In a recent interview with The Telegraph Foursquare’s co-founder Dennis Crowley revealed that his company was in talks with the likes of Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft about a data partnership. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘search engine’
Google catches Swine Fever
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 by Rachel KneenIf you’ve been on holiday to Mars you may have missed all the coverage on the pandemic that is Swine Flu. For the rest of us there has been daily coverage on the net, in the press and on the television.
The daily commute into work has become more like a gauntlet run, trying to avoid all the coughs and snivels of those who have clearly missed the huge campaign of "Catch it. Bin it. Kill it". The NHS even put a front page advertisement on the Metro, which listed the symptoms and what to do if you thought you were suffering from them.
Rather than harping on about the symptoms and what to do if you think you may have contracted it (contact the NHS helpline or visit www.direct.gov.uk/swineflu) I would like to provide you with a little insight into how these few words have had an unquestionable impact on search engine traffic.
The phrase "Swine Flu" until April this year had not received any search volume at all but in June managed 2,740,000 searches. The term currently has a global monthly search volume of 5,000,000. Meaning that the term "swine flu symptoms" pails into insignificance with its global monthly search volume of 450,000.
What is further enlightening is that when you look into the search locations – the UK comes out on top with the highest regional interest for the term, followed by Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, New Zealand and completing the top 5 is the USA.
Whether these statistics point to the fact that we are a nation interested in the subject or that there was simply an unsatisfactory delay in the supply of information to the public is not for me to comment.
Yahoo! and Microsoft join forces
Thursday, July 30th, 2009 by Rachel KneenIt has been suspected for some time that there was a proposition in the pipeline for these two search giants to join forces in a bid to be able to seriously compete with Google. This week the deal was made public and the two have thrashed out details of an agreement to suit both parties, in a move comes more than a year after Microsoft’s failed bid for it’s competitor.
The crux of the deal: Microsoft will power the search platform whilst Yahoo! will be the sales force for premium search advertisers.
By combining the services of both it is hoped that users will receive results faster whilst being more relevant. The partnership, which has been agreed for 10 years is to give Bing the ability to " more effectively compete, attracting more users and advertisers, which in turn will lead to more relevant ads and search results." according to Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer.
Still with Google estimated to have over 70% of the market share the new partnership will have some serious work to do in order to recover some of this ground.
This does raise some interesting questions from a PPC agency perspective. Will they combine the backend admin? Will we be billed 1 invoice? Will we lose our Microsoft rep whilst our Yahoo! Rep is trained up on the full offering?
Watch this space…
Pennyshares Company City Equities Invest in SEO
Thursday, July 30th, 2009 by Rachel KneenLike many different markets, stocks and shares can be a very complex subject matter. Inevitably this can cause some headaches when trying to search relevant information online.
Penny shares are classified as shares which have a low price. Typically they have a value of a few pence as opposed to shares with much higher values. They are traded in the AIM (Alternative Investment Market) which opened in 1995. Over the last few years there has been an increasing amount of information which can be found online for people who currently invest in or are looking to buy penny shares. The AIM market was opened to give the smaller and younger companies an opportunity to access the public markets. It offers an alternative to the London Stock Exchange (otherwise referred to as the main market) which has strict rules and regulation for admission.
So how does someone who is interested in penny shares go about their online research? It depends whether they are looking to research historical share prices or buy shares? As always there are a number of search terms people use, from "share prices" "penny share", "penny shares", and "pennyshares when looking for information. Those looking to invest often use search terms such as "buy stock", "penny stock" or "penny stocks".
In a similar vein, how does a company with information about pennyshares reach their audience? Using search engine optimisation is one strategy to embed in the marketing plan. This will enable people who are looking for the information to find your website quickly and easily. When looking at SEO, it is imperative to remember that although you are writing for the search engines you are ultimately writing for your target audience. Therefore it is vital that keys words are not over used throughout the content of your site.
4Ps Marketing are currently working with City Equities Ltd, endeavouring to make sure that searchers receive the information they are looking for in relation to pennyshares.
If you have a website you are not sure is reaching the correct audience please feel free to contact us.