As a familiar household name and a company that’s been trading for more than 90 years, Interflora is probably one of the last companies you’d expect to be breaching Google’s rules in the hopes of improving their SEO. However, news broke last week that Interflora has been using links from a significant number of ‘advertorials’ to boost their standing in the SERPS, without using a ‘no follow’ tag – which is a strict no-no in the SEO world.

“In January, Interflora, in order to get ready for Valentine’s Day, paid newspapers to run stories which were only there to get links to improve their Google ranking,” David Naylor, head of SEO at Bronco, explained in an interview with Computer Weekly. “In SEO terms, advertorials are like gold dust, but have to be taken with care. Interflora went and did as many as humanly possible, and they really went too far.”

Although the punishment of Interflora is likely to be temporary, it still teaches other businesses an important lesson about the importance of conducting their SEO campaigns in a responsible manner. To keep your SEO campaign in Google’s good books, make sure that you:

• Approach advertorials with caution
  Google is bound to be keeping an eye on them, so keep advertorials to a minimum and don’t be tempted to pay for the removal of the ‘no follow’ on your back-link. 
• Keep link building above board
• Focus on building links from genuine, credible sources – for instance, by writing a guest blog for a site in your industry. 
• Prioritise quality content 
• As the saying goes, ‘content is king’ when it comes to the Google search results, so creating high quality, user friendly content that people naturally want to link to, is the key to SEO success. 

In the end, Google ended up not only penalising Interflora, but also the newspaper that ran the advertorials, demonstrating just how seriously they take such breaches of SEO best practice.

It is a well known fact that having a high ranking in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) is a huge asset to any business; it drives more traffic to your page and increases brand awareness. The only way to achieve this is to implement an effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy. Here are six simple tips to help you on your way to the top of the rankings:
1.    Do your keyword research  
Keywords are the search terms people use to find your website. It is important to identify which keywords are specific to your industry or market, and then ascertain which ones you want to target. This is a pivotal part of SEO strategy which will help you to produce content and links that are relevant and useful.
2.    Use original, unique content
However, you don’t just want any old content – search engines prioritise sites that use engaging content that is not duplicated or plagiarised. Ensure that all of your pages have high quality, original information that is pertinent to your intended audience.
3.    Avoid ‘black-hat’ SEO
‘Black-hat’ SEO is using unethical practices, such as web spam and over-optimisation, to drive traffic to your company’s website. Google actually penalises sites that employ these tactics, so make sure all your backlinks are genuine and your content is your own.
4.    Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free service that provides helpful data about your site and how users are engaging with your content.

5. Spend time on social media

It is common knowledge that social media is an essential part of any digital marketing strategy, so be sure to use yours effectively. Keep your profiles active – like, retweet, share, promote – as SEO is increasingly dependent on social signals.

6.    Consider hiring an expert
SEO is an important part of any online strategy, so consider consulting an expert to fine tune your approach.

Content marketing is a business promotion model that is increasingly gaining traction in the online world as companies look at how changes in internet use offer new opportunities for selling their products. However, while traditional forms of marketing are often ‘in your face’ attempts to persuade customers to buy products, content marketing requires a more subtle and often indirect approach to selling.

Successful online content marketing is built around the use of information to educate, inform and entertain with the intention of attracting and growing an audience around a company’s online portals. A variety of online destinations can be included in a content marketing programme including a website, blog, a You Tube video channel or any number of social media sites.

This building of a community around a company replaces the need to purchase traditional, and usually expensive, advertising whether it is in the form of print, audio or visual media.

Content marketing has proven to be highly effective for corporate giants like Coca Cola, but it can also be just as effective for much smaller commercial concerns. A local butcher for example could create a blog featuring recipes, useful information on meat cuts, preparation and cooking times and so on. The butcher could then use social media to find and build a local online following. Although not directly selling to followers, he has used content to create a potential market which he can then convert to customers.

Although content marketing relieves the need to purchase advertising, it is important that businesses considering pursuing a content marketing strategy realise it is not free of costs. Although cost effective, the production of content and the maintenance of an online community requires both time and financial resources for effective web design among other activities.

