The interesting part for me is that searcher intent seems to be a bit of an afterthought when using data from the semantic web. Take football as a prime example. Within the UK football scores are returned regularly for top level queries around recent / current matches. This would see me search for “Celtic v Rangers” and I would be fed back the current score via aggregated sources. This is a mixed blessing, as at this stage we don’t actually know what information the searcher was looking for.

The great “semantic search” swindle

Alongside this, there is the on-going concern that as people are adding structured mark-up on site, Google is taking more and more of this information, whilst providing little in return. The whole experience of search is based around getting the most relevant, insightful content and being able to either narrow your search down, or browse through a number of sites to build a general opinion on the given subject. As any University project will tell you, multiple sources are always better than a single source; with structured data you’re losing the personal aspect of peoples “opinions” on the subject, instead having them grouped together in a “one best answer” approach.

Whilst not applicable in all instances, it is certainly something worth thinking about. The advancement of this area of Google’s game is definitely an exciting one. People will again have to innovate to ensure they see any form of benefit from it. I would ask;

“Are we prioritising structured data over search intent?”

Posted in Digital Marketing, SEO, Thoughts & Commentary

Increase Like Button Clicks on Informational Sites

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Calum — 9 Comments ↓

A colleague of mine Ross Tavendale highlighted the idea of placing social sharing functionality alongside content on informational sites. A great idea for highlighting specific gems likely to be shared, as button placement currently tends to be commonly top / bottom. Some further discussion and a bit of further research this as being a nice little way of potentially increasing the rate at which people interact with social sharing functionality. Essentially what he described is a route to increasing Like Button clicks on informational sites, in turn expanding your visibility and following on Facebook.

I wanted to find out exactly how this could work, alongside any potential benefits and impact points – this took a little more digging

It is quite common for e-commerce websites to achieve additional Like button clicks through making use of Facebook Open Graph mark-up, declaring products as objects and placing buttons alongside to aid in sharing. This works really well for people thinking about making a purchase, or people about to make a purchase and sharing it to friends and families in advance. ASOS is a great example of this.

This e-commerce method works because your single page is a single object, a product. However, how does this work when you are looking to share a specific area of a page on an informational site, without impacting messaging when sharing the page as a whole? This is the aspect that interested me, as I wanted to know how they were pulling it off and if there were any search implications.

Well, let’s take a look at the example Ross initially provided in the form of Britain Magazine.

Britain Magazine increases Facebook Like Button clicks through adding the ability to share quotes on a page out to Facebook. However, the challenge is that you can only make use of one set of Open Graph mark-up per page, meaning that your entire page would have to become about one single quote, even though it will be providing information above and beyond that.

How do they do it?

Simple! They use one Like button for the homepage, then on the same page link through to unique URL’s for each quote, with unique, relevant Open Graph mark-up.

This means that every quote has its own unique URL, so you aren’t actually sharing THAT quote, your sharing the same quote but on a different URL (Something the typical user will never realise). You can see the true URL you are sharing within the iFrame.

Let’s map this out

Visitor lands on http://www.britain-magazine.com/
Visitor clicks the like button next to the quote
Visitor shares http://www.britain-magazine.com/special-post/quotes/alfred-tennyson/, a unique URL which only provides a single quote and no other content

GREAT idea, however has multiple impact points

Google will crawl these URLs, thus for every quote a unique URL may be indexed
When shared, visitors will arrive on a page with a quote and navigation, not the original section of the homepage where the quote was shared from
A likely increase in like button clicks for your site’s content as a whole

Essentially, it provides a good route to increased like button clicks, visibility and brand interaction. Alongside, it potentially provides minimal search value and some indexing issues unless spider controls are used e.g. noindex. All in all, a great idea!

Posted in Digital Marketing, SEO, Social, Technology

What Does Google Know About Me?

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Calum — No Comments ↓

Google rolled out Search, plus Your World to quite a bit of fanfare, mixed opinion and wide ranging commentary a few months ago now. I was very much of the opinion that it was more Your World, plus Search, as opposed to Search, plus Your World. This opinions was formed off the back of having a heavy weighting on Google+ content, social recommendations from friends who you hardly know and more.

We’ve discussed how Google can associate you with people if you have a Google Account that has Gmail bundled in, with people you regular email, with Google+ accounts, appearing within your results recommending various pieces of content you may be interested in.

