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Which content marketing formats work best?

Over the past week I’ve been asking a bunch of content marketing folk about the trends in their industry for 2013, the best examples, and looking ahead to next year. 

Here, I’ve asked about the most effective formats for content. In 2012, it could be argued that infographics were king, but I think the sheer volume produced has diluted this particular tactic. 

Other formats are working well though: video, immersive storytelling, slideshare, scrolling sites, and good old blog posts.

What were the most significant developments for SEO in 2013?

It’s been another eventful year in search, mainly thanks to Google, and the role of the SEO has changed, even in this short time. 

We’ve had Penguin 2.0, the under the radar Hummingbird update, as well as the removal of the last remaining keyword referral data. 

I’ve been asking folks in the industry about their thoughts on SEO in 2013, and the most significant events over the past 12 months….

Adidas’ Twitter feed shows that agile marketing isn’t always off the cuff

The Oreo super bowl ad is often held up to be the perfect example of agile marketing in action.

In truth there have been a number of similarly effective and timely tweets from brands but Oreo grabs all the plaudits for some reason, probably due to the fact that it coincided with one of the world’s biggest sporting events.

Adidas is one example of a brand that consistently produces effective marketing tweets that give the impression of being off the cuff and reactive to events, even though they were clearly planned ahead of time.

For example, just last night Adidas’ UK marketing team tweeted an image congratulating Andy Murray on winning the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

2014 will be all-access and all about satisfying consumer cravings

It was a great year for ecommerce and all signs point to an even bigger, even better year come January 1. What’s on the docket? Plenty.

Building on the success of the last 12 months, 2014 will likely signal a comprehensive integration of mobile with traditional brick-and-mortar along with a boom in gamification, personalization and more comprehensive and accessible methods to test and track.

It’s time to raise a glass to what’s going to be a game-changing year.

With little effort, Amazon becomes the most shared retailer on Pinterest

Amazon has the most shares of its products on Pinterest than any other US retailer, though it seems to put less effort into curation than most of its rivals. 

According to SearchMetrics, products from Amazon.com currently generate the highest average number of pins per week (16,360) on Pinterest, followed by Walmart (5,778) and Apple (3,871). 

So is Amazon doing anything especially well on Pinterest, or is this due to the sheer ubiquity of its products?

For larger retailers, is it worth the effort, or should you let your ‘fans’ do the hard work? 

OFCOM reveals UK digital advertising trends: stats

In 2012, 36% of advertising spend in the UK was on digital. This is up from 19% in 2007.

This statistic comes from OFCOM’s 2013 International Communications Market Report, revealed today. 

The UK also spends a higher share of its advertising budget on digital than the rest of the world.

Content marketing the Google Hummingbird way

While Hummingbird has been much discussed, not many people understand it yet, or appreciate its benefits because it isn’t an obvious feature of Google search. If you want to try it, go to Google on your smartphone and click on the microphone to activate a voice search.

For a bit of fun, say ‘Tottenham Hotspur’. Google will search for the greatest team in the world (guest opinion – Ed), and then read out an up to date fact, perhaps the latest result and information about the next match.

Next, click the microphone again and ask a related question, such as ‘how old are they?’ Google will then show you the Wikipedia information about the club. Ask another question, such as ‘where do they play?’ and Google will show you information about White Hart Lane.

So, that is Hummingbird in a nutshell – a clever way of linking queries so that, instead of starting each search from scratch, Google can show you more pertinent information related to your previous search.

Mobile: before we knew it, it was all grown up!

As a new father, I get told all the time to savour every day because kids grow up so fast.

It’s true, my young son has already grown so much and it’s an adventure every day, watching him develop and interact with the world around him.

As a technologist, I can relate to how quickly big changes impact the world.

What is Google likely to clamp down on in 2014?

Google is seemingly involved in a never-ending battle to fight spam and underhand SEO tactics affecting its search results. 

In 2013 we’ve had several updates and warnings, Hummingbird being the most obvious, but what will Google target next? 

I have a few ideas on this, and I’ve also asked SEOs for their views on the areas where Google is likely to focus…

Optimising PPC landing pages for Christmas

During the run-up to Christmas, which companies are bidding on paid search terms for the most popular products, and which have the most effective landing pages?

I took a look at paid search in my beginner’s guide what is paid search (PPC) and why do you need it? last month, and since then I’ve been a lot more attuned to this method of search engine marketing.

However I’ve also realised that PPC ads are for nothing, and a complete waste of searcher’s time and an advertiser’s money, if conversion isn’t happening.

Referral traffic from eBay to Argos up 28% thanks to click-and-collect

Referral traffic from eBay to Argos increased by almost a third between October and November, thanks in part to a new click-and-collect partnership between the two retailers.

In September eBay signed a deal that enabled its customers to collect purchases from Argos’ UK stores, giving the online retailer a permanent foothold on the high street.

Argos currently achieves around 25% of its overall traffic from referrals, of which eBay now accounts for 11%. This equated to more than 600,000 visits in November. 

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