Hey everyone, it’s Thea here again wondering, do you stream films on your computer, tablet or smartphone? Or maybe you hook your computer up to your TV and stream things that way? Well, I do, sometimes (as I wrote about my Slingbox experience exactly a year ago)…

So I was somewhat-excited to see the arrival of Netflix to the UK today. We’ve had a Netflix account for many years in the US, (dad watches something on Netflix every day). Though it’s my account, I can only view it when I am in the US!

So for years I’ve had a LOVE FILM account. I use both the DVD-by-mail and stream services almost equally, I guess.

As of today though, there’s a dilemma, do I keep LoveFilm? Do I use both? Do I use Netflix only?

Netflix offers a Free Trial for a month – so I’ve just signed up and I’ll run them both side-by-side to see how they go. As I don’t have much time, there really is only a need to keep one of them.

LoveFilm is a name you’ll likely all be aware of, as the UK-based company got their start (in one incarnation) a nearly decade ago now. Since then it gone through many different guises and mergers – right up until Amazon bought them a year ago. Their core business was DVDs by post, but as times are changing, since around 2007, they’ve begun offering streaming to a variety of platforms.

Netflix, the newcomer to the UK market, was launched in my hometown of Los Gatos California way back in 1997. They, too, got their start by doing DVDs by mail, but since 2007 have shifted their core to streaming, and do so across more platforms (seemingly) than LoveFilm does. Netflix streams to – PS3, Xbox, Nintendo Wii, Apple TV, Smart Phones, Tablets, …

Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix was on the Breakfast show in BBC1 this morning, not really viewing Lovefilm as a threat, but more B-SkyB  (Sky Movies, Sky Atlantic) is the company to beat as it’s, “the big dog”.

To be honest, over the past year or two my own habits are radically changing. I seem to be doing less and less in terms of CDs, DVDs and physical books – opting to move everything over to digital (which clutters up my flat less).

I’ve even opted to not bother getting a Blue Ray player (so far). I’d only want one to stream stuff anyway so it seems pointless to me at present when I could use one of the services discussed here today!

So on that note, I’ll try to compare the two services side by side here in the UK and decide at the end of the month.

As I say I am already a user of both services (here and in the US) so it will be interesting to see if the content I am interested in is there for the UK version of Netflix.

It is, without a doubt, in the US, but on first glance the TV shows I’d want to stream here in the UK aren’t on the UK version of Netflix (much to my chagrin,…)

So it’s a case of “we’ll see”. It will be interesting to watch these two firms go head-to-head over the coming year.

What do you do? Do you use LoveFilm? Will you take Netflix up on their free one month offer like I just did? Let us know.

Happy viewing!

Hey everyone it’s Thea here again! Apologies for the delay in following up last week’s Cannes Diary # 1 about the entertainment conference called MIPCOM.

While all those big, important individuals and companies spent time shmoozing, wheeling and dealing with each other, I spent much of my MIPCOM time in countless talks.

In many ways, apart from a few key contacts I made, and the weather, the talks were my favorite part of MIP. There was no pressure to “sell” myself or indeed my “content” – but rather the role was one of spectator or even sponge.

It was an amazing privilege to be in big and small rooms, gaining insights from visionaries and leaders of some of the biggest brands in the world, oh, and the odd celebrities too!

Below are some keynote and general talk highlights for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the talk when Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos of (the rather controversial of late) Netflix took the stage with Mike Lang from Miramax.

Sarandos’ stand out quote for the talk for me personally was “If you want to see what people really want, look at what they’re stealing,” Then, the theory, I guess, is to give the legitimate, affordable and accessible (across different devices) content to them and they’ll opt for it rather than piracy.

In a slightly new direction, Netflix (most comparable thing to it in the UK is Lovefilm), is to create their own content. At this point Sarandos gives a friendly nod to his good friend Stevie Van Zandt (Soprano Actor and member of Springsteen’s E-Street band) – who’s starring in their newly announced show Lilyhammer. The trailer looks great and the show will be premiering on Netflix itself (and hopefully they’ll find a UK outlet to let us folks outside the US, Canada and Latin America view it too!)

