Using a poor Pay Per Click management service could potentially cost you a fortune in your online marketing campaign, particularly if it leads you to get caught in bidding wars, suffer poor conversion rates or pay for a lot of “junk” traffic. A poor Pay Per Click management service could see you spending a huge amount of company time and resources which could be more effectively spent elsewhere.

Online marketing campaign

However, using a management service provided by Jumping Spider Media as part of your online marketing campaign can help you to avert the aforementioned problems. For a start, the specialist staff here at Jumping Spider Media are thoroughly knowledgeable and experienced concerning best practice for keyword usage. Secondly, we can help you to use web analytics to lower your Cost Per Conversion (CPC) and boost your Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) without increasing your budget.

Thirdly, we can advise you on monitoring and addressing click fraud and also provide ongoing results analysis to enable you to continually measure the effectiveness of your Pay Per Click management service. And our clients have considerable choice concerning the level of control that they have over their PPC campaigns.

Why is this so? Well, SEO providers like Jumping Spider Media know that search engine spiders are concerned with finding the most up-to-date information, not least as this will maximise the relevance of the results that a search engine provides in response to a user’s particular query. After all, it is relevance to the human user that search engines are driven by, above all else.

When you are running an online business, there are so many changes that can take place that can impact on its relevance to the human user right here, right now. Who, after all, wants to be directed to an online store that has that product that they have long been searching for, only to discover that its price has been markedly increased or it has gone out of stock? Similarly, a blog that is devoted to the latest industry news may not have been touched for a while, again making it practically useless to the end user.

Target Humans & Spiders!

So, in summary, there are two main groups that SEO providers must please when they are providing your site with fresh content – the search engine spiders and human users. Both groups play a key role in determining your ultimate online revenues, and as a consequence, ultimately go hand-in-hand when SEO providers are producing new content for your website.

By having high quality and relevant content continually added to your site by SEO provider Jumping Spider Media, you can therefore really build your company’s brand, establishing yourself as a company that can be depended upon not only for the highest standard of relevant products and services, but also for all of the associated industry news, information and advice.

Our team of copywriters here at SEO provider Jumping Spider Media are trained in copywriting, journalism and research, and provide a highly effective service for maintaining your site’s relevance to the search engines that also encompasses press release writing, newsletter writing and even the setting up and subsequent maintenance of Twitter accounts.

To learn more about our services click here or send us an email.

It’s always great to receive a call from a publication you read regularly, especially one which is a household name. Last week when the Financial Times called to let me know they had picked up some blog pieces and content created by Jumping Spider Media for a client and would like to arrange an interview, it felt great.  Of course this can’t be done for all clients – the subject matter and fortunate timing is key – but improved visibility can result in much more than Google rankings. The client in question was Ryness Electrical and due to the banning of 60 watt light bulbs in September 2011, the FT wanted to know the consumer impact this would have.

Following the interview and subsequent published article, the exposure for Ryness has been great and the piece (although surrounded by a paywall online) produced some great traffic – http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8e27e850-d3c4-11e0-bc6b-00144feab49a.html#axzz1WhJNzQ1O.

The next call was from the BBC, asking similar questions but from different angles. This time, the interview which was set up with Ryness via us here at JSM,resulted in online exposure – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14743785 – the video on this link was broadcast in the morning news on BBC1 and BBC News 24. The respect and quality of the Beeb is unrivalled and the site is one of the most authoratitive in the world.

Creating quality, original content is the backbone of any SEO campaign. Yes, the content has to be plentiful and for exposure like this you need to be in the right place at the right time, but without the work of our trained online journalists and copywriters here at Jumping Spider, these publications would never have picked up the phone to get their scoop.

We never lose sight of the fact that content as part of an SEO campaign is primarily for rankings, but we believe in over-delivering. Why shouldn’t that content deliver  in terms of traditional PR and branding exposure as well? And if that results in the BBC, the FT or – as has been the case with other clients – the Daily Mail , A Place in the Sun and respected trade journals publicising our clients along the way, then that works for us. And, more importantly, that works for our clients.

Posted by Gareth

Here at Jumping Spider Media, we’re so entrenched in the world of search marketing that we can forget that not everyone is well versed in SEO (search engine optimisation), so it sometimes helps to go back to basics and remind ourselves of the basic drivers behind carrying out an SEO campaign. Why bother to carry out an SEO campaign at all?

