Month: May 2014

There’s no escaping the changes that have transformed the SEO landscape in recent years. Website owners and professionals were previously able to play the ‘SEO game’ to ensure that their websites continued to rank high and receive large volumes of traffic. This isn’t the case anymore. In the most recent Optimise Everything seminar by Atelier Studios, Digital Marketing Manager Matt Treviss talks about the changes to SEO and the effects this could have on your business. Click here for the full video.

“SEO Procedure used to involve; researching keywords, placing them across the website, then posting content containing the keywords on other sites and link directories. Generally, this would make the website seem more popular to Google, so they would rank it higher which inevitably increased search traffic back to the website.

In 2011, Google began masking information about visitor searches so nobody knew which keywords were generating the most organic traffic to a given website. This allowed Google to rank websites according to their own criteria, making them less susceptible to ranking manipulation. This was followed with a series of Google updates;

– Panda – penalised websites with low quality, duplicated content and promoted those that were better quality.

– Penguin – punished websites that were spamming

– Hummingbird – effort from Google to understand words like ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘when’ as more web users are asking questions instead of using search terms.

This pushes us towards a new digital marketing approach, where search engine rankings should be a part of the broader marketing mix. Websites should contain content their customers want, positioning their website as more interesting, more authoritative and more likely to be recognised by Google as useful. Content can be through referral sources like social media and on other websites to drive more traffic back to the website. Also, if the content is good, it will create a natural linking effect as people begin to share and talk about the content online. Referral traffic is more constant and controllable, and website owners can gauge, through click-throughs, which sources are generating the most traffic. This ensures budget is being spent on the right sources and offers a greater ROI.

Let’s be honest, SEO will never truly die out as it is still crucial for websites to rank highly due to the benefit it has on the bottom line of a business – the first page of Google still receives 89% of all search traffic! However by changing the benchmarks for rankings, search engines are encouraging website owners to put their target audiences at the forefront by producing relevant content that is actually beneficial to customers. But this isn’t just search engines being demanding – if a website is of value, a visitor will return again and are likely to spend longer on the site, inevitably reducing the website’s bounce rate.

According to the team at harimenon.com.au, one of the best things about these changes, are that it has taken away some of the biggest annoyances and frustrations that web visitors face;

– Websites full of spam

– Websites reusing the same content over and over again

– Websites producing uninteresting content purely for keywords and links

Businesses can no longer just buy links and low quality content and distribute it everywhere with no thought – Google has stopped recognising this. The shift towards a digital marketing mix is all about companies implementing marketing and PR tactics to generate and distribute content that is valuable and relevant. By integrating methods like content marketing, video marketing, social media and paid search, companies will be able to interrupt the buying process from all angles and drive optimal traffic.

In essence, search engines are becoming harder to influence, and the method of searching is becoming more natural. It is now used by every top company in the market, and now even the small businesses are getting in touch with this marvelous tool. So the best thing for you to do is find the best digital agency that manages marketing strategies and the search engine optimization tool, click here and find all the information you will need regarding SEO management to improve your company, or to introduce yourself into the market.

However,search engines will always need a method to determine whether one website is better than another, and keywords will always have a place as they are the only thing that makes a website relevant to a topic. But if a website is not engaging with their audience, if they’re not optimised for all web users and they’re not offering anything useful, then they will not succeed in the search engines in 2014.”

Nigel Wilson (pictured) reveals what you need to know about emerging social trends to help you create meaningful conversations with your consumers.

There’s no mistaking that the United Kingdom has been undergone somewhat of a transformation; new groups of consumers continue to emerge, and old ones change and evolve with time. Understanding the nuances and habits of consumers has never been more important for marketers to be able to create the right campaigns to engage their key demographics.

But what are these changes and how do they impact the insight we have as marketers on our key audiences? What do we need to consider when addressing these new consumers?

Social migration – the ‘Rurban’ generation

As consumers, a bulk of our buying and purchasing decisions are driven by life stages – understanding how these life stages have evolved, and how behaviours are changing to suit this is a key step in understanding how brands should adopt their approach to marketing to particular groups.

