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In Search Of Koozai - My First Week At Koozai. It’s strange to think that this time two weeks ago I was on a train to Brighton, having met two “Koozai” (it must be a collective noun for something) on the train after abandoning a career in travel only the night before for one in digital marketing…well why not? So in those seven days a lot has happened. I’ve been to a conference, caught 20 “Koozaimon”, read A LOT, become a SEO-Jedi apprentice and scored a cheeky couple of hundred points ten pin bowling – by no means the top score.

Don’t go bowling with a Koozai, there are some hustlers. Not a bad start as starts go. Zoom In Reminiscing on my first seven whole days in digital marketing, it’s worth noting that to an outsider everyone in this industry seems to love what they do. Everyone in the Brighton Dome attending BrightonSEO clearly wanted to be there. At first I thought it was out of common courtesy that no one as whispering during the presentations but it was actually down to the fact they were doing it all on Twitter. PostRank and the Importance of Social Engagement Metrics to SEO. There are many sites that curate content and links on the Web, including many blogs and a number of social sites that do it through submissions by their members, who can also vote upon those submissions. The inventors of PostRank came up with an algorithmic approach to rank articles and blog posts and other content on the Web, and present it to people based upon those rankings.

I’ve found a patent application at the USPTO that provides some insights and details on how their approach worked. Google acquired PostRank last June, as was announced on the PostRank blog on June 3, 2011. Given Google’s increasing move towards looking at more social signals for the potential ranking of content shared by others, it’s worth wondering how this technology might be used by Google, and what the PostRank team might be bringing to the effort. PostRank Co-founder Ilya Grigorik, who now appears to be a web performance analyst with Google, noted in the post announcing the acquisition: Abstract.

The DNA Code for Building Great Content. 10 interesting digital stats we've seen this week. I've gathered together some of the most interesting digital marketing stats released this week, from our own and third party research. Stats covered include connected TV, social media engagement, mobile commerce and e-commerce sales... Digital marketing in Brazil During 2011 alone, the internet population grew by 16%, with IAB Brazil estimating a total Brazilian online audience at more than 81m people (aged 16+).The number of mobile subscriptions dwarfs these figures at 240m at the beginning of 2012. (Brazil: Digital Market Landscape Report) Social media and engagement New Look's social media strategy is driving more valuable engagement, according to a new study by Stickyeyes.

Social media measurement Just 10% of UK businesses monitor social media ROI, according to stats from EPiServer. 29% of marketers had set up their company's social media accounts in the last 12 months, while 35% had been using social marketing for more than a year. Mobile commerce and affiliate marketing Connected TV Apple. Google Analytics Social Reports Explored. The addition of Social Reports represents a major update for Google Analytics. At first glance there’s some useful data that can help you work out a better ROI for social media than ever before. UPDATE: Backlink data has now also been added! When you take a closer look and delve deeper you find that there’s a whole wealth of information about interactions, shares and details of the social activity on and relating to your site.

This is a big step towards brand monitoring by Google Analytics, and it’s free and easily accessible in your Analytics account today! I’ve gone through and taken screenshots from one of my sample accounts of some standard and some hard to find reports which I’ll explain in detail here so you can see what’s on offer. Overview Traffic Sources > Social > Overview We also have a summary of how many visits each social network has brought to this site. The overview allows you to quickly see your most shared URLs and social activity on site (Social Plugins). Conversions. In Search Of Koozai - My First Week At Koozai. It’s strange to think that this time two weeks ago I was on a train to Brighton, having met two “Koozai” (it must be a collective noun for something) on the train after abandoning a career in travel only the night before for one in digital marketing…well why not?

So in those seven days a lot has happened. I’ve been to a conference, caught 20 “Koozaimon”, read A LOT, become a SEO-Jedi apprentice and scored a cheeky couple of hundred points ten pin bowling – by no means the top score. Don’t go bowling with a Koozai, there are some hustlers. Not a bad start as starts go. Zoom In Reminiscing on my first seven whole days in digital marketing, it’s worth noting that to an outsider everyone in this industry seems to love what they do. Everyone in the Brighton Dome attending BrightonSEO clearly wanted to be there. There was a great buzz around the place, friends and acquaintances catching up on life, link building and the like. Back To Reality Monday swung into view pretty quickly.

Ask the experts: How will rel=author affect SEO? Google launched its authorship program last year and, using the "rel=author" markup, authors are given a more prominent listing in the SERPS. Implementing this is relatively easy to do (some useful instructions here) and it has the potential to improve CTR through enhanced search results. But how significant is this now, and how will Google use this in future? I asked several search experts for their views.... Why did Google introduce its authorship program? Andrew Girdwood, Media Innovations Director at Bigmouthmedia: It's a trust signal for both their users and their algorithm. Peter Handley, SEO Director, the MediaFlow: I suspect that this is all part of their integration of Google Plus into the main search functionality. It can then use all this personal information to link up the various properties that writers are contributing content to, and determine a writer's authority.

