Andrew Girdwood

Andrew is Head of Search at bigmouthmedia. He has been in Search for over nine/ten/many! years and at bigmouthmedia is responsible for Search strategy, the coordination of Paid and Organic Search, the coordination of Search and Affiliate Marketing and the use of Search as the glue that holds online marketing activities together and extracts maximum value from them. He comes from a technical background and has an honours degree in Computing Engineering.

In his spare time he likes to dabble in…. oh… in Search Engine Marketing and the internet. The challenge is to get him to stop talking about online marketing.

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Seven changes Search plus Your World brings to PPC

Search plus Your World is well underway in rolling out for English language Google.com searches.

The new evolution of Google is effectively live in the States and for many people in the UK, like myself, who search on the .com site by default rather than the .co.uk. 

Search plus Your World impacts PPC just as it impacts SEO. Let’s look at seven reasons why your PPC strategy might need changes due to Search+

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Posted 23 January 2012 10:56am by Andrew Girdwood with 2 comments

The AdWords which could give you a criminal record

In 2012 the Olympic Games are coming to London. They bring one of the most strict and heavily enforced set of trademark restrictions, sponsorship and marketing rule sets in the world.

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Posted 13 December 2011 12:06pm by Andrew Girdwood with 3 comments

Using Google image search for affiliate recruitment

A good affiliate marketing campaign is one that has a fair spread of affiliate types. It is not all desirable to have too few driving too high a percentage of the earnings.

What if you were to lose one of those key affiliates?

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Posted 29 November 2011 11:38am by Andrew Girdwood with 0 comments

Has Google just patented behavioural quality signals?

Google scored a new patent this week. Does it indicate a change in direction behind the search giant’s logic or even pose yet another problem to Google’s competitors?

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Posted 24 November 2011 14:19pm by Andrew Girdwood with 1 comment

Four ways the SEO industry could rule the world

SEO has changed beyond recognition over the last ten years. At one point SEO was an obscure hobby for geeks chatting to one another over Usenet. Then it became a cottage industry. Then SEO became a career prospect.

Now it’s a huge industry that commands the attention of CMOs and CEOs of multi-national companies.

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Posted 17 November 2011 11:37am by Andrew Girdwood with 8 comments

Four ways the SEO industry could kill itself

Generally speaking, it is a good time for search and for those who work in the sector. Many agencies are bucking the economic climate, budgets for SEO continue to grow and pretty much every decision maker on the client-side understands and appreciates the value of natural search.

The SEO industry, however, is not immortal. There are times when I genuinely worry whether it will shoot itself in the foot.

On that cheerful note, let’s look at four ways the sector could kill itself...

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Posted 10 November 2011 11:42am by Andrew Girdwood with 9 comments

Exploding screen strategies

Conversations about three screen strategies became conversations about four screen strategies this year. It looked like tablets would be used concurrently with PCs and mobiles, at least for a while, so fashionable jargon received an update.

Where are we now? Five screen strategies? Five and half screen strategies? The number of screens may explode in the not too distant future. 

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Posted 28 June 2011 10:06am by Andrew Girdwood with 0 comments

The rise of the reverse affiliate

Affiliate marketing is one of the stalwarts in the digital marketing landscape. It seems to benefit from change as much as it benefits from a lack of change.

For example, over the years CPM prices in non-premium inventory have dropped and yet CPA rates and network overrides have remained largely unchanged.

That has allowed some savvy arbitrage players, like lead brokers or performance agencies, to make a whack of cash. It has also contributed towards the rise of the reverse affiliate.

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Posted 01 June 2011 12:57pm by Andrew Girdwood with 10 comments

The ASA will investigate SEO practices

The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK has a wide remit. In March 2011 this remit further expands, with backing from Google, to look at claims and sales practises on websites. It’s already possible for the ASA to investigate PPC campaigns.

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Posted 17 December 2010 10:53am by Andrew Girdwood with 32 comments

Who did Google just smack? Performance cheats or traditional media buyers?

Google will make some important changes to their legal terms and agreements with agencies next year. It will force extra transparency and it is a good thing.

Let's speculate who they're going after...

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Posted 02 August 2010 09:30am by Andrew Girdwood with 4 comments