Category — seo

Have you ever wondered why certain online digital marketing campaigns go viral? As part of our MSc Marketing course at Salford Business School we created a video and tested how Jonathan Berger’s STEPS concept works in real life projects.

We were introduced to Jonathan Berger’s idea of STEPS during our Search and Social Media Marketing module guest speaker’s Denise Brooks presentation.  Berger suggested that going viral is not just luck, its science based on psychology of talk.

Jonathan Berger’s STEPS concept

The key 6 STEPS in creating a viral video using Jonathan Berger’s idea of STEPS are:

I’ve seen the practise of SEO described as both an art and as a science, and indeed one of my primary considerations when enrolling on the SSMM course at the University of Salford was to ensure I received an authoritative, impartial, and academically applied grounding in the subject rather than a purely commercial one.

Tackling a new art or science project can seem very daunting though, and as the weeks rolled by and multiple layers of influence in the online marketing sphere were revealed, it dawned on me how search engine marketing has many parallels with the world of sport – the concepts of which I can understand much more easily. My sport is football (soccer, if you must), but I think the principles can be extended to virtually any sport you follow – let me know if I’m wrong!

Hit by Google Panda? Problems with SEO? Poor ranking web site?

These were some of the issues my company Dayinsure had. Dayinsure usually ranked well for most search terms but in particular Temporary Car Insurance and Short Term Car Insurance, were always listed in the top 3 of SERPs.

Thanks Google Panda!! At the end of February 2012, our visitor numbers suddenly dropped by around 60%. Some of our more long tail keywords hadn’t changed but our main search terms had plummeted down the rankings. Our current SEO company, although helping with good rankings for our long tail keywords, couldn’t seem to repair our Google Panda hit!

Journey Into The Unknown Or Silent Assassin?

When signing up for the Search and Social Media Marketing Course at the Manchester Salford Business School, I had precious little knowledge of how SEO worked – this, despite working as a freelance journalist and therefore attuned to promoting ‘brand awareness’ over the last four years for an industry-leading motorsport website. Journalists and writers tend to chase the next story and are much less concerned with keywords and search rank – rather leaving it to the organisations they are loosely connected with, or represent, to get on with task of improving results within SERPs.

The SEO companies that wear striped tops and balaclavas!

Working as a Graphic / Web Designer for the past 4 years, has been a very interesting ride. I have learned a lot to do with online marketing and I thought, to develop my skills further I would need to delve into the world of SEO, and become a jack of all trades.

The company that I currently work for, own a number of websites that SEO companies have torn to pieces, tried to glue back together with the wrong glue and left us with a shambling mess!

In December 2011 Mary Portas published her report into the on-going decline of the British High Street. In her report she clearly identifies the upward trend in eCommerce as one of the main reasons why sales and footfall on the nation’s high streets are in free-fall.  Mary makes 28 recommendations all of which are valid but I am left wondering why she doesn’t encourage the small trader to believe that they have as much right to profit from the opportunities of eCommerce, Social Media and Search Engine Marketing as the big boy multiples with their enormous digital marketing budgets?

Manchester Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Social Media Marketing training provides the key knowledge and skills people need to work in the growing SEO and Social Media marketing industry – says Anthony Mcloughlin.

This course is offered by Salford Business School in partnership with leading digital marketing organisations such as Latitude, Carat, PushON, MoneySupermarket, Pleer, Fast Web Media, MEC: Manchester and Brilliant Media and the internationally-recognised Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organisation (SEMPO).

From 26th January 2012, this course will be offered right at the heart of the region’s digital and media economy at the University of Salford’s new state-of-the-art facility at MediaCityUK:

(credit to opensourceway)

“Content is King.” Since Bill Gates coined this term in 1996, it has become the golden rule of SEO (as well as one of its most pervasive clichés). Matt Cutts of Google has repeatedly said that quality content is key to getting to the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).  And the bods at Bing have also said that “all SEO signals revolve around content.” But what do we mean when we talk about ‘content’? How do search engines differentiate between good content and bad content? And, in the land of the SERPS, is content always king?

Illustration: Leah Buley, 2009

The term ‘User Experience’ was first conceived in the 1990’s by Don Norman, while he was Vice President of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple. User experience as an emerging trend essentially describes how a person interacts with a product, system or service.

The practice of developing and improving the user experience is referred to as User Experience Design, which considers the emotional response and how a user feels about, perceives and interacts with a product, system or service. The decision to become a regular user or visitor will depend on answering key questions such as “does it give me value?” “Is it easy to use?” and “Is it pleasant to use?

When you have no access to a site with a Content Management System (CMS) and you’re trying to build awareness and visibility of a business there are limited routes to go down when it comes to Search Marketing.

Why I Decided To Do Offsite Optimisation?

I am currently a Marketing Executive for an insurance broker in Manchester which does have it’s challenges when it comes so search and social media as insurance is not something people generally have light-hearted conversations about with friends or peers or tend to want to get involved with unless absolutely necessary. As we have a new site currently under development and or existing site is static with no CMS I decided to take on offsite optimisation in order to increase awareness until the new site was up and running and fully optimised.