Teddie Cowell, SEO Director, Guava: Personally, I prefer Direct Connect and publisher tags. Andrew Girdwood: The Problem With False Content. Refe Tuma (@RefeUp) is a writer, thinker and strategist with a passion for the new music industry. The rise of social media has led to the proliferation of false content. I define false content as any content created for the sole purpose of SEO optimization, traffic bait or conversion without additional informational value. For example, if I were to write a post called How to Make Money in Music Without Even Trying, and then filled it with content like this: So you want to be a rockstar? You want to make it in the music industry? Don't listen to the haters!

Then I closed it out after 6 or 7 paragraphs of similar fluff with something like this: "But, how? " That would be false content. False content is right up there with comment trolls and malware on the list of factors that impede users' online experience. So what's the big deal? The big deal is that false content quickly erodes trust. Consider this a public service announcement. Using the Keyword Tool to get keyword or ad group ideas - AdWords Help. Keyword Planner is like a workshop for building new Search Network campaigns or expanding existing ones. You can search for keyword and ad group ideas, see how a list of keywords might perform and even create a new keyword list by multiplying several lists of keywords together. A free AdWords tool, Keyword Planner can also help you choose competitive bids and budgets to use with your campaigns.

Whether you're new to online advertising or an experienced pro, you can use Keyword Planner to lay the groundwork for a successful campaign. Note To access Keyword Planner, sign in to your AdWords account at Benefits of using Keyword Planner You can use Keyword Planner to: Research keywords. While Keyword Planner can provide some great keyword ideas and traffic estimates, it is important to keep in mind that campaign performance depends upon a variety of factors. Tip As you use Keyword Planner, remember to keep our tips for building the best keyword list in mind. Tips. Google Webmaster Tools Expands Query Data to 90 Days. Today, Google has expanded the historical search query data to 90 days.

The number of queries reported has increased as well: the report will now list the top 2,000 for each day of the selected date range (vs. the previous top 1,000). This is great news, as this is data not available anywhere else and when looking at trends, the more information, the better. Google has made a few other minor adjustments to this data recently. So if you use Google webmaster tools query data, see below for all the details of how these reports work. What’s In the Top Search Queries Report First, a refresher on what this data is all about. Summary Data For the selected data range, the report shows the total number of queries that brought traffic to the site, the total impressions and clicks the site received, and the number of impressions and clicks for the reported top queries. Query-Specific Data For each query, the report notes: Country and Property-Specific Data How the Numbers Are Aggregated Generating Data.

The Future of Blogging: I Had to Tell You This. This is an important blog post, because it makes a prediction. A prediction about the future of blogging; a platform actively used by over 181 million people (Nielsen data for October 2011). Not only will you learn why I think most blogging advice is dated and ineffective, but I’ll also reveal where I believe this entire industry is heading, so you can stay ahead of the competition. This is not only an important post, but also the longest I have ever written.

It’s more like a mini-eBook, without the price tag. Don’t let its lack of cost make you doubt the value here though. A weird tip I personally received from Google’s Matt Cutts which increased my ViperChill search rankings What Gawker does once per week to double their traffic figures. …and most importantly, how this all helps me to make a prediction about what it now takes to build highly profitable blogs . In a room full of 100 people there will statistically be at least two active bloggers. As mentioned, this is a long article. 8 Ways to Boost Online Brand MentionsState of Search.

8 Ways to Boost Online Brand Mentions Over the past 12 months, I have been working hard with the rest of the Koozai team to increase our brand awareness within the SEO industry. In this blog post, I am going to share some of the tips, tricks and actions that we continue to undertake to boost mentions of our brand name online. No matter what industry you work in, all or at least some of the initiatives mentioned below will help you to grow awareness of your brand and the sooner you start, the better. Recruitment If you are serious about increasing the awareness of your brand then recruiting someone to take on this role is a great starting point.

Making the decision to get a full time person working on your brand will take some time. Social Media There are four key social media platforms that you need to focus on to increase mentions of your brand: * Twitter * Facebook * LinkedIn * Google + If you don’t have business profile pages set up on each of these platforms, what are you waiting for?

Videos. A Video Guide To The Google Webspam Update. Today is a bad day to be a spammer but a really good day to be a nice, ethical, white hat SEO. Today Google dropped their webspam update, which affects 3% of queries, and it targets those websites that are do seen to especially bad content and linking practices. Now Google has always fought against webspam, but this is the first time they’ve really done a really specific update against it, and, as I said a moment ago, it will affect 3% of queries, but it’s unlikely to affect 3% of websites. A lot of spammers appear for hundreds of thousands of queries. So they’re likely to see a massive dip in their performance, whereas the vast majority of the Web will probably see fairly similar results to what they had before unless they are engaging in any of these practices.

