theEword 2010 Wrap: the year in SEO and Social Media

Google

The world's most popular search engine changed dramatically in the latter half of 2010 with the introduction of Google Instant. This innovation means search results are displayed from the first letter typed, and can change with every letter thereafter. The search giant took this a step further in November with Instant Previews, giving searchers the option to view a screenshot of a page. Although this could reduce clickthrough rate, Instant itself has actually registered an increase in impressions and lower cost-per-click. In other news, Google began working on such futuristic innovations as driverless cars and instantly-translating phones. However, it wasn't all rosy, as problems plagued their Street View mapping service, including accidental data capture and complaints of privacy breaches. The company rounded up the year with the annual Google Zeitgeist report.

Pay Per Click

UK marketers spent a record amount on pay per click campaigns this year, according to figures from IABUK. The overall online adspend increased by 10 per cent, with £2 billion spent in the first six months of the year. Of this, 60 per cent was spent on PPC marketing and other paid search ads, with display and banner ads contributing 20 per cent. Google rolled out branded keywords in 2010, allowing third parties to bid on company trademarks. This led to a landmark court case in October, which saw Marks and Spencer taken to court for buying Interflora as a keyword, thus 'piggybacking' on the florist's reputation. In January, PPC research revealed that Google AdWords accounts for 3 of every 4 paid ads on the web.

Social Media

Needless to say, it has been a good year for Facebook,culminating in CEO Mark Zuckerberg being named Time's person of the year. Unfortunately, research revealed that social media marketing is half as likely to be trusted as ads on content sources such as news websites. Meanwhile, Twitter went from strength to strength with the addition of Promoted Tweets, a new layout, and the number of users surpassing 145 million. The site has also found itself at the centre of several huge news stories and scandals this year, although both Twitter and Facebook remain tight-lipped with regards to integrating content from the two sites. In July, theEword published the Manchester Twitter Report, examining the effects and successes of social media marketing in the local area. Meanwhile, MySpace had a revamp. Nobody seemed to notice.

Mobile

2010 was, without a doubt, Apple's year.Between the launches of the iPhone 4 and the iPad, other releases such as Samsung's Galaxy tab went relatively unnoticed. The success of iPad magazines and newspapers has given many display advertisers cause for celebration or pause for thought, while the app store did a roaring trade despite some apps collecting user data. Android faced similar charges in October, while sales of handsets and apps also improved. An estimated 51 per cent of mobile users now make purchases online with their devices, although Apple is hoping to tempt more with the launch of iAd, a service for marketers to create in-app ads with rich media and GPS targeting. Meanwhile Google, which accounts for 98 per cent of all mobile browser searches, offers mobile marketing through a dedicated branch of AdWords. As 2010 draws to a close amid rumours of an iPad 2, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was named person of the year by the Financial Times.

theEweekly Wrap: Zuckerberg, Buzzwords and bees

Face of the year

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been named Person of the Year 2010 by Time magazine. Time's managing editor Richard Stengel said Zuckerberg was chosen because his creation is "transforming the way we live our lives every day". The Social Network, a film about the invention of the site and subsequent power struggle, was one of the year's biggest box office hits. The accolade also reflects the winner's influence on the year's events, with previous winners including US financier Ben Bernanke and President Obama. 2010 has indeed been a good year for Zuckerberg, seeing the social media site go from strength to strength and the 26-year-old's wealth climbing to £4.4 billion. However, it was revealed recently that he plans to follow in the footsteps of Bill Gates and give most of his fortune to charity.

Wordpower

LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, has revealed the ten most used buzzwords on its profile pages. Surveying 85 million profiles during 2010, the LinkedIn Analytics team discovered that 'extensive experience' was the most ubiquitous cliché in the US. Other popular terms included 'results-oriented', 'proven track record' and 'team player'. However, it seems desirable qualities in an employee vary from country to country. The survey showed profiles from northern Europe claimed mostly to be 'innovative', while members from emerging economies such as Brazil, India and Spain touted their 'dynamic' approach. The UK wanted above all to be seen as 'motivated'.