As an example, take Declan and Beth. Eight years ago, Declan and Beth were living the suburban life in a comfortable semi in the outskirts of one of the UK’s bigger cities. Then along came their daughter Megan and priorities began to change; the family makes the big move to a home for life in a more rural location that still enables them to have access to work and amenities.

Declan and Beth are among 490,000 people in Mosaic type Rural Vogue; attracted to the ‘Rurban’ lifestyle which gives a mix of the country idyll and access to cities for work and leisure. Although often based firmly outside of the confines of the city this group maintains a strong relationship with urban life, leading to distinct spending behaviour and shopping patterns – something a brand really needs to understand if they are to continue to engage the likes of Declan and Beth.

Let’s now look at how Rural Vogues shop – busy lives and poor access to local shops means that Beth and Declan are heavy users of online shopping for both groceries and for the purchase of other consumer goods. They are creatures of habit and have their online grocery shopping order set up so that it rarely changes. Therefore, new retail and FMCG brands are going to struggle to capture the attention of Beth and Declan. Research from Ipsos suggests that you have three seconds to appeal to this group with your marketing to communicate brand, product and motivate them to act.

Cross-channel marketing combined with traditional media is one way of encouraging them to act. The regular flow of high clothing catalogues from brands such as Joules and Seasalt landing on the doorstep shows that those with a targeted offer can find ways of reaching this affluent family. In a similar vein Beth and Declan are keen to save money but do not have the time to shop around for financial products – although they are occasional users of comparison sites. They rely on their network of friends for financial advice rather than anything provided by a financial institution. Their key demands for financial products are around home improvement, that new kitchen, and also investing for the children’s education. Timing is everything in communicating with Beth and Declan and marketing that is triggered by events in their life is more likely to get their attention.

The changing role of the family

Another key change that requires marketers to ensure they are laser focused when it comes to audience addressability is when they try to reach a multi-generation household. Since 2001 around half a million more young adults, a rise of 21% to almost 3m, have joined the ‘Boomerang Generation’ as it becomes increasingly common for young adults to move back in with family for temporary financial support.

The broad brushstrokes tactics marketers use to target ‘adult children living at home’ aren’t applicable any more. Marketers not only need to look at whom in the family they want to connect with, they need to understand the demographic make-up of these households as well.

Take, for example, Mosaic type Bank of Mum and Dad; this family is living in comfort with the mortgage nearly paid down and plenty of equity in their house. However, it is likely they will need to support their children financially to help them either get on the property ladder or afford rent. You can expect these to be releasing equity in the not too distant future, either from their own home or from their investments perhaps impacting spend on luxury items for themselves.

Compare them to Boomerang Boarders. Highly representative of the squeezed middle, impacted by inflation and a lack of salary increases, they are happy to support their children but are unlikely to be able to offer them significant financial assistance.

With these Mosaic groups alone, we see significant difference in spending power and the range of products these customers might be interested in.

However, targeting to the multi-generational household is complicated. Clearly the parents and the younger adults will have significant different channel preferences as well as areas of interest and disposable income. It is very important within these target groups that highly personalised cross channel targeting is employed.

In many cases, there is no single primary decision maker in the home. Purchase decisions are likely to be shared and influenced by multiple family members. Marketers need to carefully craft their communications when an older parent and a young adult or other children are sharing the same living space. Knowing that this ‘traditional family’ also contains an aged parent dramatically changes the picture.

It’s worth the effort, though. Research from the US from Mintel into this topic suggests that multi-generational parents and home owners can spend up to a third more than parents whose off-spring have fled the nest. The diverse nature of these households provides brands with endless possibilities to market with this group – as long as they understand and respond to the nuances of this household.

Endless possibilities

The significant and wide-ranging changes to the social fabric outlined above have altered the landscape of UK society beyond recognition. However this new patchwork of different groups and types presents a great opportunity for marketers. While targeting these groups is no easy task, it`s well worth the effort. With these new levels of insight, brands now have the ability to identify trends within their consumer base they would not otherwise have been aware of, and gives them the intelligence needed to create carefully crafted, highly personalised digital campaigns to ensure that consumer are reached with the right message on the right channel at the right time – every time.

Nigel Wilson is managing director – Consumer Insights & Targeting, Experian Marketing Services.