SES London - Keep an eye on the brand

If you have ever seen a presentation on SEM you will almost certainly have seen the heat map showing where users' eyes go.

The classic screen shows quite clearly a red cloud in the top left indicating that the top three organic (or paid if up there) listings get the eyeballs.

Well that's all changed. Now with blended search, often referred to as Universal search as in Google Universal, where images, vidoes, news, blogs, maps etc appear in the listings the eyeballs are attracted to other areas of the screen.

See Enquiro Research.

Simply put, an image on position #4, for example, grabs attention above (or should that be below) and beyond the top three listings.

This is a great opportunity to get exposure through social media optimisation.

Travel operators can as such grab the eyeballs then the clicks through placement of GOOD and tagged pictures/videos of resorts on Flickr, YouTube.

But there's a “but”. It also means that Reputation Management is more important now then ever.

Bad reports whether in blogs, on YouTube or in mainstream media will shoot into the SERPs on your brand name complete with imagery. And don't think it can't happen to you.

In the next five years 83% of companies will face a crisis that will negatively affect their share price by 20-30%, according to Oxford Metrica.

Datamonitor report that 33% of people who lose trust in a brand will actively campaign on the internet against that company - and that figure is on the rise.

The lesson is simple you need to be ready to deal with a crisis far more rapidly then before - quite how you do that get's a little more complex...

That's my last blog from SES so sorry to finish on an alarmist note but if there's one lesson from these three days it's that, now more then ever and for good and for bad, you can't take your (tracked) eye off your brand on the internet.

Matt Brocklehurst, marketing director, Latitude Group

SES London - SEM Cool tools & tricks

I've been told that if you're over 30 you should stop using the word cool and this probably counts double if you're talking about search engine marketing.

Anyway, leading on from the top travel marketing tips I presented at a recent Travolution seminar, here are some cool tools & tricks I picked up at SES on Wednesday that may help you get some quick and often cheap wins.

1. If you write a blog make sure you register it at Google, Google blog search, Yahoo, DMOZ and others as well as syndicate - check out Syndic8.com.

2. So you know that if you have GOOD video content you share it on YouTube and tag it and you probably know that you should use other video sites but don't have the time. Go to Tubemogul.com where one upload is sent out to 12+ video sites - and it's tagged.

3. Find out who the most popular/influential blogger in your travel sector and charm him/her to be a guest blogger for your site.

4. Need inspiration for a blog - how about interviewing someone, writing a book review, a "how-to" or a survey.

5. Want a free/cheap tool to see where on the page people are clicking on your site? Try Bunnyfoot and Crazyegg.

Also Google web site analyser will help you optimise conversions.

I've not had a chance to try all these myself yet but they're certainly worth investigating.

Matt Brocklehurst, marketing director, Latitude Group

SES London - MicroHoo: The Big Switch view

Now this is what I call a great way to start the day.

Nick Carr, author of the Big Switch, gave the keynote address here this morning at SES. OK, it was a video recording from the US but it was that good it got a round of applause (including me) which felt a little strange!

I've never clapped a video before.

Still it was filmed specially for SES and it offered a perspective on the Microsoft Yahoo deal which makes sense.

His view is that computing and software is increasingly being used on the web with documents saved there as opposed to downloading the software to your PC.

Related to this is the trend for software providers becoming more and more like media companies offering their software (content) for free or cheap to consumers, relying on ad revenue for their profits.

So here's the rub - if this continues where does this leave Microsoft?

Could the giant have its carpet pulled from it?

They can't take that risk obviously. They need web properties, distribution networks and social sites. Hello Yahoo!.

The other gem from Nick was that this trend could produce a digital elite. Take Craigs List which sells more ads then many traditional, massive media concerns.

Employees? 20. Skype which now serves more customers then BT has only 200 employees compared to BT's and other telco's thousands.

And YouTube only had 60 employees when bought by Google for 1.6 billion.

The recent lay-offs from Yahoo! take on a slightly different light now.

Matt Brocklehurst, marketing director, Latitude Group

Technorati tags: microsoft yahoo google skype youtube

SES London - Cash in China; Mobile in Japan

Boy, search is complex in Asia.

In Japan keyword choice is made that bit more difficult in that the same word will have multiple spellings.

Venice, for example, has six well used versions so you need to make some informed decisions on which version(s) you use on your site.

Japan has a different no 1 SE - Yahoo with 47 million users per month to Google’s 27 and Rakuten's 27.

The number 1 social network is not MySpace or Facebook but Mixi with 17 million users.

But probably the most intriguing fact is that more people in Japan now access the
internet via mobile then PC.

But China, forecast to overtake the US in internet users this year, really takes the biscuit (I would say Fortune Cookie but apparently these don't exist in China and are actually made in Mexico).

China search is dominated by Baidu.

This is very different from Google, not least in that paid inclusions sit at the top of the 'natural results' yet 90% of users don't realise they're paid for.

On the subject of paying most Chinese still prefer to pay in cash.

Particularly in travel with 60% of online transactions on C-Trip (the Chinese 'equiv' of Expedia) involving cash on demand that involves a man on a moped arriving at the online buyers doorstep, getting the cash then handing over the tickets.

This will change as credit cards are growing but, in the meantime, this is a stark example of just how different internet business really is in China.

Matt Brocklehurst, marketing director, Latitude Group

SES London - Google is really big!

The annual Search Engines Strategies gig in London this week is considered to be one of the biggest events in the calendar for digital marketers.

Our man with the laptop and a keen eye for new business new thinking on SEO is Matt Brocklehurst from Latitude Group.

He'll be sending a number of despatches throughout the three-day event.

Number 1:

It's been global - content-wise but also every speaker seems to be from the US. Isn't that what SES New York is for?

Anyway, I've found out that, guess what, Google is big, I mean really big internationally.

Presentations looking at the global search market confirmed that in Europe Google is the no 1 Search Engine in every country save Russia with Yandex and Czech Republic with Seznam.

But no matter whether you’re in Belgium or Bosnia, one of the keys to doing well in the natural rankings is the more local your site appears the better Google likes it.

So look at getting national extensions, .fr, .de etc, links from other local sites and, of course, use the native language. You also need to be careful with your keywords.

The Google algorithm for English speaking websites is more advanced and will group together and recognise similar words such as tour, touring or tours.

Not so in other languages. Google maybe everywhere but to succeed internationally you need to treat it different in each market.

Matt Brocklehurst, marketing director, Latitude