Social Media Trends

This week saw social media sites Facebook and Twitter reveal their most-discussed topics of the year. Like the Google Zeitgeist report released last week, both lists featured Justin Bieber, the Apple iPad and of course, the FIFA World Cup, while Twitter also featured associated terms like Vuvuzela and Pulpo Paul. However, Facebook's most used word in 2010 was 'HMU': hit me up, US slang for 'get in touch' or 'phone me'. The lists also reveal that social media is a platform for discussing world events, as the Gulf oil spill topped the Twitter list, both featured the Haiti earthquake, and Facebook saw support for the Chilean miners. Despite only hitting the headlines this month, the WikiLeaks furore and Julian Assange made it into Twitter's top News and People categories respectively.

Season's Googlings

December 2010 is the tenth birthday of AdWords, Google's PPC platform. To celebrate, the search giant has created a thankyou video, and is sending it to a million dedicated AdWords clients. The video, created by AKQA and PostPanic, has also been customised for each individual recipient, so that a swarm of mechanical bees (pictured) spells out the name of the customer. Meanwhile, the Google Small Business Marketing team has asked the companies they work with what their Christmas wish would be. Of those who wanted to move their business online, 76 per cent aspire to a bigger, better website with more features, while 10 per cent dreamed of being easy to find online. Of those with an existing online presence, 26 per cent wanted to make more money from it, 25 per cent wished to attract new business, and 22 per cent aspired to more brand awareness.

Why staff profiles are important to a company

When searching for new business and clients, every company wants to put on its best front. While "About Us” and "Services” pages are vital, an often overlooked aspect is the "Staff" section.

A lot of potential clients often want to see the people or team behind the company they are about to hire. This gives them an insight that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to get, and can be the first stepping stone in building vital trust with clients.

So what makes a good staff page? There are two main types – those that have a list of team members with a photo, and those that go one step further and have pages for each individual staff member, often with links to their relevant social media profiles.

Which type of team page you choose is entirely down to individual preference, but the advantages of both are clear to see.

It’s also vitally important to have good staff photos – no potential clients want to see a bad quality, shoddily-cropped photo of you down at the pub – it creates the impression that you’re not really bothered about appearances.

Another popular trend, and one that theEword utilises, is to have photo rollovers. This means that when somebody hovers over an image another photo of the same person is shown, often in a comical pose or disguise.

This is a great idea because whilst it displays original, often more corporate, images of staff it also shows how a team can be relaxed and suggests they are the kind of people you would want to work with.

Below are some of my favourite examples of creative and engaging staff pages:

Carsonified



Woo Themes



Creative Spark



Blue Sky Resumes



Arc90

Win deluxe chocolates – how many spiders are in the cookie jar?

We're all guilty of eating too much chocolate at Christmas. However, these particular chocolates deserve to be lingered on. The Sleekster Classic Christmas Luxe Selection, from everybody's favourite chocolatier Hotel Chocolat, contains 40 of the finest examples of confectionary you could ever hope to taste. There are mulled wine truffles, caramels, cinnamon pralines and many, many more. And best of all, they're absolutely free!

Win luxury chocolates courtesy of theEword

To celebrate the success of theEworkshops, our free SEO training sessions, we are giving away a delicious Hotel Chocolat selection box. So what will it take to win this mouth-watering prize?

Well, as you can see, theEword cookie jar has been overrun by search engine spiders (you can't hide anything from Google these days):



How to enter theEworkshop competition

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning the Hotel Chocolat selection box is:

1. Follow @theEword on Twitter


2. @ mention us with how many search engine spiders you think are in the cookie jar

Whoever gets the closest wins the Sleekster Classic Christmas Luxe Selection, courtesy of theEword. Yes, it really is that simple!