However, after digging around my profile today I actually discovered how deep this social graph extends. Check out your Dashboard, Available under Accounts > Products > Sign into Dashboard. Upon doing so, scroll down till you see the social connections and content area. Click on “View Social Connections”.

Although this isn’t new since Search, plus Your World launched, it does give you an idea how deep the social graph extends. People really are the centre of personalised results.

This should give a good indication as to why our MA Team is so focused on social, social links and social platforms when creating strategies in conjunction with the search teams. Public knowledge for some, some “nice to know” for others. Thoughts? 

Posted in Digital Marketing, Technology, Thoughts & Commentary

Your World Plus Search (Not Search Plus Your World)

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Calum — No Comments ↓

“Search, Plus your World” has begun rolling out on Google.com for logged in users, which is big news within the industry. Since the launch, we have seen high volumes of coverage, both within the industry and in mainstream media.

Search Plus Your World, providing rich social oriented results

This article discusses the more topical aspects of the update, with their being plenty of excellent advancements for us to shout about in addition to these! If your a little behind on the news front, then the bigmouthmedia blog does a good job of highlighting the main areas that “Search, plus Your World” impacts, alongside why it is so fundamental.

Best man gets the best job?

The changes announced by Google really do represent a fundamental shift in the volume of social oriented content seen on the first page of results. Alongside this, the weighting on the algorithmic process behind them appearing there is also likely to of changed. When personalised search was first introduced many in the industry were up in arms. On going updates then saw closer integration of social content, including profile updates from Twitter. This was designed to give users up to date, topical content on developments as they happened.

It appears that this update really does appear to begin to move Google away from providing results that follow the “best man gets the best job” type analogy. Building upon algorithmic signals that highlight recommended content from friends as being more relevant for you, we see an increased presence of content weighted on what your friends like or discuss. However, there is a clear focus on these being taken from a limited area of the internet in the form of Google+. This a interesting point that has also been raised in a Searchengineland article.

Do your friends really know best?

With the first page of results now dominated by personalised results – I’ve begun to realise that this is great in some scenarios, but not so great in others. When searching for news on a specific subject, I’d like to see the most authoritative source of information, not results heavily weighed by someone Google feels is connected to me (via signals from platforms such as Gmail).

I’d go as far as to say this is “Your World plus Search”, not “Search plus Your World”.

With a heavily personalised first page and a raft of search results hidden from page two onwards, it does paint a strange picture. I get the impression that this begins to move Google Search towards being a window to the Google Universe first and foremost, whilst being a generic search provider second. Google’s main source of revenue is advertising, yet they seem to be impacting results in a big way by pushing a non profit making Google+. In turn, we may well see further paid spend to cover gaps and increased resource devoted towards full bodied Google+ social strategies.

No matter what, it’s great news for Social SEO

The development of forward thinking social SEO strategies are again in the lime light. Working with social teams to achieve strong coverage, whilst focusing on more traditional aspects such as easy sharing of website content is essential.

It will be interesting to see what direction Google continues to take, with recent comments from Twitter also highlighting concerns with the new approach. The bigmouthmedia blog has a nice run through by Simon Hayes, so feel free to check it out as well!

Posted in Digital Marketing, Technology, Thoughts & Commentary

An Approach to Local SEO for Stores

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Calum — No Comments ↓

(This post was previously posted in December 2011 as part of a SEO Advent Calendar series. It has since been amended and updated and reposted here for greater reach. To view the original post, please visit the LBi Blog)

‘Location, Location, Location’ was once a popular show on Channel 4, now stolen for describing the the importance of local SEO for physical store locations.

The online visibility of local stores is quite commonly extremely low on many digital marketing managers radars. In turn, it should in fact be key for many online /offline hybrid retailers whom operate brick and motor stores. Retail stores tend to lack the range of products their online counterparts do, with the web acting as a best of breed for everything within the retailer’s portfolio.

Approach local SEO for stores by thinking about location initially then the the services or products that location actually offers. Loyal customers may just turn up at your store if the need for is time sensitive, or if they just prefer shopping in person. If information on the store is not available online, your customer may either struggle to find it, visit a closed store or even go elsewhere.

A. Onsite promotion
Shopping at the last minute is not an alien concept for many at Christmas. In the run up to Christmas, many people will be trawling the internet for details on local stores in a number of scenarios;

The standard delivery window for mail order has expired
They discover that only expensive ‘next day delivery’ options are available.
Risk of weather related delivery delays.

We can now begin to identify the journey from online to offline customer as being of vital importance as a revenue stream. Thus, make store locations and how to find them visible on site.