Let’s take a look at the things Google is now going to punish even more than they did before. Next we’ve got unrelated links. Next we’ve got keyword stuffing. Next we’ve got article spinning. Last we’ve got duplicate content. Violations & Search Engine Spam Penalties. New Features of Webmaster Tools.

Google Webmaster Tools has developed in line with the growing demands of the SEO industry over the past year. Many new and powerful features have been added, which are all well worth understanding. Given the vast amount of information that Google don’t give you, when they do give you data, it is important to know. Therefore, the new features of Google Webmaster Tools are crucial to know and understand. Webmaster Tools sets out to meet the following goals and aspects of your website’s visibility: Ensure pages are indexed and to report on errorsTo help drive traffic to your websiteTo build a Google friendly websiteIntegrate social data and search data into one place Google has lots of great tools to help you achieve the above.

Submit Your Sitemap The below image has been taken from Webmaster tools and accurately reflects the way it has been displayed for many years: With new features and updated graphics, the Sitemaps sub-section of Webmaster Tools now looks as follows: Broken Links Labs Summary. Google Launches Update Targeting Webspam In Search Results. Google has announced that it is releasing a new search algorithm that it hopes will better catch people who spam its search results or purposely do things to rank better that are against Google’s publishers guidelines. Going live today, Google says the “Penguin Update” will impact about 3% of search queries. From the company’s posts on the Inside Search and Google Webmaster Central blogs: In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam.

The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s quality guidelines. This algorithm represents another step in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. Fighting Web Spam What’s “webspam,” as Google calls it, or search spam? Our search engine spam penalties page explains more about these types of common spam. Did Google Already Fight Spam? The web spam techniques above aren’t new. It’s not, even though the blog post might give some newcomers that impression. Google Plus: 6 Things You Don't Know About the Search Giant's Social Media Tool. Here's one of my current favorite hobbies: I sit down with potential clients, toss out a reference to Google+ and wait for the inevitable reply--that “it’s never going to make it” or “we don’t believe in it.” Then I slowly shake my head, take a breath, and reveal what Google isn’t telling you about the importance of their social push. 1.

It’s not a social network. You read that correctly. Yes, the inside of Google+ looks like Facebook--with a newsfeed, Circles that look like groups, and photo sharing. Google+ as a social network was a Trojan horse to introduce the “+1 Button,” and that matters a great deal, because we are seeing it everywhere from organic and paid listings to blog posts, product listings and YouTube videos. More data means better targeting, which in turn makes Google more money. 2. Google says that adding +1 button integration to your web site won’t directly affect your rankings, but that is misleading. This has a triple-whammy positive effect: 3. 4. 5. 6.

Q&A: The ICO's Dave Evans on EU cookie law compliance. Google Reviews Ads, Websites & Advertiser Accounts to Combat Bad Ads. 4 Ways to Measure Social Media Success With Free Tools. What's In a Word? The Critical Role of SEO for Business Growth. Facebook Develops Tool to Bypass Google’s Search Plus Your World. 10 Top Trends in Social Media. Go Back In Time: How 10 Big Websites Looked 15 Years Ago.

Unnatural Links Investigations. Generate Targeted Referral Traffic via LinkedIn. Social Media Marketing and Blogging. SOCIAL MEDIA / @lyndonman from Cornwall Seo shares the low down on what "Viral" is and how it works...no cream needed... Will Tumblr be the next Instagram? Latest news, sport and comment from the Guardian. Gideon Sundback celebrated in a Google doodle | Technology | guardian.co.uk. 34% of retailers plan to use compulsory pop-ups for cookie opt-in.

Google Introduce New Tools as Internet Adspend Increases. The New Google Analytics is Finally Ready! Bing's Search Plus Your World? Building a Good Link Profile: Measure Twice, Cut Once. How Niche Content Sites Can Build And Keep Audiences. Social Search - Dead on Arrival? Or On Life Support? (And Can It Still Be Resuscitated?) Facebook Ad Analytics Will Track More Than Clicks & Likes - Search Engine Watch (#SEW) Behind The Scenes In Google's Battle Against Bad Ads. Online Marketer Today. The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future - Atlantic Mobile.

Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google. Google AdWords New Tool. 10 excellent examples of Facebook Brand Timelines. TV | Koozai® - Your Intelligent Digital Marketing Agency. 9 Tangible Linkable Asset Ideas and How to Build Links to Them | SEOmoz.