Most people have at least heard of the term SEO by now and are aware that a search marketing industry has grown up around it. Search engine optimisation is the term used to refer to activities which are carried out in order to make a website visible to the search engines and get its pages indexed with the search engines in order to return them as high ranking results in the organic search engine results pages (SERPs) for certain keyterms. But what is the point of SEO – why is it so important to bother marketing your website in this way? Here are, in our opinion, the top 3 reasons why SEO is vital to the marketing success of any company:

1) A changing world. People no longer use the Yellow Pages or business directories to find businesses; they use search engines. And look at TV advertising: increasingly companies advertising on TV are not even telling their captive audience what their website is. They are simply relying on the fact that they know people will use search engines, saying, find us online by searching ‘vacuum cleaner’, ‘army jobs’ or whatever it is that they are promoting.

The first thing people do when looking for any product or service in this changing world is log on to Google and search for it. ‘Italian restaurant in Essex’; ‘sports therapist’; ‘plumbers in Manchester’; ‘SEO provider’; whatever it is they are looking for, overwhelmingly people are now heading straight to Google (et al) to find it. Simply having a website isn’t enough. If you’re a plumbing company in Manchester who isn’t carrying out an SEO campaign (or an SEO provider that isn’t, for that matter!) your website will not be returned in the SERPs. And if you’re not returned in the SERPs, not only will none of those searchers find you; they’ll find your local competitors that are carrying out an SEO campaign.

2) Targeted traffic. Now we’ve ascertained that in this changing world, any company wanting to reach out to customers must be visible in the search engines, let’s consider the second reason to SEO: the ability to reach out to the right customers. Car companies who pay millions for the best TV advertising slots would gladly pay even more if they could be ensured that the people viewing their advert were their target demographic and in the market to buy a new car. This is in effect what you do when you SEO – target those customers who are actively searching for your product or service by entering your website’s keywords into search engines. By bringing targeted traffic to your site, SEO is bringing paying customers to your door; and for a far lower investment than with pay per click advertising (PPC).

3) Reliability.The third reason why SEO is vital, and arguably more valuable than other forms of marketing such as PPC, is its reliability. Carrying out a paid search campaign, while having benefits such as instant traffic, is generally more expensive than carrying out an SEO campaign. Not only that, but both PPC and banner advertising only work until your (significant) allocated marketing budget depletes. With PPC, as soon as you have reached your budget your website disappears from the SERPs, whereas SEO your site in the right way and you’ll have long-term visibility. Many people choose to rely on SEO to help them gradually reduce their advertising budget on PPC, in the knowledge that there is more long-term reliability with SEO, and that research proves that more people click on the organic listings than the paid ads.

These are just three of the many reasons to SEO, but when you consider the ubiquity of a search marketing strategy in this changing world, choosing the strategy that will bring your website paying customers without costing the earth and one which ensures long-term, reliable results is surely something that every company would strive for.

Posted by Louise

Blogging has exploded from the world of the technology geek to the mainstream in the past few years. The term is a shortened version of ‘web log’ and refers to a website created to log regular commentary and opinion. Originally, blogs were online diaries written by individuals who would often link to other blogs and websites, creating a blogging community both within sectors of society (mothers; film buffs; DIY enthusiasts, etc.) and across society as a whole. Interactivity has become an important part of blogging, with the ability for readers to leave comments, interacting with both the blogger and other readers.

Blogging has since become big business, leading to lucrative book deals, massive advertising revenue and in some cases, allowing the blogger to quit their day job and earn a very respectable living as a blogger. Wherever there is money to be made, the corporate world pricks up its ears, and blogging is no exception. While a company’s blog will not get the hits and therefore the advertising revenue of lifestyle blogs, the ability to interact at such a direct level with customers, both existing and potential, proved too good to resist. 81 of the Fortune 500 companies (16%) now have blogs, in industries as diverse as retail, technology, food and beverages and pharmaceuticals.

What is perhaps more interesting is that the Inc. 500, the fastest-growing private companies in the US, has as much as 39% of the list blogging. These companies may have more freedom to blog, less restricted by the legal teams working away on behalf of the big oil companies, for instance. But it is also in all likelihood because smaller companies stand to gain far more than huge, established corporations. Blogging is all about engaging with the public, something companies have been attempting to do through focus groups and highly paid advertising for years. Blogs, if executed in the right way, engage more directly with the public than through just about any other platform.

So what is the right way? We’ve already discussed how not to use social media in the case of one high street brand and the micro-blogging site Twitter. But what should a company do when it comes to their blog, and what do they stand to gain?

