Good morning everyone! :) It’s 6am and today Ben Milleare and I are off to one of the biggest and most exciting search events of the year, SMX London 2012.

Our aim is to deliver insights, tips, tricks, news, photos and any other tasty bite size chunks live from the event. Join in the conversation on twitter #smxtakeaway or contact us directly – @bandertron @bmilleare

Day 1 will kick off with a special keynote (A conversation with Google) from Amit Singhal of Google who will be joined at the table by Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman.

Other topics on the agenda for day 1 are detailed below. If you not there, tune in.Iif you are there, get involved and give Ben and I a shout – it would be great to meet up with folks!

Day 1 Takeaways

• Search plus your world is on the cards to roll out within europe but still no date from Google yet…
• SearchMertics Research shows social signals are having higher and higher correlation to search ranking
• Social Signals – Author-Markup on the up
• SearchMertics research showing 17% of SERPS have authorship integration
• Backlinks still strong but much more about quality.
• Nofollows are part of a natural link profile
• SearchMertics Research data also suggests AdSense could be a handicap – is this correlation rather than causation though?…
• Watch out for exact match anchor text
• Think Brand instead
• Negative SEO has always been around but it has got worse recently – Google need to address this.
• With over 75% of websites using google services, Google knows traffic and the full journey of a search query and associated engagement
• 15,494,008 sites are using Google Analytics
• Obvious but good quote from Marcus: “Google doesn´t want to rank the site with best SEO but the one that answers users questions”
• Secure searches are increasing and this will continue as google+ uptake grows
• Organic Keywords in Google – Track what you can, while you can.
• Set up goal tracking and track conversions at a keyword level and also at the not provided level
• One thing which will stay in GA is the ability to track at a URL level. Track and understand the percentage of organic traffic at a page/segment level
• Use PPC for keyword research – identify keywords that convert and get better insights into real keyword volumes.
• Not Provided traffic numbers is industry specific. Research suggests this is currently anywhere between 7-55%
• The more tech your industry the higher the likelihood of receiving Not Provided – Firefox/ Geeks and SEOs signed into G+?
• Update existing content on your site – especially top content pages. Freshness!
• Highlight poor content. Make it better or loose it.
• Google feedback on Webmaster tools keyword data – “You’re Doing It Wrong…” use the filters in GWT to improve accuracy of data
• Use Subdomains and Directory structure to help structure your local content
• Where possible, assign associated language and location attributes to help define local target
• Used Microformats / Schema.org to provide structured markup and increase ability to understand/process local content
• Create Localised content but make sure it’s quality is panda proof – thin directory/automated content will make things worse
• Fight global content duplication using – the canonical tag, robots.txt, web master tools, redirect management, consistency of internal links
• Use Country specific sitemap.xml
• Use the rel=”alternative” to reference alternative version of the content in another language
• Global Companies need to think long and hard before committing to a CMS as this is a large investment that will be around for a long time – is it SEO friendly? does it provide the features you need to push out content the way you want now and in the future?
• Use social media to observe and understand consumer behaviour at a local level – never paint everyone with the same brush, understand your customers at a local level!
• Do something to Encourage UGC to develop local content and engage – competition winner
• Use tools like followerwonk and Socialbro to find your audience
• Keep an eye on Google Map Maker to provide more detail in your google places listing – Its coming
• Socialise your local presence
• Build your social strategy around what motivates and engages your customers
• Track local presence using services like brightlocal and getmelisted.org
• Use Google Alerts to monitor news and what is going on in local areas

Day 2 SMX Takeaways

Hi all, here’s what we have so far today. Sorry if there are spelling mistakes and bad mark up, I’m on an iPad…