Promote from the homepage
Provide within your standard navigation, be it a footer or sub-navigation

B. Individual Store Pages

Guidelines should be in place to ensure all individual store pages provide the most up to date information, so that as changes take place these can be reflected on site.
Where stores are individually operated or franchised with separate social profiles, think about what social feeds or real time updates you can pull into these pages.
Customer reviews of that location will be common online, something you wish to include?
Use easy to remember URL’s.
Want to take it up a notch? Promote the store landing page from within each location – it may well help create a loyalty aspect that not many other online retailers can match.

C. 3rd Party Location Platforms
Offsite promotion plays the most important part. Location based platforms such as Google+ Local, Here Places (Nokia), Bing Places and Yelp will transform traffic to location pages in many instances.

Be organised and maintain a list of your locations
Claim listings currently out there and close / amend where required
Build upon this and add new listings, alongside new information as appropriate
Use link tracking and PROVE it works!

Identifying, documenting and maintaining profiles and information contained on 3rd party websites ensures customers do not end up at stores that do not exist, or have since moved after the information was made available. These 3rd party profiles can all be closely integrated with any associated store pages on the 1st party site.

TLDR;

Ensure you’re ready for Christmas, update your store pages to truly reflect their offering, promote them on site so they become a viable option for customers AND FINALLY ensure all 3rd party profiles and store details are also up to date. Not everything is this post might be applicable, however throwing some ideas can be the beginnings of a great thing!

Merry Christmas!

Posted in Digital Marketing, SEO, Social

The Occupy Flash Campaign

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Calum — No Comments ↓

(This post was previously posted in November 2011. I have now duplicated here for greater reach. To view the original post, please visit the LBi Blog)

Denouncing Flash and beginning a campaign to swat its usage, Occupy Flash have received strong coverage in mainstream media. The first thought I had was “is all this really necessary?”.

Shockwave Player launched in 1995, with Flash being made available to download the following year. Launching in a very different digital landscape from the one we see today, under the guise of Macromedia Flash Player. Flash was brought into the limelight with the intention of providing multimedia functionality through web browsers, something that would be sure to impress the surfers of the era.

1996 was not just the year of Flash, it was the year when; Intel launched the the Pentium Processor, where Apple was in the process of going down the pan, and the year the 16MHz Palm Pilot launched – providing computing power on the move. The era now looks a lot like the technology equivalent of the iron age, alas Flash really has lasted the test of time whether people like it or not. I would be inclined to say that Flash was the very beginning of a shift away from traditional software, putting us full steam ahead towards web based deployments mirroring traditional software functionality (think Office 365 – just minus the cloud bit!). Today it is one of the most widely deployed playback technologies ever distributed online.

Adobe Flash Saturation. Currently the study found Flash on the vast majority of internet enabled PC’s, with adoption rates in mature markets reported to be higher than that of Java (According to a Millward Brown survey, July 2011).

Flash has provided interesting functionality to a range of different websites. It was always a firm favourite for branded micro sites, providing rich multimedia experiences for visitors. A sole reliance on Flash for web design is in decline, for a number of obvious reasons. However, this has been aided through a well publicised spat between Steve Jobs and Adobe’s pride and joy. This saw a rejuvenated campaign of anti-flash sentiment making itself known amongst the Apple crowd.

Today the desire to adopt HTML5 and CSS3 is front and centre, heralded as a saviour from buggy browsing on the internet. With Adobe announcing the retirement of Flash Lite (mobile), the Occupy Flash campaign and Microsoft’s exclusion from the Windows 8 Metro UI Internet Explorer – the future does indeed look bleak.

It seems industry are putting a focus on Adobe in general, not just Flash. Many articles and commentators have overlooked what Adobe actually provides. As mentioned by Carlous Naxareno within an article on the Thenextweb, Adobe is very much in the business of creating and selling design based tools. With a reaffirmed commitment to develop software that aids the design of HTML5/CSS3 websites, Adobe are on positive track in what could have been a tough time.

Website traffic from mobile devices is constantly on the rise and with a ongoing debate around the absence of Flash on the new Google Phone, it becomes hard to for see continued strong development in this area. However, actively encouraging its downfall seems unnecessary, with a successful outcome only limiting the reach of web based multimedia.

Markers need to be savvy and pick and choose their technologies. This is no different. A campaign against technology is never one I would choose to be a part of.

Posted in Digital Marketing, Technology, Thoughts & Commentary