Is social media a threat to paid search?
For a while now people have been
speculating whether ‘social media’ sites, in particular Twitter, pose a threat to
Google search as people increasingly choose to ask their network for help
rather than search.
I can see this happening in a small way but it is certainly nothing like a Google killer.
However, based in part on our own experience, I have been wondering increasingly how social media could impact negatively on paid search spend, which might be some cause for concern at the search engines?
Five killer tips for successful paid content businesses
There has been a lot of talk about publishing business models related to paid content. We understand this space pretty well, given that Econsultancy has been operating a ‘freemium’ model successfully for over 10 years now.
But rather than talk about our business model, I wanted to give five tips from my own experience on what I believe is important, and what works, in order to be successful at selling content online.
How many iPhone users does your website get?
So how big a deal is iPhone adoption? Is it all about the apps? Or are increasing numbers of iPhone users using your website, just on their phones?
I took a quick look at the stats for Econsultancy.com...
Two ideas to solve two problems – paid content and multi-channel marketing
As you are no
doubt aware, the newspaper industry, and the publishing industry more broadly,
are scratching their collective heads about how to transition their business models
to the web. How to avoid offline pounds evaporating into online pennies. How to
charge for content.
And, if you’ve ever had anything to do with measurement and analytics, you’ll also know how hard it is to measure marketing effectiveness across multiple channels in order to optimise the mix and maximise effectiveness of spend.
But don’t fear. I have two ideas….
Traffic and Audience Measurement - what free tools do you use?
I'd be interested to hear what free tools and services people use to gauge levels of traffic and the nature of the audience to any website?
Obviously this information is useful for competitive intelligence, media planning and buying, search optimisiation, online PR, affiliate marketing etc.
Econsultancy Site Migration and SEO Impact - the story so far
On 14 December 2008
we relaunched the Econsultancy.com site. This involved a subtle name change (“E-consultancy”
became “Econsultancy”), a new logo, a completely new look site with a new
directory structure, a new URL, on servers in a different country. We had to
migrate 10,000s of pages, deleted a load of old ones, and created 10,000s of
new ones.
The background to all this is explained in my interview about the new Econsultancy site – and question 9, about the SEO impact of this large change, is the subject of this post. What has happened to our previously excellent search rankings since the changeover?
New metrics and business models for digital publishing - selling outcomes not inputs?
Are publishers using outdated metrics? How should they be innovating and reinventing their business models?
Understandably there has been much debate of late around publishing business models. The rise of the internet, compounded by the global economic woes, are making it increasingly hard to see where the money is in publishing and media going forwards.
What in-store retailing can teach us about how to sell better online
I recently attended an event in Amsterdam which gathered together senior etailers from across Europe (kindly sponsored by Fredhopper – I owe them at least that plug…).
For me the most fascinating talk was by the VP Merchandising & Buying at a major European multi-channel retailer. It reminded me just how much we still have to learn about how online selling works, and how much we can apply from offline.
Just how much of the customer journey will Google own?
Google's stated mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".
The genius of this statement is that it sounds quite innocuous, indeed philanthropic, despite its obvious grand ambition, but actually allows pretty much anything within its scope.
It is interesting to see just how much of the online customer journey (from search, to research, to purchase) Google is taking hold of. Will we all end up as "wholesalers" to Google's customers?
Can offline marketing and advertising help you save money in digital marketing?
We know that offline marketing and advertising drives demand that can be captured, and monetised, online. The correlation between TV advertising and paid search performance, for example, has been much discussed; and direct mail, or catalogues, drive online sales.But do you know of any examples where the cost of offline marketing or advertising has been more than offset by the savings in the online marketing?
20+ mind-blowing social media statistics revisited
Gleecommerce: 10 ways to improve job satisfaction
Google
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