Competition rules

Sadly, every competition needs a few rules and theEworkshop competition is no different. Please bear in mind the following:

1. You need to be based in the UK (we're not posting a box of chocolates to New Zealand, however tasty)


2. You're only allowed one guess


3. You must have tweeted us with your guess by 12 noon on Friday, 17 December 2010

About theEworkshops

You may have already heard about theEworkshops. Since launching in November, our free SEO training sessions have proven very popular indeed. Jonathan Horlock, MD of Home Finder People said it was "easy to understand and not full of jargon". Aaron Hussey, communications and events officer at All About Audiences, said his session was "really enjoyable and useful". And Simon Frankham, of Traditional CMA, gave it 10 out of 10.

We've been so thrilled with the reception to theEworkshops, we've decided to put on more sessions in the new year. Two have been confirmed already – Wednesday, 12 January and Wednesday, 26 January 2011 – but more are being planned so keep checking theEworkshop page if you're interested in coming along.

In the meantime, we've decided to spread some festive cheer by giving away some of the finest chocolates around. All we ask is that, if you do end up bagging the prize, remember to save us a chocolate!

Richard Frost

theEweekly Wrap: WikiLeaks, Chrome, and the power of content

Don't mention the WikiLeaks

The WikiLeaks debacle escalated this week with a spate of digital revenge attacks by a group of 'hacktivists' known as Anonymous. The pro-WikiLeaks group is targeting financial bodies that have refused to process payments to the whistleblowing website, as well as prominent critics. The campaign, known as Operation Payback, has already launched distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on MasterCard, PayPal, the Swedish government and websites belonging to Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Lieberman. On Thursday, it turned its attentions to Amazon and began recruiting a 'data army'. Social media sites Facebook and Twitter are accused of shutting down accounts and groups relating to Anonymous. The Facebook account went first, because it promoted DDoS attacks, which are illegal. The Twitter stream was shut down when it began tweeting MasterCard account numbers, but a replacement appeared within hours. Twitter users have also noticed that #wikileaks and #cablegate are no longer trending, although the site stated they had nothing to do with it.

The future of Chrome

Google unveiled the new Chrome OS this week, although commercial release is not expected for at least six months. The operating system will be used exclusively on Google notebooks, and the search giant is soon to roll out a pilot scheme where US volunteers test the Chrome OS on a new device known as the Cr-48. Like the new MacBook Air, it has been built without a spinning disk or hard drive. Most importantly, the Chrome OS and whichever device it is released on will be designed around cloud computing, removing the need for local storage. This could explain the delay in commercial release, as it may be timed to coincide with the launch of Google's cloud in 2011. Chief operating officer Eric Schmidt said: "We think cloud computing will define computing as we know it... finally there is a viable third choice for an operating system."

Word up

Despite the worrying decline in press ad revenue, research has revealed that newspaper and magazine websites are among the most trusted by consumers. The Association of Online Publishers found that "engagement and advertising responsiveness is strongest on original content sites" including news and magazine websites where the written content is updated on a daily basis. In fact, visitors are "twice as likely to trust advertising and brands on content sites vs. social media sites". However, portals are also faring better with 48 per cent of respondents trusting ads displayed on MSN or Yahoo, compared to 39 per cent trusting Facebook ads. The same ranking of original content, portals, then social media also applied to respondents' positive perception of the brand advertised.

The Ads Factor

ITV is set to gain one of the most impressive advertising revenues in history this weekend during the X Factor final. The Saturday night performances and Sunday night results are expected to draw at least 20 million viewers, so ad slots are being sold for about £300,000 each – or £10,000 per second. In total, the channel is hoping to gain £25 million in a single weekend, and that's without considering the revenue from phone and text votes. All is not rosy for X Factor however, as Ofcom is set to investigate claims that presenter Dermot O'Leary encouraged viewers to download mp3 singles by guest artists Diana Vickers and Michael Bublé. According to the Daily Mail, "under broadcasting rules, products and services must not be promoted in TV programmes." Ofcom has also received thousands of complaints that the show is a fix and that results have been leaked on Twitter.

Battle of the Smartphones

This week's news that Google has released their latest smartphone, the Nexus S, comes at the end of a year that has seen some huge advances in the market, along with some of the greatest rivalries in the technological world. Forget the iPad - the smartphone is the must-have accessory for 2010 and make no mistake, the big players are fighting to make sure it's their shiny device that is in your pocket, not someone else's.