• Guess what folks, 2012 is the year of mobile!…. :P Mobile will just keep growing, don’t ignore it.
• Research has suggested that Mobile traffic is up 20% on last year
• The Google Mobile index is the same as the main Google index
• The main purpose of Google’s mobile bot is to find content and pages which are only served to mobile devices
• In the past, Google has tested sites for how they render on mobile. Could this affect your presence in mobile SERPs?
• The M commerce plugin for Magneto can be used for creating a mobile version of your Magento site
• WPTouch Mobile Plugin can be used to create a mobile version of your WordPress site
• Smartphone users don’t want a WAP style experience
• If you can, use a responsive design for mobile and not a separate site
• 60% of mobile traffic still comes from Apple devices
• But don’t assume an iphone app is right for your audience. Look into the local market to understand what devices they are using. Sweden & China are good examples.
• Surprise surprise, Social signals are part of the ranking factor!…
• Boost in rankings from social shares is likely to be restrained by time
• Social is not about the Sale its about about influencing the user beforehand
• Regardless of whether or not you like G+ you should be using it to build authority and push authorship of content
• Research, whitepapers, “how-to” articles, breaking news, infographics, competitions, interviews all go down a storm on social – the more you give the more they are likely to share.
• Social Shares are like links, it’s better to have a good mix not just G+ for SERPs!
• Use Newswhip to find out what’s trending on social network
• Use Trendsmap to find out what’s trending in particular areas
• Analyse your influencers’ influencer to find your influencers
• Use Google Alerts to keep track of your influencers mentions
• Facebook’s algorithm for ranking shares is called EdgeRank
• Research suggests that the Best days for FB sharing is thursday and friday.
• Research suggests the best time for FB and Twitter sharing is early afternoon and tumblr is at night
• Personally, I say use tools like whentotweet to determine the right time for you…
• Google+ is an identification management tool
• The award for most controversial comment in search is still “We know where you are, we know what you like” – Eric Schmidt
• Google is working hard to build a profile of you and your connections
• By doing so, google can target and deliver more appropriate content and information through it’s products and it believes increase experience
• Social signals – “identity & profile, friends & contacts, what you DO and to which entities you are connected
• Google+ discussions are now being featured within Google News
• Rel=authorship is another way Google is learning about you and your content online
• Research has suggested Google+ has a negative impact on CTR – you should still get involved though as other research shows…
• 42.6% Increase in organic traffic seen in websites using G+ over those that are not – last 3 months
• Great Quote “SEO is a bit like being a weather man” – Greg Boser
• There are currently 353,000,000 Google+ pages indexed in Google
• Focus strategy on Great content, stop chasing the agorymth. Think of your user
• Build a great content writing team – community manager, bloggers, content strategist, inforgraphic designer, guest author, video producers
• Create G+ brand page and like to your site
• Try and ensure you have daily activity on Google+
• Links are here to stay! but updates like Penguin are smarter in weeding out unnatural backlinks
• Content is a larger investment but always wins BIG longterm
• According to search volumes, infographics are more popular than ever
• API driven/Dynamic infographics ensure freshness and potential for on-going link acquisition
• HTML5/CSS infographics allow you to track engagement in more detail
• Recent Trends suggest that Sites with a minimum of 20% brand anchors have not experienced the negative affects of penguin thus far.
• A recent user study into SERP CTR highlighted that people love clicking on anything with a number in it
• View social connections using google’s social connections tool.
• Find influencers on Findpeopleonplus.co.uk
• Use Google+ ripples to look into reach
• Use the Social sources activity stream in google analytics

Phew, and finally…

Never Say No To Panda!

Thats it for now! If you have any other takeaways from SMX London 2012 or have any opinions on the above leave a comment below. We’d love to know your thoughts and opinions!

Tom

Drum roll please! We are excited to announce that we have launched our latest white paper:  ‘Boosting Conversion Rates Through Basic Psychological Principles: A Research Summary’. Available now… for FREE!

This glorious insight into the psychology of the online shopper has been compiled by a member of the CRO team Laura Hands -You may insert your own jovial remark about giving her a big hand for her efforts.

