Posts on State of Search about ‘Research’

Targeting the Mindset of the Customer #SMX

SMX London

First session at SMX London 2013 I attended was run by Christine Churchill from Key Relevance looking at targeting the mindset of the customer.

Why Keyword Research Matters

Christine opens with declaring that keywords should be at the heart of all search marketing – the first and most important step in SEO. Keywords, she says, are the single most important thing for site relevancy.

Reassuringly she notes that it’s important to get into the customer mindset using the example ‘duplicate a CD’ and ‘burn a CD’: which would the customer look for: business jargon may work inside the industry, but mostly it’s not what customers search for.

Churchill is a fan of the long-tail term – they tend to be closer match and therefore convert better.

(more…)

The Internet As A Distraction And How To Stay On Top Of The Game

NewOne

I think it’s fair to say that the majority of our readers and ourselves are constantly connected to the internet, be that because we are knowledge workers that require deep concentration for daily tasks or because we want to connect with friends online. The fast evolution of new technologies and the growing connected world have generated various debates over the last few years. Recent developments in Sillicon Valley are undermining the internet’s distracting nature – so I’ve decided to find out what all the fuzz is about.

(more…)

The Sacrifices We Make for Social Media: Real-Life, Sleep and Sex

An average UK adult will spend 2 years and four months on social networking sites over their lifetime. Women will spend a lot more time social networking than men: 60 minutes per day vs. 48. That is a lot. Where do we get the time?

It means we have to make sacrifices, leave other things out. But what sacrifices are we all making to make room for social media? Browsermedia decided to take a look. And came up with some surprising sacrifices: real-life socialising (14%), sleep (10%) and even sex (8%) suffer.

Take a look at the info graphic below for a full view. (more…)

Let’s Go Mobile, but Pay Attention

mobile-world-featured

It was nearly two weeks ago that Marin Software released a whitepaper which got some discussions and pens going. The whitepaper “Mobile Search Advertising Around The Globe” showed us some impressive numbers which were repeated over and over on several blogs and at SES London last week as well.

And with reason.

Since 2006 we have been talking about ‘the year of the mobile’ and that was even before there was such a thing as the iPhone, let alone tablets. Marin’s report shows that talking about mobile is one thing, doing mobile is another. Where in 2006 we thought the phone would be the mobile device to focus on, now it is the tablets that have our full attention. And it is clear: there is money to be made on mobile (as if you didn’t know right). (more…)

Resources for Learning Digital Marketing

learn

Digital marketing as an industry is growing by the day, with more and more companies allocating larger proportions of their budgets to online over conventional marketing. Due to this ongoing growth, the number of graduate and entry-level positions being filled is also increasing rapidly.

Lots of great educational resources have been introduced and developed over the last few years to help train these amateurs / juniors and develop their understanding of different digital marketing principles.Here are some of the resources that I think are ideal for learning about the different disciplines of digital marketing.

(more…)

A “Click Here” Case Study

click-here-4

This is a guest post by IrishWonder, who has been practicing SEO since 2000, is an independent SEO consultant at irishwonder.com and a CMO for ContentMango.com.

Adobe is known to have been ranking for “click here” for ages and this is a seemingly totally non-commercial phrase that I just didn’t imagine anyone doing anything on purpose to rank for it (it appears I was wrong about that but more about it later).  So I thought it would be a nice keyword for a bit of a case study. (more…)

Facebook Growth Biggest Outside of US and UK: Look at Brazil and India

Outside

Is your focus when it comes to social media set to the right country? It might not be if what you are targeting is the Western ‘civilised’ world.

Where many brands still focus on the US, UK and Western Europe a lot can be said for turning your head to face other directions: East, towards India, towards Central and South America and South East of Europe. We know Facebook is, are you? (more…)

Thinking Customer Centric Not Channel Centric

hitwise

One of the nice things about attending conferences is it gives you an opportunity to listen to peers in your industry and gauge how their experiences and opinions stack against your own. So it was heartening for me yesterday at the UK Search Conference to find that some of my own musings about where digital is going were broadly in line with what others were thinking.

(more…)

Sharing Makes us Feel Good, a Monkey Brain Shows Us

monkey-juice

In the past few years Social Media has often been referred to as being a ‘new’ phenomenon, something we need to adapt to. And in a way that is true, but it wasn’t the ‘social’ part of Social Media we needed to adapt to, but the ‘Media’ part: the fact that everything is shared must faster.

The “Social” principles of Social Media have been there forever. I’ve mentioned Jesus in my presentations before (started with 12 followers) as example of how Word of Mouth has been used throughout history and there are more examples to be found of the ‘social’ principles, sharing, caring and showing what we like and looking at others.

The reason we’ve been seeing the ‘social behaviour’ we are showing on Social Media throughout history is simple: it is in our genes. We are social animals. We want (need) to connect, we want to have what others have and we want to get things from other people.

A new research performed by Duke researchers now shows that ‘giving’, or even better ‘sharing, is most probably something that ‘tickles our brain’. They tested it on monkeys… (more…)

UK Embraces “Mega Monday”, Consumers Shift Habits

mega-monday

On State of Search we have talked about watching trends and making use of the ‘right time’ when it comes to selling online a few times before. James Murray for example highlighted the importance of Halloween when it comes to searches about contact lenses. And Gianluca Fiorelli just yesterday explained how planning a launch of a movie like the Hobbit has a lot to do with the right timing of your marketing efforts.

With the holiday season just around the corner this topic is ‘hot’ again, since retailers are getting ready to get the attention of those who are looking for (last minute) Christmas shopping opportunities. And with Thanksgiving just behind us we can see how having a good strategy can have the right impact.

Thanksgiving has always had ‘Black Friday’ the day after. This is the day on which shoppers go out before the break of dawn to be the first at the shops who are giving big discounts to their products. I remember the first time I was in the US on a black Friday, how busy was that! With the rise of the web we saw another thing emerge: the online version of the Black Friday: Cyber Monday. Something which was again specifically US focussed at first. But it now seems that the UK has been turned around as well: “Mega Monday” is booming. (more…)

The Perils of Predicting the Internet

Wizard

Forecasting the future is a difficult path to tread. Predictions are often met with a healthy dose of cynicism, and there is no lack of critics if your carefully calculated forecasts turn out to be wrong. And yet people crave to know what the future holds. Despite its perils, forecasting is one of the most interesting parts of my job, and why I love being an analyst.

The basic premise of forecasting is that stuff happens in repeatable patterns. By looking at historical trends of what has happened in the past, it’s possible to predict what will happen in the future. Therefore, if March has been the biggest month of the year for ISA searches for the last three years (and it has) then it makes sense that next March will be the biggest month for ISA searches in 2013. (more…)

Page 1 of 512345