Archive for the ‘SEO Scotland’ Category

Facebook – a love hate relationship?

SEO Scotland | Posted by Katie
Sep 12 2011

My ‘love’ of Facebook is well noted and I regularly use on a business level but use daily on a personal level – keeping in touch with friends and family that I don’t see regularly is by far the highest point and in all honesty you can keep your games I am just not interested.

However, it seems recently that there have been so many glitches with Facebook that it is starting to drive me slightly mad!  Having watched The Social Network over the weekend for the second time (we even went to the pictures to see this one) there was one scene in the film where the founder of Facebook was making the point that it must and will never go offline.  He’s quite right, I cant remember the site ever being offline, but he neglected to say ‘but it might go wrong now and again’.

I have found one helpful hint to stop Facebook messing with your head is to insert the word beta into the url i.e. http://www.beta.facebook.com as this seems to make the majority of issues resolve themselves, however, just recently I am struggling on a daily basis with making apps work with my pages.  This is not an issue I have with my personal profile it is just business pages, and due to the nature of our work, I am admin on an ever growing list of pages and when I find something new, useful and just damn good obviously I want to add this new service to all pages applicable.  So why does Facebook make it so difficult?!   I am kind of thinking it is because Facebook was never meant to be for business use and so has not upgraded this side of their business as well as the personal side of it.

As ever, interested to hear other people’s experiences – answers on a Facebook post please :)

Popularity: 10% [?]

Is spelling important any more?

SEO Scotland | Posted by Katie
Jul 27 2011

Growing up in the 70s / 80s and the constant words on my school reports were ‘bad spelling, poor concentration’…. luckily the introduction of spell checker solved one issue, the poor concentration I would like to think has improved with age!

So, what is my moan about today?  Well it’s about the lack of care people/businesses take to spelling these days.  I received a request today asking if we would be interested in linking to a blog – I am all for link building where appropriate but to be honest the subject of this blog probably wouldn’t have been appropriate for our website, however, the thing that put me off was that there were 6, yes I said 6, spelling mistakes within the first paragraph of the most recent blog post! (since writing this post I have contacted Skippy the blog writer and he has very graciously allowed me to link to his blog – I am sure the mistakes will be corrected by now though!)

I am aware that we all shorten words on Twitter, Facebook and other similar forms of quick communication – to see texts from my 60+ dad that don’t include any vowels is a joy in itself – but surely if you are creating web copy or blog posts then you have the freedom to revert back to normality and structure sentences properly and use correct spelling.  Or am I alone in this thinking?

Now before you trawl through our web copy or previous blog posts to find a glaring error, I am not for a minute saying we are perfect in any way, but I do use spell check and I do proof read things and I would suggest that the likelihood of finding 6 spelling mistakes within 2 sentences is minimal but I am, as ever, curious to hear people’s opinions on this because I would hate to think I have become old fashioned in my views!

Comments in the Queen’s English gladly received…… that’s i before e except after c, just in case you were wondering!

Popularity: 14% [?]

Is Facebook going to the dogs?

Business News, SEO Scotland | Posted by Katie
Jun 21 2011

There has been a lot in the news recently about whether Facebook is on the decline.  The main number being bandied about is that 100,000 users closed their accounts in May 2011 in the UK.  Well in my opinion, these numbers need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Having read an article in This is London – and can I just say thanks to Robin Dalton for pointing me in the direction of this article – in my view there are a lot of people who would just love for Facebook to fail.  However, I dont think FB is going anywhere.  I agree it is going to have to change to keep up with some of the feedback they have been receiving recently, however, in the grand scheme of the FB world is 100,000 user profiles really going to make much difference?  As one person commented on the article, the actual number of users will never be a true figure will it?  Think of all the forgotten profiles, the duplicate profiles, the people ‘still’ using profiles instead of business pages.

Marc Hindley from Canary Dwarf (@canary_dwarf) tweeted recently that he can’t believe that Twitter doesn’t use a 6 month innactive user profile will be deleted policy – I think this is quite right, and in fact more businesses would have more realistic user profile figures if this policy was rolled out across the majority of social platforms.

Ultimately, we will all vote with our feet, or in the case of social media we will vote with our profile deletions… but to all of those people who scream and shout that FB is using their information, is putting in place face recognition software, is changing the way their profiles look, you must remember that you signed up to them and you probably didnt read all the small print – do any of us?

Popularity: 11% [?]

Personalised Internet, or just letting us see what ‘they’ want us to see?

Business News, Client News, SEO Scotland, Technology | Posted by Gavin
Jun 20 2011

During the course of my daily SEO work I spend a lot of time analysing organic search results, links, search engine results page (SERP’s) extensions etc.  As many people know search engines (Google for example) now display many different types of results within the SERP’s e.g. map/business results, products, images etc. along with paid ads and indented site links – all is getting rather complicated to explain to clients and armchair ‘quizzers’ alike!

Many of my clients query why the search results that they see do not match the results that I am sending them data on or discussing with them on the phone.  It has been mooted for a long time now that the likes of the search giant Google and social media behemoth Facebook display different search results for different people based on the history, topic, frequency, location (and much more) of their search queries – basically these sites that have become part of our everyday online lives are now filtering the results that we see based on information that we are feeding them on a daily basis.

Catching up on some reading, I came across an article that explains this scenario, the current and future state of the Internet with regards to a’personalised Internet’ much better than I ever can … thought provoking stuff.

Should we be scared of the made-to-measure internet? http://bit.ly/lMsMoh

(c) 2011 Guardian Newspapers Limited.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Get More From Your Google AdWords Campaign

Business News, Client News, SEO Scotland | Posted by Gavin
Jul 22 2010

We are contacted regularly by businesses who are running, or are planning to run Google AdWords campaigns.

What is Google AdWords?

Advertising through Google AdWords allows an immediate and targeted reach in relation to potential customers.  The ever changing applications within AdWords allow a more defined and effective campaign to be set up, run and adjusted in response to performance. Varying methods of campaign delivery and cost application ensure a totally flexible solution to paid advertising online.

How Can We Help?

Google AdWords is a powerful, cost effective way of promoting your business online – if planned and set up correctly.  Many people who contact us already have campaigns running and are looking to improve the ROI (return on investment) – we often review their campaigns and find that in a few simple steps we can save them a considerable money and ensure that their daily budget is spent wisely.

We have extensive knowledge and experience in setting up and running Google AdWords campaigns and can assist any business, in any market, with any budget.

We review/paln any campaign by:

  • Fully reviewing campaign to date (in consultation with client regarding campaign goal specifics)
  • Researching new keyphrases
  • Creating new AdGroups more focused to the chosen phrases
  • Re-grouping phrases
  • Matching phrases correctly
  • Reviewing daily budget and keyphrase CPC levels
  • Creating multiple, effectively optimised AdText
  • Reviewing delivery methods
  • Scheduling campaign effectively
  • Creating campaign reports to deliver as required
  • Integrating campaign performance data with online marketing reporting

We can help you get more from Google AdWords | Contact Us Today

If you would like more information relating to this post please contact me or join me online: Twitter | Facebook

Popularity: 12% [?]