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The World Wide Web Turns 20 This Year
May 14th, 2013
Considering the industry we work in, this year is a big celebration for us at White Chalk Road – 2013 is the year that the World Wide Web leaves its teenage years behind and turns the big 20.
The Internet began as a prototype project for information sharing, headed up by by Mr Tim Berners-Lee – founder of the internet and all round changer of the course of history – but it wasn’t until 1993 that the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), for which Berners-Lee worked, made the WWW technology available to the world free of charge.
It’s hard to believe how far the Internet has come in such a short space of time, from a tool used to help CERN physicists share information, to a global phenomenon around which economies, businesses (including our own) and global communication revolve. In fact, by 1995 the Internet was still a novel idea making news headlines, including a (now) hilarious full report on MTV news complete with celebrities, including Sandra Bullock, Coolio and the Smashing Pumpkins, trying to explain the internet in their own words. Terms used in the clip such as ‘just a fad’ and websites described as ‘truckstops along a highway’ show just how far the internet has come in the last number of years. (Unfortunately the clip of this report has been removed from YouTube but you can see some information and screenshots of the MTV report on the Internet here).
To mark the milestone we’ve taken a look at some interesting firsts for the World Wide Web:
The first webpage ever uploaded to the World Wide Web was, not surprisingly, uploaded by CERN, and featured information about the technology, showing users how to set up their own webpages. CERN is planning on digging this webpage out of its archives and bringing it back to life to mark the Internet’s 20th birthday.
The first domain name ever registered was sybolics.com. The website, unfortunately, has not evolved quite as gracefully as the Internet as a whole. It is now just a spammy webpage selling small sections of the page as advertising space with the sales pitch “Own a true piece of Internet history! Advertise your company on Symbolics.com. Be a part of Internet history and claim your spot.”
The first image uploaded to the Internet
The first image uploaded to the Web was by Mr Berners-Lee. It was of parody girl band called Les Horrible Cernettes. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.
The first big news story to break online was the story of President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. These days it’s unusual for paper and ink headlines to shock or inform us – we’ve already seen the breaking news online the day before. But when DrudgeReport.com broke the news of President Clinton’s affair with his intern in January 1998 there was uproar. The Drudge Report scooped Newsweek Magazine, which had held off publishing the story as it could not validate some of the facts. The incident raised questions about control of information published on the internet and the responsibility of those posting information to make sure their facts are accurate. These topics are still debated to this day.
The first SEO service offered to businesses for their websites was… a tricky one to pin down. Webmasters and Website Designers began optimising their websites in the mid-90s, but the first time the phrase ‘search engine optimisation’ was used was around the year 1997, as documented on this archive page of the Multimedia Marketing Group website.
We would like to wish the World Wide Web a Happy 20th Birthday and extend our gratitude to Tim Berners-Lee for his ingenious invention. The world would be a very different place without it.
Posted in News |
Google Changing Search Results Format in Europe
May 6th, 2013
Following complaints made by the European Union’s Antitrust Authority, the EU Commission, Google will roll-out changes to the way its search results are displayed on the EU versions of the search engine, including google.co.uk, google.ie, google.fr etc.
The main changes being made will see Google alter how their search results are displayed, with a clearer labelling of Google’s own promoted content and services, such as Google Maps, Google News, Google Places and its ‘Shopping’ and ‘Flight Search’ results. Google has also agreed to display search results from competitors and link to their services.
According to the EU Commission Google must “display links to three rival specialised search services close to its own services, in a place that is clearly visible to users.” For example, TripAdvisor results (a competitor to the Google Places service) will be displayed prominently, along with other similar competitor results, alongside Google Places links in the EU SERPs.
The EU Commission is also forcing Google to address its dominance in the online advertising market, prompting Google to make changes to allow marketers in the EU to buy ads on rival networks.
Despite the widespread proposed changes, Google says its algorithm will remain unchanged for organic, non-promoted search results.
The EU Commission has been carrying out an investigation into the issue since 2010 amid concerns Google might be abusing its dominance in the EU, where they enjoy a 90% share of the search market, by decreasing the visibility of its competitors in search results, thus stifling its competition.