Be real If you have the resources, have someone in-house blog for you, someone who has a real day-to-day understanding of your company, the latest products and services, etc. If you don’t, consider using an SEO provider or digital marketing company to blog for you, but make sure they take the time to really understand your company so that they can blog about what will really matter to your customers. Remember, this is not the arena to create an ideal image of your company, but rather to show a real , more relaxed image.

Interact 90 percent of the Fortune 500’s blogs have the comments feature enabled. If you’re scared of what people may say about your company in the comments, you should probably not blog. A core part of the power of the business blog is being able to reach out to your customers and in turn for them to have their say. Even if that is negative, you then have the chance to remedy that problem, win back that customer (and others) and get invaluable market research on a product or service in the process.

Don’t sell. Add value! The two things most likely to turn off a reader of your blog are to be fake and to be overtly selling. Of course you want your blog to support your business, but this is not the platform from which to sell. Give your customers content that is useful to them, that is interesting, that is informative, and they will keep coming back for more. You may not have sold them a product, but you have kept their interest and created a positive relationship. The king of advertising, David Ogilvy, famously stated that “The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.” Your blog is your chance to be highly informative; by doing so you are persuading your customers to stick with you.

It’s all about the customer Don’t fall into the trap of making your blog all about you and your company. You will, of course, be writing about things that are happening in your business and the surrounding industry, but the entire point is to make that relevant to the reader. Even blogs which are essentially online diaries of an individual’s day-to-day musings are most successful when they are aimed squarely at the reader: this is what I think, what do you think?; this is something you may find interesting; this happened to me, has something similar happened to you?

This just touches the surface of what makes a good blog, but if you adhere to these core principals you won’t go far wrong. And what, after all this, does your company stand to gain? You will know your customer better; you will know your products and services better; you will start to build a community around your company; and – most importantly – you will start to build a brand buzz. A viral buzz about your brand is often what it takes to get your company to the next level. And – you never know – you could create that holy grail of customers, the “customer evangelist”: someone who is so impressed by your product or service that they become outspoken “evangelists” for your company.

Posted by Gareth

Facebook and the 50 billion bubbleI logged into Facebook this morning to check out what my ‘friends’ had been up to for the last – ooh –17 minutes or so. Someone had bought themselves some kippers for breakfast while another mobile update stated that they were not getting up until later and someone else ‘liked’ that.Not the most riveting interactions with people I went to school with 20 years ago and would avoid in the pub, but the voyeuristic nature of the site (I’m a nosey bugger) is undoubtedly addictive. It is one of the first sites I and indeed most of us go to when we log on, and is the most visited site of 2010 as stated by SE Land. So around the time of the release of the film The Social Network, at the end of which the monetary value of FB was stated as $25bn, there was speculation by many market analysts that you could add another $10 – $15bn on top of that. Goldman Sachs then step in with a valuation of $50bn! These are the top five biggest internet companies by market capitalisation (source: The Times):

This is based on the (projected) income from advertising. There’s little doubt that FB will make their money and make their shareholders happy in the short term, but my issue is whether advertisers, as they test this platform to reach customers, are going to get the ROI they need. With Ads not solely powered by search but a host of information based on age, gender and interests, the argument that this is targeted advertising is not totally flawed. But just because I’m a 33 year old male who has a birthday next week, does not mean I want to see pop-up ads for Go-Karting or Paintball.Searches in FB are done for reasons of inclusion (joining fan pages or clubs) or looking up old friends (or old flames, or enemies). The site’s functionality is not one of information that would necessarily influence a buying decision or purchase, so when I see the valuation nuzzled between Amazon and Ebay I question this judgement. I know Goldman Sachs is an experienced firm and hey – bankers rarely get it wrong (!?)  – but with this vast price tag is it a micro bubble waiting to burst?
If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest in the world after China and India and what a weird place it would be. People you used to sit next to in French lessons decades ago would be muttering their every thought and action while you suffer an onslaught of baby photos. The site is here to stay and as I finish this piece I’m aching to get back to see who is taking their dog for a walk or what they are having on toast. Addictive and entertaining, but only time will tell if this is money well spent for its advertisers.

Posted by Gareth

Every website needs traffic and conversions, whether the goal is converting a visitor to a member, a subscriber or a purchaser. But it’s when conversions relate to cold, hard cash that the real competition begins. Say you have an e-commerce site selling shoes. You’ve created a great looking site with an efficient back-end system. You’ve laid out your stock clearly online and the shopping cart function is ready to take payments. You’ve got your SEO provider to optimise the site with great content, coding, structure and back links and your site is now on the front page for the keyterm ‘buy shoes online’. Yet you’re languishing behind your competitor in shoe sales; what’s the problem?

