A couple of days ago Google switched on a new search algorithm, new Google Hummingbird Algorithm, the system it uses to sort through all the information it has when you search and come back with answers.
It was merged together with 15th anniversary of Google.
We love Google for its great search engine, for helping us finding the most relevant information, for collecting so many information globally.
I believe that Google is a great source for education, business and inspiration. It gives equal opportunity for all people with Internet access to the knowledge and information.
Yes, we are in an information age.
Recently I read a couple of post about SEO changes due to Google recent algorithm. It looks like Google finally judges the content value, brand and technical preparedness – not links, backlinks and all SEO hidden activities.
This will change the whole situation.
“Hummingbird” Algorithm
I see it very well on my own websites. It looks that natural search rules, like great content, great meta tags, alt tags and speed of website, are the most important now.
Google said that Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or meaning are taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words.
I see it – my websites statistics show better data now and are more visible in natural search.
Paid Search – Google Adwords
On the other hand I noticed that Google Adwords take now 6 lines on each page and sidebar.
It looks like it is the very important change and income source for Google.
Let’s see if this recent change has impact on average conversion rate.
We managed a couple of campaigns recently for our clients and we noticed many major changes: more functions and more customization possibilities.
Do we need a strategy? Do we need to have a market intelligence competency?
Yes, it is really important nowadays:
- strategy,
- tactics,
- detailed plan,
- fast implementation,
- fast reaction on changes
- and most boring – process analysis, testing and optimisation, and once again implementation into real operations
Is it a something more difficult than commercial creation or any promotional gadget preparation?
The answer is YES.
Why is it so important?
Because it gives a short and long term strength for your company.
Why is it so unique and most marketing agencies don’t want to propose it to its clients?
Because they want to present fast solutions for marketing departments – a beautiful commercial on the first page in newspaper. But what about customers? What do they need?
Yesterday I read a great article about Generation Y born 1980-1996 and “Cool brands stay hot”
It looks that not only me and my friends are overloaded with information, the same marketing tactics and push sales.
Digideo’s marketing strategy process looks very fast:
1. questions and questions – Every industry has its own specifics. Every company has a different situation – internally and externally, its age and development potentials. It means every company is unique and needs unique solutions:
- what you did previously? how?
- what results did you achieve from specific actions?
- how much is the new customer acquisition?
- what is the retention?
- how much does your client pay you in average?
- what is the cost of serving this customer? – it is a very rare knowledge. Simply many companies don’t know this cost. I can analyse it as well.
- what services you have?
- what services did you customer use more often?
- did you try to contact your previous customers that used your services?
- who else is in your environment? contractors, subcontractors, the supply chain, etc?
2. meeting with key employees
3. clarifying the goal and the scope of strategy after interviews
4. analyzing the situation: including competitors, SWOT
5. building strategy for particular goal with measures and KPI for processes
6. creating the high level strategy implementation plan = like a project plan with measures
It will take 2-4 weeks for small companies. For huge multinational companies – 2-3 months.
Why is it important to spend a time for it?
1. it gives you a direction, vision and knowledge about yourself and competition, environment around you
2. it sets goals and plan how to achieve them
3. it can look at your processes from outside and help in better performance, cost cutting for example
4. it will help in analyzing you current activities – ROI, efficiency, quality and result for company
5. and many others
MINUSES:
1. TIME – yes – you need to find a time for me, for this job
2. COST – yes – it costs
3. changing environment – yes – it has to be reviewed after a particular period of time – half a year or quarter.
How to create a successful website – It is a common question. Every day we are being asked for helping in making it happen.
Some people think that only search engine optimization is a key for success.
Guys, it is not true.
STEP 1: Start by creating a basic road map.
This will help you in keeping the directions and your dreams together. Keep in mind that this is an evolutionary process. You can change it and modify. The most important thing is to start doing it. The visions and dreams are really important but building a great website, portal or online shop like e-bay, Amazon or onet.pl takes years. Please remember it. Evolution is the best solution at the beginning. Start small and grow big.
STEP 2: Determine what the main goal for your website is:
- informative about you, your current or future business,
- a lead generation to concrete group of clients,
- e-commerce,
- fun,
- content sharing, etc.
Each goal requires different tools, skills and investment of time, money. It can be a hybrid of many goals but please remember to start with realistic goals for you and your resources. Building some tools require a time ( 6-12 months) and money.
STEP 3: Once you choose your goals we can concentrate on designing your website:
- do you have your logo, visual identity
- what is your style – colors, behavior, clothes
- what are your clients that you have already and you would like to have
- what other websites you like and enjoy
- tools to drive traffic into your website or online shop
- and many other detailed questions
STEP 4: We present designs, layout of major pages for you, some tools:
like sliders, video or photo galleries, forms, quizzes and others that are in the scope of your initial project.
STEP 5: Development
Once you approve the designs a typical agency will start working on coding and development of your website or online shop.
STEP 6: Tools creation or configuration to help drive the right traffic to your website.
The web is a very competitive space- over 11 billion web pages, so you need to be strategic in deciding what works best for you. Some of these tools include search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimization. We help in:
- newsletter configuration
- linking to most popular e-mail marketing tools like mailchimp, getresponse.com or Polish freshmail.
- setting social media: Facebook fanpage, Youtube channel, twitter, etc.
- setting web statistics
STEP 7: The time to decide how and where you’re going to spend your (limited) marketing budget.
At the beginning your website, domain is unknown. You need to start with some SEO elements:
- adding urls to most common search engines ( we can help in it)
- adding good content with key words you would like to be searched
- adding meta descriptions and alt descriptions to your pages, photos and videos
STEP 8: If you have budget, it would be good to start also:
- paid search activities to promote your website.
- adding your website to some professional catalogs
- adding your online shop to price comparison portals like ceneo.pl, nokaut.pl
- adding some offers into allegro.pl or any other partner portal
These activities depend on your main goal, budget and strategy.
Some tools work very well for online shops, some work better for websites and portals.
STEP 9: At the end what is the most important? CONTENT and CHANGES
You need to spend time to build your brand, your website, products to change it frequently. Please apply what you learn from your web metrics. These include page views, length of visits, traffic volume and trends, and you should study them to improve your site’s content, navigation and performance.
This enables you to offer a better experience to your visitors and create a successful website.
Good luck! Of course we can help:)
No man is an island, entire of itself every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee. ~ John Donne
It is a great beginning of our understanding what the social network means.
Not only online social network but overall – our family, close friends, friends from school, from work, friends from our societies, people that we meet everyday on the street and on our way to work.
We are connected.
What is the main goal of social network?
1. deeper relationship or
2. better understanding of ourselves and brands
3. building our image or keeping it
4. getting more relations?
I think these are the main goals of being there – in facebook, twitter, goldenline, linkedin, pinterest.com etc.
the question is what our strategy should be in such world
Think about it positively
It can help you in your life by: getting better products, better services, better customers, better knowledge, trusted reviews.
Of course you can feel some manipulation. But you are wise and you will know when it happens.
Not all companies want to spend their money in social network because of time, because of difficulty to maintain the interest.
We have the same problems. On the other hand our clients and friends prefer get better information form time to time.
Maybe your clients would like to get it on quarterly basis for example.
Try to understand their needs and expectations. They will come back to you.
Nobody like spamming.