The Commission has ruled that once the changes are implemented they will be market tested for a month, during which time competitors can make comments and vote on whether the changes are sufficient. Once the changes are accepted as sufficient by the EU Commission they will become legally binding. A breach of the terms could result in the Commission imposing a fine on Google of up to 10% of its annual global revenue – amounting to an estimated $5 billion.
Internet users in the EU will not see the changes implemented until the Commission and Google’s competitors have approved the proposed changes and an agreement is settled. This will most likely be achieved by the end of 2013.
Google also dominates the search engine market in Australia with a 92% share. However, search results will remain unchanged on google.com.au for now.
Posted in Google Adwords, Search Engines |
The Power of Testimonials on Your Mobile Site
April 3rd, 2013
Incorporating testimonials into your company’s mobile site is a great way to convince possible customers to use your service. In fact, BusinessWeek found that 70% of customers consult reviews or ratings before purchasing. Not to mention, mobile tends to convert faster: mobile restaurant searches have a 90% conversion rate, and 64% of conversions are happening within a mere hour, according to xAD and Telemetrics.
The concept of social proof can be boiled down to one main idea: people tend to believe what others believe, even if the opinion is coming from someone they don’t know. Building testimonials into your mobile web design will naturally bring about a sense of urgency, trust and credibility.
Demonstrate Your Value
The ultimate goal of placing testimonials on your mobile site is to show potential customers that you are providing a quality product or service; you’re credible because customers say so. Be sure to include all of these key components in your testimonials:
• Though you want to be thorough, if you are using them on your mobile site, keep testimonials short and sweet- you don’t want to take up too much screen space.
• You can also include a thumbnail photo of them and information about their company and their position that might make their opinion more influential.
• Place testimonials near checkout, contact or payment information to reassure possible customers of your reliability and overall quality.
Increase Search Results
With online growing at a rapid pace, it’s important to consider how you are optimizing your mobile presence, considering that 7.96% of web traffic is mobile, according to Pingdom. Testimonials will be beneficial in improving your mobile SEO.
• Google ranks recognized company names (as a result of citations on other websites, and not necessarily including direct links) higher than ones it has never seen.
• Testimonials add a localized copy for search engines to index and link to.
• Micro-formatting reviews and testimonials helps Google recognize them as testimonials and allows them to act as off-site citations for your Google+ Local Page.
• If you can connect your testimonials to specific products, Google can display the micro-formatted data in its search results, leading to an increase in click-through rates.
Finding a Balance
Balance is everything- especially if you are looking to include testimonials on your mobile site. You might think at first that having as many positive reviews as possible is a good thing, but it can also hurt you if your site is too cluttered or takes too long to load.
• Even if you don’t post them on your site, keep all of your testimonials for marketing collateral to show potential prospects in person or as requested.
• Sprinkle them throughout the site and don’t confine them to a single page.
• Make sure you have reviews on other directories such as Yelp. Compete.com discovered that traffic on the top 10 review sites grew on average 158% last year. Citations that mention your company’s name and info are valuable even if there is no direct link. Google also uses these other sites to verify that your contact info is up to date.
As you find new ways to include testimonials on your website, mobile or not, be sure to keep track of which methods work for our business and which do not. Marketing efforts are only success if you monitor them. Testimonials can be a great way to bring in new clients and help to demonstrate your company’s dedication to customer satisfaction.
This guest post was written by ResourceNation, a leading B2B lead generation company in the US that looks to educate the small business owner. You can follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
Posted in Mobile Search, Website Marketing |
Google Panda is Now a Rolling Update & Other Algorithm Plans for 2013
March 26th, 2013
It seems that another Google Panda algorithm update was rolled out last week, and it marks the final manual Panda update from Google. A Google algorithm update is a change in the algorithm that is used to determine the page rank of sites on Google search – in other words it is an added filter that tries to prevent poor quality sites from showing up in search results.
At the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) in the US this month, the head of the Google webspam team, Matt Cutts, announced that Google Panda will now be a rolling algorithm update, which means that after this month Panda changes will occur more frequently, but its affects will be less drastic.
