In response to a lot of recent client enquiries on how long it takes to get found on Google, I thought it’d be a good idea to give an explanation. Many website owners feel that their site should be on the first page for their keywords, and are surprised and disappointed when this doesn’t happen immediately. We always repeat the caveat: it could take between six and 12 months before you get found. In most cases, it’s less than that, but you need to be prepared for the way Google deals with new websites, and newly optimised websites.

Many people think that Search Engine Optimisation is more of a dark art than a science, but really it’s just a case of moulding your site to fit what Google likes. If Google can’t understand what your site is about, or if Google doesn’t realise that your company is an industry leader, then we work to help Google like your site. This is an ongoing, and sometimes protracted, process.

Getting into the top 10 results on Google is not getting any easier, and Google is always inventing new ways of deciding how relevant websites are for a particular search result. Old chestnuts like (excuse the techy talk) link popularity, H1 tags, ALT text, meta Description tags, etc., have fallen by the wayside. While they still figure in the mix, there are so many different factors at play. Are searchers clicking on your site, where are your links coming from, is there much readable text on your home page, how is your website designed, where is your site hosted…the list goes on.

Add to this the fact that Google would prefer you to spend money through their AdWords programme rather than give you free ‘clicks’, and you can see why the forces are stacked up against your website getting high rankings anytime soon.
But work at it, and stay the course, and you will see an improvement. The simple things work best, but waiting is often the best option. Pepper your homepage with keywords, try to have content-rich pages on your site, submit your site to the directories, and check back every three weeks to see if rankings have improved.

And if you don’t see instant results, don’t be disappointed. It’s a long-term strategy, but it will pay off in the end.

I recently got an email from the Guardian Weekly (I know, he’s going on about that paper again…), and I decided I’d share it with you, because it’s a really good example of direct marketing through email. They get everything right here, and the landing page is great too. Have a look at the email and landing page:

The only problem I’ve found with this email is the use of ‘free’ in the subject line (”Explore world news with four free issues”), which might explain why it was sent to my Junk Email folder.

But apart from that it’s an excellent email. The headline font stays true to the Guardian’s ‘brand’ font, the headline is clear and obvious, and the images of the four free issues tangibilise what you’ll be getting.

The use of the ‘Click for your free trial offer’ button, both to the right of the images and at the bottom of the page, are very effective calls to action.

The copy (”The world isn’t simple…”) draws you in and is fairly straight to the point. The email gets across the selling point of the Guardian Weekly - because it’s a weekly paper, they have the perspective on the world news that dailies lack.

If you click on any of the calls to action, you’re brought to a landing page. The landing page is another classic example of direct response. The headline (”Explore the world”) restates the 4-week free trial, and the use of sub-headings (”Gain a global perspective”, etc.) really gets across the benefits the Weekly has to offer.

The landing page is peppered with testimonials, outlined in different shades to grab the eye. And the killer punch: 5 reasons to subscribe, at the bottom and in a different colour to the rest of the page. The 5 reasons uses many vintage direct marketing tactics - “no obligation”, “save money”, “money-back guarantee”, “free trial”.

The first start of the ordering process asks you what country you are in. You are then taken onto a quite long subscription process, which really could have been condensed a bit. But no matter. The email and landing page will already have done its job with a lot of people. This is how email marketing should be done.

In yesterday’s Media section of the Guardian, several Internet frontrunners attempted to peer into the crystal ball and tell us what they saw. A very interesting article indeed, with contributions from MySpace, YouTube, Google and other heavyweights.

But one section I found to be very interesting was by Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis Groupe, who was predicting future trends in advertising. Levy, who is referred to in Wikipedia as a “French advertising magnate”, made some very cogent points about the future of interruption advertising.

Levy argues that, in an era where people are vocally against advertising that ‘interrupts’ their enjoyment of a programme, show, website or newspaper, advertisers will need to seek more creative means of reaching their target market. “This implies a brave new world of engagement and involvement between marketers and consumers”.