The white paper analyses basic psychological principals to provide cutting edge insight into e-commerce behaviour. What you need to know is that using web psychology is an effective way of analysing the customer journey during the path to sale within your website, and positively impact your conversion rate.

So to find out how to grab a potential customer and get them to buy something without them knowing that you have hooked them in to a purchasing path – read this white paper.

The white paper is split into four main areas:

• Recognise and target cyber wanderers
• Keep it simple
• Engage with shoppers
• Create a sense of trust

Each section draws on expert research into how the online audience thinks and behaves, drawing clear conclusions and simple practical actions for you to follow to streamline the path to conversion.

This white paper is completely free, just visit our Research Section to download it.

…and once you have read it we would love it if you could share your views with us, just leave a comment below.

What is it?

Near Exact & Near Phrase Match is a feature to be found in the MCC. The new feature enables your ad to show when people search for close variants of your target keywords – this includes singular, plurals, acronyms, abbreviations, accents and even misspellings. It also includes ‘stemmings’ an example given by Google is floor and flooring.

Why has it been released?

To make Google more money? Probably. It will however benefit anyone running a PPC campaign by improving exact and phrase matching, so you can produce better targeted ads, and thereby improve clicks and impressions.

How to find it…

Go to the settings tab:

Will it be great?

The chances are – it could be. Google said that they will use your exact keyword, not a close variant to create a quality score, and it is thought that the improvements will enable account managers and companies to broaden consumer reach whilst at the same time retaining precise control over search terms that trigger an ad. Also, Google won’t generally release something that won’t make them money, so it has to work.

What to do next…

Test it. Make sure you cover the campaign with negative keywords and run regular search term reports.

We are of course keen to find out what your opinions are. Have you already tested this? What results did you see? Do you have any great hints and tips to share with fellow PPCers?

Get in touch and tell us – there is no prize up for grabs, but you may gain the adoration of PPC account managers the world over if you share your views!

If you haven’t heard of Google Drive, well you must have had your head in the clouds… no, wait…

Google Drive is a new service that emulates the likes of Drop Box, allowing users to store files remotely (in the cloud) and be able to access them on any device, from any location. I may have mentioned before that Google likes to jump aboard a successful bandwagon (see Google Offers), well this time it is following in the successful footsteps of Microsoft’s SkyDrive and the aforementioned Dropbox. In recent news Richard Edwards, principal analyst at research firm Ovum was quoted as saying that Google was “very late to the market” with Drive. Arriving fashionably late with a product has never stopped the big G before though.

What we all want to know is – Why are we so sure that Google Drive is finally going to launch imminently? and Is it going to be better than what we already have?

Firstly, we are pretty sure that the product is going to be launched very soon as Google Docs has just increased capacity by 5GB, which in turn has led Google Gurus to believe that Google Drive will offer 5GB of free storage. It has been speculated further that paid tiers could reach a cut off point up to 100GB. Sweet.

Secondly, we are really not so sure. Obviously competitors are already on the ball and attempting to cover their assets (do you like what I did there?). Why sign up to Google Drive for a measly 5GB when for a limited time you can go to https://skydrive.live.com sign in and upgrade from 7 to 25 GB for free!

Yes, we are not sure either.

If you are in the dark about what exactly Google Drive offers, here is a brief explanation:

Cloud storage is particularly suited to anyone who has lost their last five years worth of photography, music and musings thanks to a failed harddrive and never wants it to happen again. It is also great for anyone who uses a number of devices throughout the day for work and pleasure, and wants to have everything all in one place, rather than attached to one device. Save to a cloud using Google Drive, Dropbox or the like, and inaccessible documents are a thing of the past!

Ever been to a meeting only to realise that you’ve forgotten your memorystick with that all important presentation on it? Fear no more, Google Drive may be coming to save you. Alternatively, check out Dropbox or Skydrive!