Miramaxi’s Lang specifically discussed the company’s bold, revised future with its movie library of 700 motion pictures, has received 284 Academy Award nominations and 68 Oscars, including four Best Picture Awards.

What both men emphasised are the changes that are constantly taking place in terms of how, when, where content is being viewed, and the need to continually innovate and adapt. This actually was the theme for most talks at MIP. This, and personalization/customization, and collaboration.

Viacom’s Robert Bakish, gave an interesting talk about his company Viacom and its new channels like the female-oriented Blink, and its core channels like Comedy Central and of course not forgetting the erroneously named MTV (when was the last time you saw a music video on MTV? Sheesh don’t get me started…That’s a rant of mine best saved for a different time and place).

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed the insights of Bakish and his take on the new demographics, new distribution models and new metrics stating his channel’s mission is to continually re-invent itself or risks facing irrelevancy.

It was his talk I first learned the term “millennials” (just another term for Generation Y), their key demographic at MTV. Millennials are ambitious, team-oriented, more self assured and my personal favorite – “pathologically social”. They crave “authentic reality” – hence their recently-launched UK hit TV show Geordie Shore. Check out the stats it boasts in the image above! Staggering.

Another fantastic talk was Fox network’s President of Entertainment, Kevin Reilly, who gave an interesting talk about things like creativity (citing a 2010 IBM poll of 1500 CEOs say “creativity” was the #1 “leadership competency to successfully navigate an increasingly complex world.”) as well as seeing failures as success (a favourite topic of mine)

“Success is often built on the shoulders of failure – from which new configurations emerge. There was an article in last week’s Wall Street Journal about some American companies rewarding employees for bold failures in an effort to spur innovation. It cites a study that shows the most successful people also tend to be those with the most failures. The rewards are meant to reinforce what was learned from the failure, rather than sending the message: ‘You screwed up’.”

He goes on to discuss how “social” (meaning tv, media et al) is changing our viewing habits (again a major theme throughout the entire week at MIPCOM).

“There is a reason that Facebook just kicked social TV into high gear. As one blogger said: ‘When people start consuming content through Facebook, it enables a new world of friend-to-friend discovery that is potentially worth more than any promo campaign on the planet.’ In other words, better than any network today can provide.”

Halfway through the session, Reilly brought out 24-star Kiefer Sutherland and Heroes creator Tim Kring to discuss the new Fox show Touch.

As geekish as this is to admit, that half hour (or whatever it was) being a mere yard or two from Sutherland was a definite highlight of my week in Cannes. His show Touch (trailer here) does  look amazing, but sadly we’ll not get to see it until next Spring!

A definite one to watch out for!

One of the few woman speakers I saw at MIP, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Disney’s CEO Anne Sweeney talk. Dubbed “the most powerful woman in entertainment”, Sweeney cited some amazing stats about social media – especially Twitter usage.

“According to a recent study by Deloitte, TV shows are the most common conversation topics around the world – and the subject of more than a billion tweets this year alone.“

(In fact of all my tweets at MIPCOM, my quoting that stat was probably my most retweeted tweet!)

Sweeney went on to describe television as the most powerful medium in the world predictingthat “Tomorrow it will also be the most personal. There is no one future for television. It will be defined differently for everyone.”

We’re starting to see that happen already, of course and that’s a good thing, I think.

A final highlight was seeing the World Premiere  of another new ABC show called Missing (trailer here) which, like Touch, looks amazing! Even better though, after the pilot aired in the Grand Auditorium, it was a Q&A with with writer/creators, stars and so forth. Once that ended, we were bussed down the road to the “Red Carpet” event at a nearby hotel. That was the most glitzy moment of the week. I was able to take a bunch of photos and exchange a few words with stars Ashley Judd and Cliff Curtis (Left) (where I made just about the biggest fool of myself, and that’s all I’m saying about that!)

 Anyway I think that is enough sharing for one day. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back to MIPCOM next year with a project of my own next year or simply to hear more killer keynotes! I know I said in my first Cannes Diary that there were three installments but maybe two’s enough? What do you think?

