11 Out Of 10 Blog

Google recently launched another attempt to break into the social networking market with Google+ and it is further evidence that they are integrating search with social to try to deliver more relevant search results.

You may have heard people talking a lot about the Google Panda update over the last few months, especially when the topic of conversation is SEO, but what exactly is it?

Well, essentially, a very clever Google engineer named Navneet Panda found a way to take the machine learning algorithms (computers that think and learn) and scale them up, so that they can process a very large amount of data, say, the same amount of data as all of the billions and trillions of pages that Google has in its index. The reason this was so clever was that machine learning algorithms, due to their complexity, had only ever been able to be applied on a very small scale before.

Google then decided that if they could get a group of people to look through, rate and review a whole load of different pages on different websites based on a variety of criteria, then they could apply this way of thinking to their machine learning algorithm, which could then go out and do the same to all of the pages on all of the websites in Google’s index. This means that Google is emulating the way a human would rate any website in its index and using that information to help rank those sites for a given search.

Now this is really clever and good because it has removed a lot of the rubbish from Google search results, however it has shaken up the SEO world for a lot of people because a lot of the elements which people had been focusing on previously do not now carry as much weight in terms of achieving high rankings and therefore new strategies have to be implemented to achieve these.

This has meant that many sites that were previously highly optimised from an SEO perspective have actually dropped in the rankings for the keywords they were targeting, whereas others have improved their rankings without actually doing anything, based on the criteria that the Panda update wants a site to fulfil. Naturally website owners and SEO’s that are experiencing the former, are eager to turn this around as quickly as possible, which they can do if they play by Google’s “new rules”.

Many sites have been unjustly dropped in the rankings as a result of this, which for SEO’s worldwide is a huge source of frustration, but if we are all honest we surely have to say (through gritted teeth), that this Panda Update is a positive move by Google in the right direction, for the good of search. It’s up to us now to focus on gaining back rankings lost and maintaining rankings gained.

Now, it isn’t enough to just have good content on your well structured site, attracting great links from authoritative destinations across the web, now, SEO’s need to focus more on the look and feel of the website and getting users to engage more with the site and spend more time on more pages of the site.

It’s a good job we are all friends here at 11 Out Of 10, because the Panda Update means that SEO’s will be spending a lot more time with their developers in the future in order to achieve high rankings for their sites.

We are delighted to announce that we have been nominated to receive the ‘Best Use Of Search’ Award at Big Chip 2011, the 13th annual Big Chip Awards celebrating the cream of the digital industry in the North.

It’s our second consecutive year in attendance at the Big Chip Awards as nominee’s and with walking away as winners last year with the ‘Best E-Business Project’, we are thrilled just to make the shortlist, but we can’t help but think about how nice it would be to ‘Do The Double’!

Whatever the outcome, being recognised at this prestigious awards ceremony two years in a row, shows just how far we have come.

Best Use Of Search Award

Our nomination for the ‘Best Use Of Search’ Award, which we are up for this year, is a result of the work we have carried out for Pure Gym in developing and executing an effective search campaign, integrating PPC, SEO and Social Media Marketing with the marketing activity and rapid expansion of Pure Gym as a company, in order to deliver a highly successful online marketing campaign to our client.

11 Out Of 10: Road To Big Chip 2011

New Pure Gym members are required to sign up online via the website, making it even more important for us to deliver highly targeted traffic to the site through these selected channels.

As a Google Certified Partner, we are recognised in our ability to deliver top level PPC campaigns for our clients and we used our experience, specialist skills and tools to instantly begin to drive highly targeted traffic to the site, generating a steady volume of new member sign ups through it. At the same time we worked towards constantly driving down costs whilst increasing conversions, resulting in a highly efficient ROI.

We combined this with a long term SEO strategy to ensure visibility was maintained in the Search Engine results pages, for key search phrases related to Pure Gym. We developed and executed a highly successful SEO strategy, resulting in the Pure Gym website being found within the top 3 positions in the search results for the key phrases we are targeting for each gym location i.e. “gym in manchester”, “leeds gym”, “gyms edinburgh” etc.