While you can’t make someone buy your product (a product that may be inferior to your competitors, over-priced or simply not as in demand) there are clear ways you can help improve your conversion rates. Here are some top tips to help get those cyber tills ringing:

Sell visually
Visual merchandising of high street stores is a vital part of sales, with stock laid out in specific ways and areas of the shop to achieve the highest sales. While an e-commerce site can only feature its stock on the product pages, selling visually is still highly important. Sharp, clear images showing your products, with multiple views if possible, all help tempt the visitor to convert to a purchaser. Online fashion retailer Net-a-porter.com offers a master class in visuals: there are at least 3 or 4 views of each product, both mannequins and models are used, as well as links to the product featured on the runway of fashion shows.

Up-sell
Net-a-porter.com and many other fashion sites also know how to up-sell, with suggestions of co-ordinating items. Putting together looks with multiple products adds value for the site visitor by serving as a stylist of sorts, while tempting those visitors to convert to purchasers (by seeing the products in context) and even to add accessory products to their cart. There’s no reason why e-commerce sites selling tools or stationery couldn’t up-sell in similar ways; Amazon suggests similar book titles, for instance.

Don’t neglect your product pages
Your home page is vitally important when it comes to keeping your guest on the site and tempting them to click through to deeper pages. But never forget that individual product pages are where the sales happen. The majority of e-commerce sites are let down by product pages that don’t make you want to buy! Boring specifications, a singe image and an ‘Add to cart’ button may be utilitarian, but you won’t be converting any browsers without a little more effort. Amazon may have a huge budget to play with, but the way they manage a massive inventory of stock without sacrificing the quality of any individual product page can inspire smaller e-tailers.

Harness Web 2.0
Using Web 2.0 interactive features such as peer/user reviews not only reassures potential purchasers that you are a safe and secure site from which to purchase, but also positions you as a popular e-commerce site with a following of happy shoppers. You may not have the capability for Amazon-style reviews (and caution should be taken with regards to negative comments even if you have) but using testimonials is a simple yet effective way of helping to create a feeling of community.

Consistent call to action
Make it easy to shop by having an unmissable ‘Add to cart’ button and a simple check-out procedure. Then use repeated call-to-action signals to nudge people towards that cyber till. Consider the positioning of your ‘Buy now’ button and how many clicks it takes for people to find what they want and buy it.

Get inspired by old school commerce
Smaller e-commerce sites may not have the budget to add features such as multiple image views or customer review sections, but even the smallest e-tailer can take some inspiration from good old fashioned high street retailing. Stock on shelves has to look appealing in order to sell; products related to one another should be easy to find (printers and ink cartridges, for instance) and prices should be clear. Shop assistants should be helpful, indicating where in the store you need to go for a particular product, and knowing the specifications of what they are selling. And stores do well by creating urgency in seasonal sales or ‘Today’s Special Offer’. All of these simple strategies can be utilised by e-commerce sites to help drive sales, but surprisingly few sites actually do.

Visibility
Finally, the shop with the best stock at the lowest prices which utilises the most effective sales strategies will remain empty if it languishes in a back alley and fails to advertise itself. Make sure your SEO provider (or in-house SEO specialist) is getting your site the visibility in the search engines that you need in order to drive sales; otherwise all of your good work above will be wasted.

Posted by Louise

Anyone who knows about SEO (search engine optimisation) knows the importance of link building. A good amount of steadily increasing back links from quality third party sources will help the search engines to deem you an authority website in your field, improving your rankings as a result. But where should you begin when devising an effective link building campaign?

As a strategy of success within the ever-changing landscape of search engines and their algorithms, link building is similarly subject to an evolving ‘best practice’ based on the most up to date industry research. However, as for search engine marketing in general, there are some basic tenets that remain unchanged. Here are five guiding principles for getting the most out of a link building campaign:

1. Ask yourself, “Am I worth linking to?”
You wouldn’t expect people to come into your shop if you had nothing to sell; why expect inbound links if your website has nothing of worth to say? Before you obsess about the number of back links, get back to basics and ensure your website is worth linking to. While that means a well-structured, easy-to-navigate site, with sufficient internal linking and good coding, it primarily means quality content. Tell people who you are, what you do, how they can buy from you/sign up to you/learn from you/join you; then (as the old journalism adage goes) tell them again! And tell them with well-written, grammatically correct, interesting content.