However, it’s not time to breathe a sigh of relief just yet. Matt Cutts also discussed the next Penguin algorithm update at SMX, and it seems as though it might cause some big changes – Cutts predicted that it will be one of the most talked-about updates of the year. Although it is not known exactly what the next Penguin update will target, Cutts mentioned at SXSW that one of his teams’ objectives this year is to crackdown on low quality ecommerce websites and dubious online merchants.
He said: “We have a potential launch later this year, maybe a little bit sooner, looking at the quality of merchants and whether we can do a better job on that, because we don’t want low quality experience merchants to be ranking in the search results.” Search Engine Land provides some more details about this planned crackdown on ecommerce websites.
One thing is for sure – it is becoming increasingly important to stick exclusively to white hat SEO practices, such as those employed by White Chalk Road, to ensure client websites are not penalised by Google’s algorithm changes.
Posted in News, Search Engines |
Adam’s Greatest Shave
March 20th, 2013
One of our Account Managers, Adam Rowles, better known as ‘the hairiest one in the office’, decided to ‘brave the shave’ this week in the name of the Leukaemia Foundation.
Adam ‘Hairy Man’ Rowles
Adam trimmed is bear-like beard at home before bringing in his clippers and letting the White Chalk Road team take turns to obliterate his brown locks.
Charles gets the proceedings underway
Cheech cuts deeper
Jamie makes the finishing touches
Adam has more than tripled his fundraising target of $100, raising $320 so far! You can still sponsor Adam by visiting his Greatest Shave page. Donations will help the Leukaemia Foundation support those with blood cancer from the moment they are diagnosed, free of charge, as well as help to fund Australia’s best blood cancer research.
Before and After
Posted in News |
Australian E-Commerce Market to Hit $37billion This Year
March 8th, 2013
According to Forrester research jointly published in 2011 by PayPal Australia, Nielsen and the Australian Centre for Retail Studies, Australian online commerce was forecast to be worth $37.7 billion by the year 2013. The figure for 2011 was $30.2billion, up from $27billion in 2010.
And according to a more recent report from a leading US Digital Marketing Firm, eMarketer, Australia is the fourth largest eCommerce market in the Asia-Pacific region. The same report used research from the Australian Bureau of Statistics “Household Use of Information Technology Report” to back up its findings, which showed that 98% of the Australian population has access to the Internet, and 68% of internet users purchased something online in the past 12 months.
So what does all this mean for Australian businesses? It means they need to act now to keep up with Australian consumers, who are changing the way they shop and the way they spend their money.
A study by the Australian Communications and Media Authority showed that, of those who shop online, only 53% buy from Australian retailers, while 19% buy from overseas retailers and 29% buy from both overseas and AU retailers equally. When asked why they buy from overseas retailers, 56% said it was because the product they wanted was not available in Australia. The reality, however, is that it’s more likely the product is available from an Australian retailer, but their website is not optimised well, so they don’t show up in the search results when buyers are searching for their products. Thus they are losing out on sales to overseas retailers simply because they have not invested in SEO and Online Marketing services.
While all businesses should act now to boost their online rankings and website traffic to take advantage of the growing ecommerce market in Australia, some sectors are losing out more than others if they neglect investing in SEO.
The eMarketer report mentioned above also looked into the types of products Australians are buying online. Fashion retail came in at number one, with 50% of shoppers buying clothing and jewellery online. Entertainment and travel were also high up the list, outlined below:
• Clothing/Jewellery – 50%
• Music/DVDs/Books – 47%
• Electrical Items – 43%
• Travel – 37%
• Toys/Games – 28%
• Cosmetics and Beauty Products – 25%
• Food & Groceries – 17%
• Sporting Equipment – 14%
• Pharmaceuticals – 10%
• Furniture – 7%
• Other – 19%
Contact us at White Chalk Road today to find out how we can help you to take advantage of the booming Australian ecommerce market.
Posted in Sales, Search Engine Optimisation |
5 Reasons Your Website Needs a Blog
March 5th, 2013
For the past number of years businesses have been told from all angles (by PR, Marketing, SEO and Digital Media consultants to name but a few) that they should set up a blog on their website. Oftentimes, those who have followed the trend have only done so because ‘everyone else seems to be doing it’, and as a result usually let their blog updates lag until finally their blog becomes neglected.