In addition to this we also built up a solid Social Media Marketing strategy, utilising all relevant platforms to engage with current members as well as potential members. Through connecting with our clients audience effectively we were able to build a solid online brand presence for them as well as manage their brand reputation, increasing their reach to potential customers and interacting positively with the target audience.

We have put a lot of hard work and effort into this search campaign and we are really proud to be recognised for our achievements at the Big Chip Awards 2011.

Being nominated is an honour in itself and we are up against two worthy opponents in Lakestar Media and Fluid Creativity.

We will be attending the ceremony at the Palace Hotel, Manchester, where the winner will be announced on June 16th.

Wish Us Luck!

Here at 11 Out Of 10, we have been working hard and investing into our online marketing services, to make sure that we continue to offer a top level service.

We have recently invested more into acquiring  industry leading, professional tools, to utilise alongside our ever growing knowledge and experience, ensuring that our clients receive the very best online marketing service that there is to offer.

From PPC and SEO, to Social Media Marketing and Brand Monitoring, we won’t be beaten on efficiency. We understand the importance of investing time into continuous learning, within our specialist service departments and investing financially, into cutting edge tools, helping us stay ahead of the game in our constantly developing industry and provide our clients the expert level online marketing service that they need.

Have you thought about how our Online Marketing Services could help your business?

PPC Management – As Google Certified Partners, we are proud to have the stamp of approval from the number 1. This means that we have been recognised by Google in our ability to provide an expert level PPC Management service. We drive only the most relevant visitors to your site to generate new business and deliver the most efficient ROI possible.

SEO Management – As part of our recent overhaul, we have invested more into cutting edge tools to help us deliver a fantastic SEO Service. We analyse your site, industry and competition, as well as what your most relevant customers are searching for online, so that we can work our magic and improve your rankings in the search results and place you in front of them, when they are searching.

Social Media Management – We build a strong presence for your brand online and engage with your customers directly through individually tailored Social Media Marketing campaigns. Connecting with your customers effectively online promotes a positive brand image and extends your reach to your target audience.

Email Marketing – Whether you want to contact your customers with a marketing message for a sales promotion, to keep them up to date with a newsletter or even target potential customers with an appealing message, we can take care of it. We can also track exactly how successful each Email Marketing campaign is.

Content Marketing – We ensure that the actual text on your website is not only optimised towards turning visitors into customers, but also that it contains the correct keywords and language that will ensure your website appears high in the search engine rankings for relevant searches with our Content Marketing service.

Brand Monitoring – When people are talking about your brand online, what are they saying? how can you track all of their conversations? Leave it to us, we use cutting edge tools for Online Brand Monitoring and ensuring that the majority of conversations are positive.

SMS Marketing – Our SMS Marketing Service is quick to set up and allows you to send bulk messages to your distribution list. Personalise individual messages with names, account numbers etc and brand your message appropriately.

If you would like to talk to us about any of our services then pick up the phone and give us a call on 0161 798 7977 or email us at marketing@11outof10.com.

Social Media is becoming more and more a part of day to day life. This is true for Social Media within business. Businesses are now finding more and more ways to make social media work for them.

Over the next 10 blog posts we will outline what we believe are the top 10 social media networks for businesses (in no particular order).
For any questions about how you can use social media for your business feel free to get in touch with us- marketing@11outof10.com

1. WordPress

2. Twitter

3. Technorati

4. Skype

5. LinkedIn

6. Foursquare

7. Flickr

8. Facebook

9. Delicious

10. Digg

WordPress is an open source content management system that specialises in blogs. WordPress allows the easy installation of blogs onto sites that allow users to change the theme and look of the blog easily. WordPress includes a tagging system also that allows blog posts to be easily categorised. WordPress also provides a selection of installable widgets that can be used within the blog to add some variety and interactivity within the blog.

WordPress can bring many benefits to a business, one of these being the SEO benefits. By including key words and writing about the content that is on the site the website can become more visible on a search engine. As with a lot of the social media tools WordPress also allows the business to show a more personal side to their business by allowing them to talk about things that are important to them within the business and industry.