2. Don’t sit back on your laurels.
You’ve created a great place to link to – well done! But that’s just the start of it. You have to regularly update that content to ensure people continue to link to you, and to continually attract new links. Become an actively participating member of your community or industry (whatever that may be) by updating product information, posting comments and viewpoints on your industry, publishing press releases or white papers – however you do it, keep doing it.

3. Position yourself as a link friendly site.
While link building may be at the forefront of your mind as you review your SEO strategies, it’s not that way for everyone. Therefore be clear about your desire for quality inbound links. Consider creating a ‘link to us’ page, explaining the sort of companies/websites who may be interested in linking to you, and how they can do it, including which URLs and anchor text they can use. You should keep this page updated so as to feature a good spread of anchor text possibilities.

4. All that glitters is not gold.
As for so much in life, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is. If an SEO provider guarantees X thousand quality inbound links, then you have to ask yourself some serious questions. Such as, if quality links are based on merit and cannot be ‘bought’, how can you guarantee a certain number within a certain timeframe? And if you are an SEO expert as you claim, then why aren’t you concerned about creating a sudden swell of inbound links which the search engines will find suspicious? Similarly, if you get unsolicited contact from someone outside of your industry ‘promising’ fantastic, mutually beneficial reciprocal linking, then ask yourself why will it be so beneficial? Reciprocal linking that works has to be between well chosen, relevant sites that the search engines will match as such. The likelihood of such a match conveniently dropping into your inbox is pretty much zero.

5. Use your common sense: link build based on merit.
Take the old school approach as you start your search for quality links. Use the keywords relevant to your business and search for related websites. Filter your findings to the most relevant and those with the best Google PageRank/Alexa ranking and contact them. If they have merit for your site, you may well have merit for theirs. Call them to find out! Eric Ward, the ‘daddy’ of links, maintains that link building is “one part marketing, two parts public relations, and three parts common sense”. And given that Matt Cutts of Google once stated that “Eric follows the right link building approach. He’s interested in links that are given based on merit, and those are the links that stand the test of time”, Eric’s opinion is one worthy of consideration.

Keep these five guiding principles in mind at the outset and throughout your link-building campaign, and you’re sure of a firm foundation for SEO success. Happy link building!

Posted by Louise

Social media should be a component of any comprehensive digital marketing package, but knowing how to harness social media to benefit your company and not harm your brand is not always as simple as it seems. Having a Facebook page and Twitter account is not enough to make you conversant in social media; as is true for any type of effective marketing, there are no short cuts. A company that simply ‘turns up’ in a social media environment without actively and intelligently interacting runs the risk of alienating social media users and, potentially, customers.

Twitter is the latest social media phenomenon, with more and more companies entering the microblogging world and adding to the ever-present digital hum of millions of Tweets (quick posts or status updates of 140 characters or less). While the first Twitter backlash has begun, with some seeing it as no more than “the water cooler of the 21st century” and the author Tim Ferris dismissing it as merely “pointless email on steroids”, it’s popularity both in the social and business sphere is hard to ignore (Dell has 20 Twitter accounts, all managed by individual employees). And indeed, there is a strong argument that a truly dynamic company who wants to use all of the latest marketing tools at their disposal would be churlish to ignore it.

At its very core is interactivity, as is the case for all social media. Never before have mere mortals been able to interact so easily with pop stars, politicians and corporations, and its this interaction between companies and customers that is where the benefits for businesses lie. The results of months of expensive and detailed market research into the popularity of a new product can be attained in days for free by simply calling out via a Tweet. Customer satisfaction can be tracked by monitoring the Tweets about a company, product or service and that company can help assuage any poor feeling by initiating a conversation. Customers feel listened to, vital information on the reception of products and services can be gleaned, and a company can easily go from faceless corporation to a living, breathing, customer-focused group of individuals. And of course it’s a great way to bolster brand awareness, to announce new product launches, company initiatives or special offers.

But this is where business use of Twitter becomes controversial. Social media users are savvy people who are quick to identify a fraud in their midst. Simply posting and not interacting is frowned upon and a sure-fire way to limit your number of followers. Using Twitter as an advertising hoarding will do far more to harm your brand than benefit it. But if your company follows certain rules (be informal; be honest; do more than just ‘turn up’; do more than just sell; interact and engage) and has the time to commit to regular Tweeting, then they could reap the rewards when it comes to branding. And if you don’t have the time, speak to Jumping Spider Media and see how we can help!