Bing’s homepage updated to honour Brighton SEO conference

Two of HP Group’s finest SEO tech team members Matt Mynors and Habs Rehman headed to Brighton SEO last week to revel in the excitement of search engine optimisation by the seaside. They didn’t come back with a kiss me quick hat or a stick of rock – but they do have a few nuggets of information that were well worth going all that way for.

HPG: So lads, you went to a free SEO event – was it worth the train fare?

Matt: It sure was, Habs and I got a free Majestic SEO tee shirt each – totally on trend this season. There wasn’t really much else in the way of freebies unfortunately.

Habs: I did get my hands on a free milky bar!

HPG: That’s great – I was more thinking about who and what was there though; famed guest speakers, powerful PowerPoint presentations, optimisation geeks from around the globe?

Matt: Yeah, there were some really well presented talks. Kelvin from Site Visibility kicked things off really well, and most of the talks were presented brilliantly. Koozai, Fresh Egg, Ad Insight, Manual Link Building dot com, Search metrics dot com were the main sponsors.

Habs: Google and Bing representatives were there too.

Matt:Brighton Dome was packed to the rafters, and not just with SEO bods – there were university students, companies looking for SEO, SEO agencies looking for staff and lots of people in marketing that were generally interested in SEO and how it fits with other marketing methods. Some people had travelled over from Amsterdam, so it attracted a pretty good crowd.

HPG: Wow, sounds like it was pretty exciting – what were the best bits for you?

Matt: The Q&A. The questions presented what the people there really wanted to know, what they were interested in.

Habs: I found Roland Dunn’s talk about how searchbots interact with a site very interesting. Coming from a development background & being somewhat of an on-page specialist, I found it pushed all the right buttons!

HPG: What was the Big Question on everyone’s lips?

Matt: It was mostly about Linkspam. SEO agencies want answers, and business owners want to know what they need to do to take care of their linking. What is a good link and what constitutes a bad link? Oh yeah, and quite a few questions about ‘not provided’ in GA.

HPG: Linking is definitely a hot topic right now – so what was the advice for agencies, and businesses?

Matt: Basically, we all know what a bad link is, don’t push it.

Habs: Yes, we’ve all heard the mantra “Content is King” and that your linking strategy should be based around it. Produce content that people will find relevant, interesting and most importantly, worth linking to!

HPG: What about Not Provided?

Matt: The guy from Google said it was to ensure the privacy of users. He then got heckled pretty badly, and it didn’t really stop. The guy from Bing even stood up for him a couple of times.

Habs: Privacy seemed like a rather convenient excuse, considering Google received a rather large amount of flak in February for ignoring browser privacy settings.

HPG: Does it look like Google will make changes to the ‘not provided’ element?

Matt: Probably when they launch their ‘Flying Pig’ update. In other words, I really don’t think so. They changed it for a reason and I don’t think anybody really knows what that reason is at this point in time.

HPG: Habs? What about you? Best bit about Brighton SEO?

Habs: The random Angry Birds competition on stage to win an arcade game. There were volunteers up there who were hurling Angry Bird plushies around trying to get them in a cardboard box.

HPG: Random. Well it certainly sounds like you had a good time, would you go again?

Matt: Definitely
Habs: I’m counting down the days…

Well, it seems the intrepid duo enjoyed their trip to the seaside – and whilst it didn’t bring any breaking news, or tell our techs what they didn’t already know, we did find out a few things about the changing ‘scape of the marketing industry.

Integrated services, both online and offline are becoming more popular through an increased awareness. SEO is one part of a whole marketing puzzle, and it is becoming increasingly common for marketing agencies to be working side by side for big brands. For smaller businesses, owners are learning to do it for themselves, taking an ever more informed approach to kick start online success.

How to change Accelerated Delivery to Standard Delivery

Ensuring your ads show as consistently as possible throughout the day could be key to getting the most from your budget and also understanding who your audience are. Here’s how to do it.