However, if businesses really understood the value of a blog it would help them to keep the momentum going, and even help them to decide what it is they should be blogging about. So below are the top five reasons you need to set up a blog for your business (or start blogging again if you’ve been neglecting your blog).
1. Blogging will improve your search engine rankings
One of the core benefits of adding a blog to your website is to improve your search engine rankings. A blog gives you a location on your website where you can regularly post relevant and up-to-date content that internally links to your key landing pages.
This will benefit rankings in a number of ways:
a) Search engines like when you keep your website regularly updated with new and informative content, as they like to provide the most up-to-date and useful content to users
b) The more pages of relevant and informative that includes you major keywords you have indexed by search engines, the greater chance you will be included in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for those keywords
c) Including links within your blog articles to your key landing pages, using relevant anchor text, will boost the authority of these key pages.
2. Regular blog posts will help boost your website traffic
If you’re struggling to come up with new blog post topics, the best way to begin the brainstorming process is by simply asking ‘what kind of information do my customers and potential customers want to read about?’.
By including content that addresses the major questions your customers want answered, they will be more likely to a) find you when searching for those answers online, b) come back to your site to find further information, and c) share the information they find with their friends and colleagues via email or on social media sites, thus boosting your traffic.
For an advanced look at how to find out what information your customers are searching for, take a look at this article on the SEOmoz blog about how to access this information via your Google Analytics account.
3. Informative blog posts build trust and credibility with customers
Blog posts are a great way to demonstrate your business’ expert knowledge in your niche or sector. Potential customers who come across your website via your blog will be able to see that you know your stuff and make an effort to keep up to date with the latest news and trends in your industry.
4. Informative blog posts build trust and credibility with search engines
Keeping your blog updated with interesting and helpful articles will not only boost your reputation with customers, but with search engines too. By keeping your website constantly updated with shareable content will mean more links pointing to your site and more relevant content for search engines to crawl, which will boost your website’s authority, and thus your rankings and your traffic.
5. Blog posts can generate sales leads
On this point it’s important to note that blog posts should not be used as a sales pitch opprtunity. However, if you are blogging about a particular issue that your customers may come across, as well as providing some helpful tips that could help them resolve the issue, you could also link to another page of your website that details the product or service you offer that would help to combat the issue. This page should have a good call to action and a simple ‘one click’ step to your ‘enquiries’ page so that you can easily convert a potential customer’s interest into a sales lead.
Posted in Blogging, Website Marketing |
Top 5 Reasons to Develop a Mobile Version of Your Website This Year
February 28th, 2013
1. Mobile is where your customers want to find you
Thinking about where mobile search and mobile websites were just a few short years ago can make your head spin. According to Google, mobile searches have grown 400% in the past three years and show no signs of slowing down. Don’t be left behind with a clunky mobile-unfriendly site displaying to your potential customers.
In fact, here’s a statistic that would have any marketing manager racing for a meeting to secure budget to develop a mobile site: a 2011 Compuware study showed 40% of consumers have turned to a competitor’s site after a poor mobile experience.
2. A mobile site is cheaper to develop than an app
Before you go over the top at that budget meeting requesting thousands of dollars to develop a mobile app that will provide no extra benefit to your customers than your website can – remember – the cost of creating a mobile version of your website is much cheaper. You can even trial it for free and maintain it for next to nothing using this handy mobile site developer from Google.
And the best part? If users create a shortcut to your mobile site on their iPhone by clicking ‘Add to Homescreen’ in the options menu, it will create a lovely branded icon on their homescreen, which when clicked will open in their browser but work much the same as an app.
3. Mobile Search Usually Means Local Search
Why can’t people searching on smartphones just wait until they get home to find the information they need about your business on your full site from their laptop or PC? It’s because they’re already in your area, they already know what they want and they already have the cash ready to spend – all that’s left is to find a business nearby supplying what they’re looking for.