Our tip when using WordPress is to ensure that it matches the rest of the site that you are integrating it to. This will allow seamless transition between the main site and the blog making the user feel the two are related. Also, as with Flickr try to keep the content interesting so the user enjoys reading it and will continue to read your blog.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro blogging service that allows its users to send and read other short messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page. Users can ‘follow’ each other to see what the other user is tweeting about if they find what they have to say particularly interesting. Users often include links in their tweets to pages or articles they find interesting, but they may also include links to pictures they have taken and wish to share with people. Twitter has a feature on it called Hashtags. Hashtags allow the user to put there Tweet into a category along with other Tweets that contain that hashtag. For example: if a user were to tweet saying “I like cake #food@”, there Tweet would be shown in a category with other tweets that contain the food hashtags. If a hashtag or phrase is used often enough then it starts to ‘trend’. This means that it will be shown to all users of Twitter as a popular topic, encouraging other Twitter users to contribute to it.

Twitter is useful for a business as it allows them to appeal to another platform. They can use Twitter to post news and updates about their business that they wish to share with others, getting maximum exposure using hashtags. Hashtags can be particularly useful for a business who wishes to appeal to a certain location, for example a business who sells brushes to people from Stockport may include the hashtag #Stockport, to ensure that it directly appeals to people who are interested in Stockport. Businesses on Twitter can also follow other businesses in order to get information about them and how they deal, but also to show clearly what industry they are in. This can mean that the company that sells brushes will follow other Twitter users that make brushes or Twitterers that give advice on using brushes.

Our tip when using Twitter for your business is to use hashtags as often as possible to get more exposure. Also try following people that will follow you back, this will also help to boost the number of followers and therefore the amount of exposure your Twitter feed gets.

Technorati is a relatively unknown tool however it should not be overlooked. Technorati is a search engine for blogs and posts that allows the users to find all blog posts based on a certain subject they may wish to search for. It also ranks blogs from 1-100 meaning that you can see the blogs that are rated highest by Technorati Authority (Technorati’s method of rating blogs).

For a business Technorati can be a useful tool to find out how your blog is doing and also to see if there is any talk in other blogs about your brand.
Our tip when using Technorati, is to use it as a monitoring tool, try to check relatively often to see if there is any talk of your brand or business in there, this will allow you to find out any bad reviews or opinions but also if there is positive things being said that you might wish to make more of.

Skype is a software application that allows the user to make voice calls and video calls over the internet. Using Skype to call other Skype users is a free service making it useful for businesses that need to make a lot of international calls. Skype is different to a lot of other VOIP software that uses external servers as it uses background processes on the user’s machine. Skype’s other features include instant messaging and file exchange.

Skype is extremely useful, as stated before, for companies that may need to communicate internationally on a regular basis, helping to save them money in terms of phone calls. Skype could also be used in business to help provide a more personal interaction between two people that have never met each other face to face. If people can see each other they may be able to develop more of a rapport then just by phone or email. Businesses may also find Skype useful to perform distance learning. Skype allows the use of tools like whiteboards and other visual implements that wouldn’t be available simply over the phone.

Our tip when using Skype is that any long distance calls should try to be made over Skype (where possible). This may mean that if you are in constant discussion with an office in America and your business is based in the UK, using Skype would be a massive money saver.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site; much like Facebook but the primary target is for businesses. It allows businesses to keep in contact with other businesses that they may find useful or keep up to date with other companies in their field of work. LinkedIn allows its users to create a list of connection from people they know within business, these people are called connections. On LinkedIn there is second degree and third degree connections also, these allow people to meet through mutual connections. LinkedIn can be used for people to find jobs, find people and find business opportunities that may not have been found without it.

Businesses can use LinkedIn as a basic virtual shop front for their business. This allows people to find them and get in touch to get more information and possibly do business. Businesses can also take advantage of LinkedIn by using it to advertise for jobs. This can be done by going to relevant groups of professionals and advertising specifically to them.

As mentioned before, LinkedIn can be thought of as a shop front for your business; our tip therefore is to treat it as such. This means that the same way how you would not leave your shop front looking untidy, you shouldn’t leave your LinkedIn profile untidy and incomplete. Try to ensure you have all details filled in and a high quality image of your logo to give the best first impression possible. See more tips on LinkedIn