I was thinking about this recently when I was looking for a BT Landline. When I searched for ‘BT landline’ the first message I am greeted with is a BT PPC advert, which is exactly what I was looking for so that is where I clicked. However, if BT turned around and decided to cut costs by removing their brand PPC ads, the first message I would take in is that there are many other options available. The reason I specifically searched ‘BT’ was because I didn’t know what other options were available. I now know that Virgin also offer landlines because they told me in their PPC ad (which I clicked for more information) but not before I had already checked to see what BT offer.  If the BT ad was not there and I clicked a Virgin ad first then I think we all know the impact that this could potentially have for BT.

The next thing I noticed was that there is an affiliate bidding on BT’s terms. If BT removed their ad then one would presume that the affiliate site will pick up a lot more traffic and the cost BT will pay in affiliate commission would most likely be higher than the cost of bidding on the terms themselves.

Here are a few other important factors to take into consideration:

Cost - In terms of cost, bidding on brand terms is inexpensive. This is because brand terms often have a high quality score as they are highly relevant to the website that the searcher is being directed to.

Message – when bidding on brand terms you are in control of the initial message you are delivering – should you really leave this for affiliates to decide?

Consumer decision making - Several studies show that having both natural and paid listings can impact a consumer’s decision making process. One in particular comes to mind -“When a brand name is the top result in both natural and paid search results, 83% of consumers looking to buy would consider a purchase. Without paid search, however, the same brand name as the top result in organic search only obtains 73% purchase consideration.” Enquiro Research in partnership with Ipsos Mori, April 2008

Organic rank – If you do not rank organically for your own brand terms then you could be completely missing out on traffic that is specifically looking for your site.

If you are still not convinced then why not measure it yourself. The simplest way would be to remove your brand PPC ads and measure the increase in the amount of organic traffic from brand terms. If the increase in organic revenue makes up for the decrease in PPC revenue then it is best to save the money by not paying for the PPC traffic.

Historically, in my experience, this has rarely occurred as there is every chance that a competitor will be picking up revenue somewhere from your brand keywords. If that is not enough to convince you, why not have a look at the traffic you are generating from bidding on competitors keywords and think – ‘would I be happy if my competitors were receiving that level of traffic from my brand terms?’

It can provide you with directions, give you navigation assistance and can even help with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) .

When people began using Google Maps instead of a Satnav device, it had quite an impact on the market, despite the fact that the navigation feature is only available to people with Verizon’s Android 2.0 or better.  Shortly after Google Navigation was added to Google Maps, shares of US firm Garmin fell by 18%, while Dutch firm TomTom reported a 9.5% drop.

Now using Google Maps can help you save the environment. As of yesterday, keen cyclists can refer to Google Maps to find a good biking route. For US users, it was already possible to find directions under several search criteria : “by public transit”, “Walking” and “By car”. Unfortunately, the biking feature is currently only available in the US.

Here’s hoping that Google roll this out to the UK as well.

4Ps Marketing are a London based agency, specialising in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising and Social Media Optimisation (SMO) services.

In order to accommodate these anticipated additions to the 4Ps Marketing’s client list, 5 new members of staff have been employed in the London office.  We spend a lot of time recruiting the best people in the industry, training them and equipping them with the best technology available.

Some of the new clients include Global Knowledge, Worldwide Business and IT Support, DERTOUR, Germany’s number one travel agency, and Air Partner, a world-leading air charter agency.

“It’s been a great start to the year for 4Ps Marketing. Thanks to our CRM tool we have been able to track the sales funnel through and ensure we have the staff resource in place before the additional work starts. As we are an independent agency it allows us to bespoke every pitch to our clients and be flexible in our approach. This versatile approach seems to be going down well with our potential client base,” Matthew Phelan, Account Director at 4Ps Marketing.

If you would like to discuss SEM or find out more information please visit www.4psmarketing.com or call 0207 607 5650.

This will see the introduction of new laws designed to combat illegal filesharing, granting rights owners the ability to restrict or cut off internet access for persistent offenders. The Digital Economy Bill will make it obligatory for Internet Service Providers to monitor the online activity of internet users and inform rights holders of any suspicious behaviour.  Companies that do not do so will face a £250,000 fine for non-compliance.

One of the most controversial elements of the Digital Economy Bill – the infamous clause 17 - was voted down by the House of Lords, only to be replaced with an amendment by the Liberal Democrats. The original clause 17 would have granted the Secretary of State unlimited powers to pass any law relating to online filesharing without the consent of Parliament. This attracted widespread opposition, including that of popular Twitter user Stephen Fry. The amendment, which is also a major point of contention, grants a high court judge the right to issue an injunction against a website that is viewed to host a "substantial" amount of copyright-infringing content. This could potentially force the entire website offline and the implications for social media websites , such as YouTube, are therefore immense.

Commenting on the amendment, Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Clement Jones said that it addressed concerns over the “three strikes” rule.

"I believe this is going to send a powerful message to our creative industries that we value what they do, that we want to protect what they do, that we do not believe in censoring the internet but we are responding to genuine concerns."

The Digital Economy Bill has been the subject of much criticism since it was first announced in November 2009 and will likely continue to be a subject of much fierce debate. In an open letter to the Financial Time, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Facebook, Orange, Talk Talk and BT have all condemned the Digital Economy Bill, saying that that it “threatens freedom of speech and the open internet”.

A profile on Facebook can be a valuable resource for a companies online strategy, a fan may encourage one of their friends to become a fan of the business, it can also be used to promote blog posts, used to create a constructive forum for feedback on services, or used as a creative outlet for the marketing team, in short Facebook can help to drive traffic to company websites as well as promoting the brand.

