CheezeDMG Blog

CheezeDMG have been at Internet World Expo 2009 this week spreading the word on effective search marketing, clever social media and pretty display advertising, planning and buying.

CheezeDMG stand at Internet World Expo 2009. Come and see us at stand E4075.

We’ve been spreading the digital love with our top tips on our best practices across SEO, search engine marketing, display and twitter for bands, and the value we can offer to your online marketing campaigns and strategies. To make these more accessible to our readers, we’ve made them available here on the CheezeDMG blog!  Click on the links below to view (PDFs):

CheezeDMG Top 10 SEM Tips

CheezeDMG Top 10 Display Tips

CheezeDMG Top 10 SEO Tips

CheezeDMG Top Twitter Tips

If you’d like to discuss your requirements and our services and the strategies mentioned in these documents, feel free to get in contact with our Business Development Manager, Tom Griffiths at tom.griffiths@cheezedmg.com or on 01473 236 892.

Twitter.com/CheezeDMG
Twitter.com/TomGriffola
Twitter.com/JamesDGlick

On Saturday, Google pressed the wrong button. This button flagged every website as ‘potentially harmful’ meaning any user clicking on a link (free or paid for) was met with a warning of a dangerous site. This warning had the impact of users clicking but not actually arriving to the site.

In fairness, Google were straight onto it, with Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience publishing a blog post outlining the problem and admitting it was their fault. The reason we blog about it, is the untold issue of click loss.

If for 40 minutes, on a Saturday afternoon, users were clicking on ad and not getting anywhere, will Google be keeping the money? Client campaigns could have been affected by this issue but there  has been strange silence from the Google ad support teams this morning.

The agency teams here at Cheeze are checking the reports and deciding on the necessary action. Have you checked your campaign performance?

cottages4you has seen its highest number of internet bookings in one day on January 4, and is expecting its best year to date. Speaking to TTG, Managing Director Geoff Cowley said,

The demand for UK holidays has already been exceptionally high for this year, proving the predictions that people are looking closer to home in light of the uncertain economic climate and escalating costs of foreign holidays.

Check out their new site for Special Cottage Holiday offers.

Cheeze work with cottages4you on all digital direct marketing channels including paid search and display media.

So according to the Association of British Insurers, liars are on the up.  BBC business reported earlier today that an increasing number of people are lying on their insurance policy applications to gain a better premium.

A dangerous game people are playing. Let’s hope that deception to get the best premium isn’t too much of an emerging trend…it’s certainly a cynical way to ‘get the best price’, but the point I would make is that it shouldn’t be ignored when putting together a search strategy. No consumer trend should.

If the message and proposition in 2009 is all about the combination of price point and reassurance (after all, we can only go so low on price), yet there is a proportion of your audience who are out to get the lowest premium at all costs, then certain, more pragmatic creative should be tested to see how different key messages are received.

Consumers may lie to get the best deal...

Identifying any opportunity based on the behaviour and mindset of the consumer during their ’shopping’ phase is key to maximising return from a search campaign. So if you are an insurer, or indeed any kind of financial institution, you should certainly take the ABI’s findings into account when developing strategy. And equally, the emergence of a more cynical searcher should inform your keyword development - could negative(in the truest sense of the word) searches  be on the increase as a whole? How wide does this go and how far are consumers prepared to go to get the ‘best deal’?

It’s a shame that the ABI’s line of ‘honesty is the best policy’ is actually publicising (and, therefore, to a certain extent promoting) lying on insurance forms. And the BBC highlighting the lack of convictions (which is an obvious and fair point to make) easily overshadows any kind of ABI-encouraged moral responsibility the consumer should have.

So don’t forget, as you develop search strategy based on the economic downturn and a belt-tightening 2009, people are cynical, tactics will be employed by them to save money, the way people search will change. And for all our expectations, forecasts and assumptions, search trends will raise eyebrows…it’s just a question of how high they’re raised, and how often…

I read with interest the latest announcement from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on its new standard to make sites more accessible to visually impaired and disabled users.

With over 2 million users in the UK who have sight problems or are visually impaired, this is no small number and a section of the population who should not be ignored by web designers and online advertisers alike. Equally, this number grows when you think of those browsing on their mobile phones or PDAs, and accessibility helps these devices access you site more easily, and makes for a better ‘browsing experience’

The new W3C guidelines are very detailed to help web designers make their sites easier to use for the visually impaired. Something as simple as adding a descriptive text to alt text can not only help users to know where they will end up when they click on the link, but also can help the search engine spiders to fully map your website and improve your natural listings through good SEO– a double benefit.

How many alt text on links simply say “click here” or “find out more”? - hardly the most descriptive or helpful statement.

Whilst it is great to see these guidelines set out for website design, it begs the question ‘what about guidelines for online advertising?’

Advertising banners and buttons on websites provide no information for screen readers to interpret what they are advertising, what images are displayed in the advertising message or where a user will go when they click on them.

The fact that Google’s Accessible Search is still lingering in Google labs shows how far behind online advertising is in catering for visually impaired users. Even when a search is done on the Google Accessible Search site, the results returned are only natural listings with no sponsored listings returned.

This lack of accessibility within online advertising means that a percentage of the online audience will never ‘see’ your adverts as the programmes that help them engage with your brand and website online cannot interpret your creative. Until the time comes that sponsored listings and display advertising can be easily read by screen readers, the only way you can promote to this audience is through the natural listings on search engines such as Google’s Accessible Search.

A good SEO program is therefore vitally important if you want to promote to these users and, of course, don’t forget to have a well-designed and fully accessible site when they click on your natural listing. An accessible site is, by default, well-optimised as it is easier for the search engines to access your site information.

You want consumers to access your website, your products and, ultimately, your sales process. All of this begins with accessible advertising.