Hey y’all, it’s Thea here again. Earlier this year I penned a few diary blogs from my trip home to the Silicon Valley – in particular to a mobile conference at Stanford and a day trip to Google. So it occurred to me to do something similar for my recent trip to the South of France.

First, it is probably worth pointing out that the opportunity to go to Cannes arose via social media, LinkedIn, in particular.

You see, I came across a post on a group that the opportunity for a (partially) “funded” trip to MIPCOM in Cannes presented itself.

For those of you, who like me, weren’t aware of what MIP was – it’s conference that caters toward content of all types – largely that meant television, but also games, films, technology and even social media applications too.

You’d be amazed at just how big this event was. The absolute biggest global content producers/promoters were there – Disney, Sony, YouTube, Fox, NBC International – to name just a few.

One thing that became readily apparent was that big or small – we’re all in the same boat vying for unique ways to capture consumers through content and find ways to monetize it. The second thing that was most apparent was just how challenging that is becoming for all of us – the niche companies like mine, the middle ground and even for the big players too.

TV’s ALL ABOUT THE SECOND SCREEN AND THE SOCIAL

A few of the top buzz terms discussed at MIP were – “Transmedia” and also the concept of the “second screen”. I’ll save the former for another day, but generally speaking, on the notion of second screens – the primary screen would be a television, and the secondary might be a computer, tablet, or mobile phone. Yet these days there it’s been cited that there are more handsets than televisions around the world – so one might question if television has now become the second screen. (That too is another discussion for another day).

One statistic being banded about was how something like 60-65% of American teenagers were watching television but doing something else at the same time.

Picture above – watching my father’s Californian TV on mine in Glasgow.

Well, I’d argue that it’s not just the teenagers…

Months ago on here, I blogged about the Evolution of my TV viewing, through my slingbox player, wherever I am in the world, I can watch TV with my father who is at home in California. Most days we view shows together, while having a Skype chat window open to discuss what we’re viewing. Did I mention that my dad will be eighty on his next birthday? So it’s not all about the kids, folks.

Technology these days enables us to engage with others while shows are airing – allowing us to vote, discuss, play along with etc.

Though it’s possible in a variety of ways now it certainly looks like it will become even more common place in the coming year or so especially if Anthony Rose has anything to say about it.

Anthony is the man behind Kazaa and the relaunch of BBC’s iPlayer. He is now poised to launch the “next big thing” – Zeebox - a real-time platform for social TV viewing.

Initially starting as an iPad app – you’ll be able to following with your friends and contacts on Twitter and Facebook, and tag content, but as it progresses, broadcasters may have widgets for certain programs.

At some point, due to your own preferences and tags, advertising will be targeted to you, and it’s likely that you’ll be able to buy things straight from it too.

Zeebox – is set to launch any time now. We’ll see if it lives up to its hype.

In any event, to a content creator and consumer like myself, it is an exciting and socially vibrant time.

Keywords are the lifeblood of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Although search engines no longer place as much importance on them for rankings as they used to, they are still crucial to setting up your SEO campaign for two reasons.

Firstly, it can help focus your mind when generating content and choosing your website’s domain name to have a full list of words which are important to your business, and sales aims. Second, and most importantly, the person searching for you will be using keywords and they will want to find a site that matches their enquiry.

As well as standard terms connected to your business and industry, you need to widen the keyword net to include all possible angles from which someone may approach your company. These include:

Your people: If any of your staff have a strong reputation in the industry, then they will probably attract attention based on this alone. By connecting that reputation openly to your company through keywords, you can achieve the maximum number of hits via personal contacts and recommendations.

Your place: There have always been services for which people wish to stay local, and the advent of green issues has popularised ‘buying local’ even further. Make the most of this by including geographical keywords in your list.

Your business: What questions would you expect someone to ask about your business? These should all be included in your keyword list, whether who, what, where, why, when and how.

If you are looking to instigate an SEO campaign for your business, contact NSDesign for a free no-obligation quote.