That’s where your trusty mobile site comes in! If your site is well optimised with your local keywords you’ll be a shoe-in to get that business that’s just swimming around outside your door – like shooting fish in a barrell!
4. Don’t alienate new users or those with a casual interest in your website
While mobile apps are no doubt a useful tool for your fans and regular users, 10 app screens on the iPhone interface can fill up pretty quickly, and those download megabytes don’t come cheap. So users who are new to your business or just checking out your prices will be reluctant to download your app straight off the bat. Rather than forcing them to choose between this or pinching and zooming to navigate through your full site in their smartphone browser, make sure you have an easily navigatable mobile site where they can be converted from casual users to number one fans and loyal customers.
5. Help potential customers find reasons to choose your business
Typically if customers need to use their phones to search for your services on the go they’re likely looking for something specific and immediate. As we already mentioned – they know what they want and they’re ready to spend their money – they don’t even want to wait to get home or back to the office.
They may be looking for your menu, checking your prices for comparison while standing in a competitor’s store, or checking if you have something in stock that may be sold out by a competitor.
Don’t lose out on customers who are desperate to spend their cash with you – give them quick access to the information they need on the go.
Posted in Mobile Search |
Show Your Website some Love This Valentine’s Day
February 14th, 2013
Is your relationship with your website feeling a bit stale? Maybe when you first got together things were great – you felt a spark of excitement when you saw its glossy appearance – all corporate colours and fancy branding. You talked about it all the time and tattooed its name all over your business cards and marketing merchandise.
But these days things are different – you’ve let your love dwindle and now you barely even notice your long-serving website anymore. You never bring it up in conversation, never buy it new things, and you feel it doesn’t really love you anymore because it doesn’t sparkle and bring in new customers like it used to.
Well, just like in any other relationship turned mundane, February 14th is the day to rekindle the romance – so here are some tips on how you can show your website some love this Valentine’s Day.
Give your website a reason to look pretty
Maybe your website has let itself go because you never do anything exciting together anymore. You might be spending all your time focussing on your new friends Facebook and Twitter, leaving your website felling left out and left behind.
Bring the fun back to your website by updating it regularly with offers, discounts, sales, monthly specials and competitions. Giving customers a reason to search for and visit your website on a regular basis will boost your traffic and keep the numbers up in the long-run.
Take your website out for a meal of fresh content
Another thing that will keep customers coming back is keeping your website updated with fresh, interesting and relevant content. Not only will it keep customers coming back, but it will keep search engines coming back to crawl your site.
If a website is left too long without any updates, search engines will pick up on this lull in activity and will stop bothering to come back to crawl for new content. This in turn will mean a drop in your rankings over time, which makes sense when you think about the reasoning behind it – Google will only display relevant results to searchers, and how can your website be relevant if it’s out-dated?
Buy your website something new
If you’ve been neglecting your website for a while, chances are you haven’t spent any money on new features, designs or layouts in quite some time. Now could be a good time to splash out on a gift for your website, such as a design or development update.
This could be anything to give your website a fresh look and feel – maybe a social plug-in, a scrolling gallery on the homepage (or updated images if you already have one), some engagement elements such as video or downloadable content or even just a new layout or refreshed branding.
And while you’re at it, help it get rid of its old dowdy wardrobe by clearing up messy and unprofessional mishaps such as broken links, missing images or overlooked spelling and grammar issues.
Give your website a makeover
These days all the cool kids are browsing the internet from their smartphones and tablets, making your website feel old and embarrassed if it doesn’t render correctly on these screens. And there is no doubt mobile search is here to stay and will only get more popular in years to come.
As a grand romantic gesture, consider developing a mobile site or investing in a responsive web design overhaul of your website. This will make sure your website displays in the most appealing and user-friendly way possible, depending on the type of device it is being viewed on (i.e. a desktop screen will display your website differently to a smartphone screen and differently again on a tablet screen).
The reasoning behind this investment is, if the user is getting the best experience possible when looking at your website, then they will find it easier to get the information they’re looking for, increasing the chances of them making that call from your ‘contact us’ page, and decreasing the bounce rate of your site. Not to mention your website will feel beautiful again.
Posted in Mobile Search, Website Marketing |