As far as online is concerned, I have to disagree. Ads on popular websites are rarely given the attention that their designers had hoped. Click-through rates are miniscule. And for every successful viral promotion or online game, there are countless others being decried as shameless publicity stunts.

More than ever, search engine marketing is the basis for online advertising. Being found when users search for your products and services is still by far the best way of raising your sales.

While Google is working to increase its hold on advertising outside of search, expect some innovation. But in terms of achieving measurable results from online, search is still the key and in that arena, simplicity rules supreme.

For many of our clients, Christmas is important. It’s the end of the year, targets have to be met, and customers are, well, much more willing to part with their euros. Indeed, Christmas is the most significant event in Ireland’s retail calendar. In the UK in 2006, online sales reached £1 billion a week. So what’s the best way to take advantage of this surge in online sales? Here are a few dos and don’ts:

- Firstly (this especially applies if you have good search engine positions) don’t start putting “Christmas gifts” and other such phrases in your page Titles. Your site is not going to get high rankings for these phrases at just one month’s notice. If you really want to optimise your site to appear for these phrases, you need a longer-term strategy.

- Having a ’splash page’ on your website, which will be seen by all users visiting the site, can be a good idea. You can use this page to get across your fast delivery, great prices, wide selection, or whatever your USP is. Be aware though that this may cause a short-term drop in rankings if Google indexes your site during the Christmas month.

- If you’ve got an email database, the run-up to Xmas is a great time to keep people updated on your products. Send a seasonal email - nothing too tacky - with some special offers or a guarantee of delivery before the post cut-off date

- Now’s a good time to have a look at streamlining your site to make sure that users can do business with you. Trim down any forms that are too long, try to shorten the purchase process, and make sure that the site downloads quickly. Most important of all, aim to have a site that users understand instantly when they arrive. A higher conversion rate will have an obvious impact on your sales.

- Don’t have dancing Santas, a ‘Ho-Ho-Ho’ sound file, or Flash animations of holly trees detracting from the purpose of your site. People know it’s coming up to Christmas, and too much of these gimmicks smacks of superficiality.

Let us know of any ideas you’ve had for bringing in visitors and sales this Christmas.

Today’s Guardian has an interesting article on blogs and blogging. Apparently, the blogging craze has peaked, and there are now over 200 million ‘abandoned’ blogs out there.

So it seems that the initial euphoria that ‘anyone can be a journalist’ has given way to the realisation that not everybody has an opinion, and some people would prefer to consume content than produce it. If you’re not passionate in your online ramblings, your enthusiasm will wane.

I find it hard keeping this blog up to date, but that’s a case of being busy than anything else. That and the fact that we get between 10-30 comments on our blog every day, and pretty much all of them are spam.

Grrrr!!!

Google Analytics, one of the latest tools from Google, is a very effective way to find out how many people are coming to your website. It’s got several features that put it head and shoulders above the rest of the website visitor analysis packages:

1. Easy to set up and manage
2. Integrates well with Google AdWords
3. You can find out your conversion rates from different sources
4. It’s very easy to see where visitors are coming from geographically
5. Key data for marketers, webmasters and content publishers is easily accessible
6. It doesn’t cost anything. It’s free!

Setting up Analytics couldn’t be simpler. You register for a free account; Google gives you a piece of code to put on your pages, and you’re up and running.

When Analytics starts tracking your site, you’ll be able to access an interface that looks like this:

The first graph (top-left) gives a trend analysis of how many visitors are coming to your website, and how many pages they are viewing. By clicking on the calendar on the left-hand side of the page, you can check visitors by day, week, month and year. It’s very easy to see what days, weeks and months are busiest on your website with this information.

The top-right graph shows what percentage of visitors has been to the site before. This is interesting information, and gives you a good insight into visitor loyalty and frequency.