• Sign into your AdWords account
• Select the settings tab for the campaign you want to edit
• Where it says ‘Bidding and Budget’ choose the Delivery Method (advanced) and click edit
• Choose ‘Standard: Show ads evenly over time’
• Save!

How to lower your bids in campaigns that are “limited by budget”

If you don’t know how to do this then you probably shouldn’t be in charge of the PPC budget, and your general inexperience may be the biggest problem behind a depleted daily budget.

How to let AdWords automatically bid for you

Letting Adwords change your keyword, or placement maximum CPC bids is a great way of maximising visits for your daily budget. When Google automatically bids for you, it will stay within the daily budget you have set for that campaign.

• Click the settings tab for the campaign you want to edit
• Find the ‘bidding and budget’ section on the settings page and choose ‘Adwords will set my bids to help maximise clicks within my target budget’.
• Put in a daily budget for your campaign
• Click Save and continue

How to find your campaign’s “recommended budget”

The recommended budgets are based on detailed analysis of your campaign’s performance over the last 15 days, along with a few other things (conveniently listed below) to estimate how new budget limitations may improve ad visibility.

1. Recent campaign performance
2. Current campaign budget
3. Keyword list
4. Campaign targeting settings

Here’s how to set it up.

• Select the settings tab for the campaign you wish to edit.
• Find ‘budget’ and click ‘edit’
• Click ‘view recommended budget’
• It’s advisable to review the recommended new daily budget and take this into consideration when deciding what your new budget will be. You may also find information here on potential traffic volume. Input a new budget
• Click Save.

We hope you have enjoyed this tutorial, we certainly have; and congratulations, you are another step closer to becoming a PPC Master extraordinaire!

Google love to jump on a successful Bandwagon – and the latest venture that has caught Google’s eye is Groupon judging by the all new singing and dancing service – Google Offers.

Similar to Groupon, all you have to do is sign up to Google Offers, and each day you’ll be delivered a range of money-off deals that you might want to use. In return, Google gets to know a little bit more about your shopping habits and provide you with more of the things you might like.

But what about if you are a business owner – what is in it for you?

Well, for businesses that are already paying for internet marketing (that utilises a range of Google services designed to connect businesses with potential customers) Google Offers promises to help businesses connect with potential customers through money-off vouchers, for a small cut of the sale.

So, businesses offer their services for a lot less than they are really worth as an ‘introductory’ deal, and give some of whatever is left over to Google, and through doing so have an opportunity to reach more people who may want their services in the future.

How does Google Offers Work?

To be fair, Google are planning to take a much smaller slice of the pie than Groupon reportedly do (20% rather than 50% – bad news for Groupon!), so for business owners, Google Offers could be a much more cost effective opportunity – and, because it is Google, there may be more chance of better targeting to an audience. Maybe.

On the other side of the coin however, flamboyant ideas require popularity to reap the success they deserve. Google Offers mimicking Groupon, Voucher Cloud and other coupon based services may have the same appeal as Google Buzz trying to break into the social scene, which was not an awful lot.

What we need to remember is that the success of Google Services depends on the end user, which in this case is the shopper saving money (not the business owner making money). Business owners will likely try Google Offers but success will ultimately be decided on the delivery and service provided on the user end. Looking at the video below, Google have made a lot of effort to make this as easy as possible for Businesses to incorporate. The question is, how slick and appealing is the end user experience?

Google Offers Redemption

If your a UK Business you’ll have to wait I’m afraid as Google Offers is only a BETA release and only available in the US.

Our advice, keep an eye out and watch this space with this one!

• DO NOT DISCONTINUE YOUR AD CAMPAIGN

• DO NOT STRETCH YOUR BUDGET

You will either miss out on clicks (and customers and money) or spend more than you can afford (lose money – bad bad bad)
Here is what you can do instead, as endorsed by Adwords Help:

• Choose “Standard delivery” for your ads, instead of “Accelerated delivery.”Why? Because accelerated delivers ads really really fast, the name should be a giveaway, standard spreads it out evenly over time.