There are more than 700,000 local businesses listed on Facebook, it is estimated that 20% of Facebook’s 350 million global users have clicked on advertisements this represents a powerful social media platform with good online business opportunities. Facebook adverts can be targeted, as an SEO Agency we are ideally placed to provide effective Facebook PPC management service.

An article in Web Worker Daily contains some useful tips on ways businesses can use Facebook as part of their online strategy to establish credibility:

• “Add your Facebok URL to your email signature and any marketing collateral (business cards, etc.) so prospects can learn more about you

• Share useful articles and links to presentation and valuable resources that interest customers and prospects on your wall, to establish credibility”.

Read more on social media strategy and other useful Facebook resources for businesses such as ‘How to create a Facebook advertising page’ and ‘How Facebook can provide online business solutions‘.

The size of a Microsoft Courier appears to be of a 5×7 photo when shut and under an inch thick. An article on Engadget suggests, the device has been built on Tegra 2 and runs on the same operating system that powers the Zune HD and Windows Mobile 7 Series.

The interface operates on two screens and appears to be a touch screen and stylus based device, centred around drawing and writing. Other features include built-in handwriting recognition, a camera and a headphone jack to support Media Playback.

It seems that the pricing and release dates for the Microsoft Courier has not been finalised yet as there has been no official comment from Microsoft so far but “Q3/Q4” is being quoted. The leaked pictures and videos of the latest device by Microsoft show the interface in action.

For more information and to view pictures and videos of Microsoft Courier, please visit Engadget .

Most people who use Google will not give any thought to the mechanics behind the provided search results. These results are thanks to the Google algorithm – one of the many signals that Google uses to provide relevant search results.

Though Google are understandably reluctant to divulge too much detail about the inner workings of their algorithm, we do know that a large part of it is PageRank. This is the system invented by co-founder Larry Page while he was studying in Stanford and is described by Google thus:

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important"”

Here are the key advances in the Google algorithm :

1997~

The search giant we know today originated as “Backrub”, a research project that ran on Stanford’s servers for almost two years. It was renamed “Google” in 1997 and the Google algorithm used a then unheard of system of determining relevancy; the quality and quantity of inbound links.

2001~

Google begins to update its index constantly, rather than in large quantities of information at one time.

2003~
Google introduces “Local Connectivity Analysis”, which gives more weight to links from authoritative websites.

2005~

“Personalised results” introduced. Users can allow Google to analyse their search behaviour and provide results based on that analysis.

2007~

Google rolls out “Universal search”, giving users links from any source on the same page.

2009~

“Real time search” is introduced, incorporating results from blogs and social media websites such as Twitter.

So what’s next for the Google algorithm ? The one thing we can be certain of is that it will not remain static. The most recent updates have been to the real time search engine, adding Facebook Fan page and MySpace status updates to search results. These updates came at a time when the power of social media is being demonstrated time and again and Google has recognised it as a valuable source of information to its users. This awareness of its users, coupled with a reluctance to rest on its laurels will likely allow Google to remain ahead of its competitors for many years to come.

The results revealed that over 80% of people around the world believe that access to the internet is a basic human right, and Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), told the BBC, that the internet gives people the freedom to communicate and this, as a right, "cannot be ignored."

One of the main focal points within the survey surrounded government intervention and how much control they should have over the internet. The majority of people in the UK stated that they should have a certain amount of control in relation to internet access management and maintain monitoring throughout the year, but this was in contrast to opinions revealed from countries such as South Korea and Nigeria.

The results of the survey come just as the UK government try to push forward their Digital Economy Bill, which was announced last year, as the method to increase the maintenance of internet access management . The bill is also promoting the implementation of a ‘three strikes rule’ becoming law, which would give the internet abuser warnings before full punishment is determined.

All over the world it is clear that the web is becoming an integral part of everyday lives, and usability is becoming increasingly necessary. However, there are many areas of the internet such as file sharing, explicit content, and general fraudulent practice that need to be considered as causes for concern.

I tend to agree with the fact that, just like our streets, internet access management should be heightened to a certain degree. As the internet expands, and the number of users increases, examination of how sites, especially vast social media sites, are being used is becoming more and more difficult. Yes, of course, access for everyone should be allowed, but access to everything should be under regulation.

Here at 4Ps Marketing, we can help you to increase accessibility to your website. We can optimise it so that it appears in Search Engines more frequently. Please contact us for more information.

Here is a (brief for your benefit) summary of my favourite uses of Webmasters Tools for SEO:

Sitemaps
Allows us to tell Google which pages we want indexed & gives us the power to exclude pages if necessary.
Content Analysis
Highlights any duplicate content in meta titles & descriptions indexed by Google.

Web Crawl Diagnostic
Enables us to find out if Google is having difficulty crawling any pages, and therefore which pages cannot be indexed.

Canonical
Set preferred domain & therefore control which URL is displayed in search results.

Links
Shows links to your website from other pages on the Internet, in particular inbound links & anchor text.

Geographic Targeting
Allows us to specify the country we wish to target for search results.

Key Statistics
Lets us view Page Rank distribution throughout the site.

To find out more about how your site can use Google Webmasters Tools for SEO please contact 4Ps Marketing.

Four months ago, the five billion mark was reached and now the twittering population will soon celebrate another huge milestone; posts on Twitter will soon reach a huge ten billion.

As Twitter is such a fast moving medium, it is impossible to state the total number of Tweets and expect it to remain accurate for more than microseconds at a time. You may wish to take a look at this Tweet counter to see just how quickly posts on Twitter are generated.

With an impressive 75 million users generating posts in these kinds of numbers, Twitter is establishing itself as one of the most powerful forms of social media out there.