The map on the bottom-left shows where your visitors come from geographically. In the case of this website, Ireland and the UK provide most of the visitors, though you can see visitors coming from all over the Continent and the US. Note that Google can tell the county (and even the neighbourhood) that a visitor comes from, down to pinpointing a visitor to the Rathmines neighbourhood.

The bottom-right graph shows the source of the visitor. Did they come directly to the site, or did they visit from Google, Yahoo or MSN? Maybe they were referred by your email marketing campaign, or by a banner ad? Or maybe they clicked a link to visit your website. This graph is excellent for telling you how your search engine marketing is performing.

I’ll go into the simplicity and excellence of Google Analytics in further posts, but for the moment, let me just say that I highly recommend it. Of course, if you’d like to have Google Analytics on your website, we can help to implement it for you.

An interesting report on how buzz marketing went wrong in Boston reminded me of a really good article that was in this Tuesday’s Guardian (’Psst! Have you heard?‘), on how not to go about buzz/stealth/guerilla/word-of-mouth/viral marketing.

As consumers get more annoyed with advertising, and as there is so much more advertising around now, advertisers are turning to buzz marketing (catch-all definition: using unconventional methods to promote products with an aim of generating positive word-of-mouth publicity).

Some interesting points in this article:
- It is extremely easy to make a complete mess of a buzz campaign
- Some big companies (Pontiac, Sony, Budweiser) have messed up buzz campaigns
- We’re very close to a public backlash against buzz advertising campaigns
- After foolish stunts like the one in Boston, soon any buzz campaign will have to clearly show that it is advertising, thereby losing the ’shock’ value.

Here’s a good blog on buzz marketing, if you who want to know more.

If you haven’t seen Truth in Advertising yet, check the trailer out on YouTube. The full version is here, but you have to log in to see it. You need audio for it, and it’s got some coarse language, but it’s a hilarious send-up of the advertising campaign process.

If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that Google has purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion. I know what you’re saying - “it’s dot-com madness all over again”. YouTube is one of the most popular websites around at the moment, and with good reason - it’s got some really cool videos, like Where the Hell is Matt?, the Dance Scene in Napoleon Dynamite, Ronaldinho’s skills, OK Go’s synchronised treadmilling (if that’s a word), the girl who took a photo of herself every day for three years, and many more.

YouTube gets about 20 million visitors every month, and over 100 million clips are watched every day on YouTube. For many people with high-speed connections and a nice big monitor, YouTube is replacing that traditional box in the corner. When you can skim from an Elvis Costello video to Tommy Tiernan to the famous De Niro scene in Taxi Driver, what need have you for television, with its neverending ad breaks and nights with absolutely nothing on?

The implications of YouTube are revolutionary, and this is why Google has splashed out so much. But the question remains as to how Google stands to make money. Here are the options:

1. Showing a little ‘commercial message’ in the bottom corner of each video. This is interesting, as the ads could be targeted to the content of the video. So, for example, if you’re watching the De Niro clip above, the ad could say, “Get Taxi Driver on DVD”.

2. Using Google AdWords on the YouTube site. I’m not sure if this, done alone, will re-coup the $1.65 billion anytime soon.

3. Charging users to watch videos. I can’t see this happening, there would be an outcry from the YouTube community, and visitor levels would dwindle very quickly.

It’s likely that advertising will find its way onto YouTube in some form or other - Google didn’t splash out that much money to keep such a good thing going - but already people are saying that it was a very smart move. Watch this space - developments here have the potential to affect everyone who works in marketing.

Chemistry’s Shamrock Development (watch on YouTube) is an excellent example of viral advertising. As marketing departments demand increased return on their spend, and in a culture where ‘interruptive advertising’ (ads that interrupt you - TV, radio, pop-ups, etc) is getting more and more stick, an ad that people want to see is gold dust. A classy use of Web 2.0 technology. If you’re one of the few who hasn’t seen it yet, check this article on the Sunday Business Post website. If you thought it was a bit incredible, check out what the PD’s are ‘planning’ for Dublin.