• Lower your bids for campaigns that are “limited by budget,” potentially reducing the average cost per click.

Why? Because it could make your budget go further and get more clicks but BEWARE lowering too much could make your bid less competitive and result in fewer clicks.

• Let AdWords automatically bid for you to get as many clicks as possible with your campaign’s current daily budget.

Why? Because you’ll always stay within your set daily budget for that campaign.

• Find your campaign’s recommended budget

Why? Because you might have the potential to earn more clicks and impressions.

So, now you know what you should be doing, look out for our next post which will be a handy step-by-step guide showing you exactly how to do it.

It could be a WIN for the smaller businesses this time as Google gets local again!…

The Venice update was part of the 40 updates Google rolled out in February and pushes even further towards delivering localised search results for queries Google deems appropriate.

Here’s the brief statement from Google on codename “Venice”:

“Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal.”

Also mentioned in this update were:

“Improved local results. We launched a new system to find results from a user’s city more reliably. Now we’re better able to detect when both queries and documents are local to the user.”

In summary, localised search results in Google have now branched out for generic terms. i.e. it’s not just “generic + location” based searches which will return localised results.

Venice in Action

Let’s take a look of this in action in a quick before and after example:

Take the search query “TV Rentals” for instance. Previously in Google UK, if you searched for the term  you would have been presented with a list of the most relevant results in the UK. Now however, the results returned are a blend of UK results and sites/pages local to your set location.

Before	After/Now (location set as Bristol)

Note, this change is only for queries Google consider deserves a local focus and as a result  a search for “Big Ben” or  “Justin Bieber” will be the same regardless of where your location is set too.

Ok, So What Does the Venice update mean for my business?

If you’re a business providing a local service you could start seeing your website turn up in the organic listings for more generic search queries along side the big boys! – provided the users location is within the local vicinity. Meaning; more local traffic. Good Times!

The next logical question is how do small businesses capitalise on these favourable times served up on a silver platter by what is now the ‘World’s Local Search Engine’? (sorry HSBC).

So, if you are now thinking, “what can I do to increase my chances of turning up in these results?” Stay tuned! Our next SEO post will be a follow up to this one and give you tips on how you can increase your chances of appearing in the new Venice results.

If you can’t wait to get your local fix or haven’t got your business in Google Places; check out our Google Places Tutorials to keep you busy in the meantime.

That’s all for now folks!

Skinheads for Charity was organised by Pat Hegarty, an SEO technical wizard and his wife Desi who is a newly qualified paramedic. Pat, whose flowing locks have been a firm feature of his fine stature for over 22 years also managed to talk some of his colleagues into joining in the fun – which took part at 1pm today.

In total over £500 was raised and this number is still counting. The money will be split between 2 charities, St Helena’s Hospice and Building Futures in Malawi.

Starring in this amazing production of money raising brilliance were:

Patrick Hegarty – SEO Technical Manager
Liam – Pat’s son
Desi – Pat’s wife
Tom Jepson – Head of SEO
Ben Milleare – Technical Director
James Root – SEO Account Manager
James Parker – Web Asset Manager
Matt Mynors – SEO Specialist
Habib Rehman – SEO Specialist

And of course, the whole of HP Group who were cheering them on!

A huge thanks to Kev and his team from Inspirations in Colchester and everyone who donated to these good causes.

Before and After!

SKINHEADS FOR CHARITY - Before & After

If you haven’t donated yet and would like to too, please visit:

http://www.justgiving.com/SkinHeadsForMalawi
http://www.justgiving.com/SkinHeadsForHospice

Thank you so much for your support!

p.s. a video of the day’s events may possibly be appearing sometime soon… You didn’t hear it here though…!