Mention a smartphone and many insist there is only one to consider – the iPhone. Released in June 2010, the latest guise of Apple's phone offering is the iPhone 4 and does, if you listen to any paid up member of the Apple fan club, pretty much anything you want it to. It won't quite make your dinner for you – it probably doesn't have enough battery life – but any other kind of 'app' you can think of is available and, of course, you get that trendy Apple design and hint of arrogance the company likes to tease us with. "This Changes Everything," they told us. "Again." Quite.

You won't hear so many people shouting about the other options quite so loudly but there are a few out there that rival the iPhone. Microsoft have naturally attempted to take a swipe at Apple's market share, releasing the Windows Phone 7 in October this year. It didn't impact quite as well as the company had hoped, something some have attributed to the confusing advertising surrounding its launch that implied it was only available through one provider – Orange – whereas it was in fact available through several.

Former mobile phone Master in Chief, Nokia, are waning slightly in the smartphone war, having seen a massive percentage of their market share going to the likes of the iPhone, but they are fighting back with smart models of their own. Similarly, other players circle, including HTC and Blackberry, but the Nexus S from Google looks like it could be a real threat and take a decent share of this very lucrative market.

We're not getting too excited though – this time next year we'll be eating dinner with our iPhone 4's and Nexus S's. Dinner that has, perhaps, been cooked by our new iPhone 5.

theEweekly Wrap: YouTube, magazines, and libel reform

Gadget Britain

Communications regulator Ofcom has published its fifth annual report on the technology market in 17 countries. Overall, the findings were positive, with Ofcom concluding: "UK consumers are some of the earliest adopters of new communications technologies" and are "the best connected for broadband, mobile and digital TV". In the past year, smartphone take-up has grown by 70 per cent, but Italy is still ahead in terms of smartphone-owning population. There was good news for e-commerce too, as the study showed the UK spent an average of £1,031 online and made 14 purchases every year, second only to Poland. James Thickett, Ofcom's director of market research, said the popularity of new technologies was "driven by younger people in the 18 to 24 age range".

Mag drag

Another annual report has revealed less favourable results. The International Federation of the Periodical Press found that magazine production dropped by 10 per cent in 2010, with 319 British titles going out of print. Just 2,924 remain, but they aren't out of the woods yet. One of the biggest reasons for magazines going out of business is the decline in ad revenue. Press display advertising has been the worst hit of all media platforms, with magazines taking the brunt of the loss. UK adspend dropped by £60 million in 12 months, with no improvement on the horizon until around 2012.

Pick an ad

YouTube has begun rolling out a new 'family' of ads called TrueView. Soon to be common in the UK, USA and Canada, the advert clips will play before certain videos. Viewers can click to continue to the main event after five seconds, in which case advertisers will not be charged. If the ad is viewed for 30 seconds, the pay-per-view charge will be implemented. The most interesting aspect of the decision is that viewers will be able to choose from several ads. Google hopes this will improve engagement and the relevance of the ad to the viewer; in their words, "connecting the right message with the right audience at the right time". There is also hope that the 5-second feature will encourage production of better adverts, so that viewers watch to the end; in tests, the view-through rate ranged from 20 to 70 per cent. TrueView will operate through AdWords accounts.

The Twitter law

The Supreme Court has ruled that libel laws must be changed for the social media age. The libel defence of fair comment was invented in the 19th century, to permit critical reviews of artworks and plays. However, since the internet gave every British citizen the means to communicate their views to the world, the rules became a little less clear cut. As a result, fair comment has been updated and renamed 'honest comment'. In the past, the comment had to list enough facts for the reader to make up their own mind. Now, due to the 'common base of information' created by television and the internet, a passing or general reference to the facts will be enough to use the 'honest comment' defence. In other words, a hashtag such as #xfactor could justify a comment like '[insert name here] is a rubbish singer', as it references the performance that opinion is based on.