Wanting to conduct a Usability review of your website?

I have just had a really good read through Stoney's 19 steps for a quickie usability review (titled "The 19-Hour Website Analysis, in 20 Minutes or Less") and i think its great!

Stoney provides an excellent list of many usability issues that you should look out for when conducting a review of your website. It is often the case that possible website usability problems are overlooked or simply not identified so this is a great checklist of things to check your site for.

A comprehensive list that I'll be getting all the other Froggers to read!

Search Marketing Word of the Week (15)

After a much deserved break, the frogg is back and chomping at the bit to share his worldly search knowledge. His regular word of the week post seeks to explain common search terminology in a straightforward manner.

So this weeks word is...

'301'

Ahh, not a word but a number!

Imagine for a moment you have just moved home. One of the many tasks you face is redirecting you mail. You let the Post Office know your new address and 'hey presto' your post is forwarded on.

A '301 redirect' does exactly the same thing when a page of content has changed address. They most commonly come into play when a website is being re-developed. In an ideal world, urls would remain the same on the new site as on the old. However, this is not always feasible, normally due to a change in technology or platform. Therefore, when the address of a page changes in this way, a 301 redirect informs the search engine of the permanent move.

Until next week...

Google’s Universal Search to hit Europe?

1. Is someone at Google testing out a new method of displaying search results?

2. Is Google’s Universal Search about to hit Europe? And

3. Will 2008 see further domination of the search results with Google’s own products and services?

We’ve already started to see the addition of Maps and Local listings, product results, YouTube videos, images and blog results - which have predominately been placed at the top of the search results -

Here is a search for "Spiderman Video" - not ideal if I were looking for an old VHS
Such speculation is given credence, I feel, by a search I conducted earlier this morning, for the term, “Lead Generation” to which I was presented with a number of Product Listings and Blog Results at the foot of the page.


This is strange I thought… but in hindsight, Google has perhaps two distinct groups to keep happy. The users, who demand the most relevant and quality results related to their search term – who might possibly welcome the addition of this feature, particularly as it is at the foot of the page so as not to interfere with the main index – in addition to the shareholders who stand to benefit from the increased use of Google products and the associated advertising revenue.

We’ll have to see how this pans out, whether it is just a test, and indeed, if Universal Search (and its associated features) is rolled out, whether users will be able to alter their preferences to filter our particular results.

But irrespective of your own personal view on the results and whether it enhances your searching, it certainly presents the idea of ‘getting ready’ for Universal Search, so as not to get relegated to the 2nd page.

So make use of all the tools to your full advantage in terms of Local listings for your business, Video Content, Product Listings, News results, Image optimisation and Blogs.

After all, when, or perhaps if, Universal Search hits Europe, isn't it better to be prepared?

"Be Prepared" - Source Wiki

Has the World gone Mad?

Source Flickr

With the price of diesel now exceeding £1.10p a litre, Spurs beating Arsenal for the first time this century, more flooding, the UK Government bailing out Northern Rock and now Leapfrogg receiving the most visits and sphinns ever from a blog post commenting on the unprofessional behaviour of some leading SEO Pundits, what is the world is coming to you to I ask?

Although we are extremely pleased at Leapfrogg to increase both visibility for our blog and ultimately the company, it is sad that it takes this type of blog post to achieve such as result.

Some may argue, this is clever marketing, why should you complain, after all isn’t this what blogging is all about? I fully understand this, in the context of targeting other colleagues in the SEM industry, albeit such results are usually short lived. However, for those SEM Companies also looking to provide useful information to existing and prospective customers through this communication medium, there is a real danger that the really useful content becomes lost and some users may switch off.

Just to clarify the angle taken by our blog is to comment on search marketing developments within the industry and provide search marketing advice to small and medium sized businesses.

To summarise, rather than the merited comments regarding the behaviour of SEO pundits from my colleague, it would have been better if a leapfrogg blog post communicating a useful piece of SEM information* to both the industry and users had achieved this kind of success. To reiterate, we are not complaining about what has happened, although my fear in the long term is that users will avoid reading some SEM blogs across the industry if such an episode is repeated.

* Without wanting to brag too much about our blog, there are some great posts containing objective views and more importantly factual information about conducting various aspects of SEM. Please read these and sphinn........

Search Tip of the Week (11)

This week a quick tip on how to check what content on your web page that the search engine spiders will actually view as visible content. The visible content on your pages is one of the main factors that the search engines will use to work out the relevance of your pages to any search term people use.

Search engine spiders or robots act as text only browsers. This means that they will not be able to read the content in any graphical or Flash based content on your pages. If you want a quick way of seeing what they can read then you can do one of the following:

1) Download a text only browser such as Lynx. This will work in the same way as a browser, what this browser doesn't show it is unlikely that the search engines can see.

2) Use a spider simulator such as this one. This will show you the content that the spider can read but also the links that it can follow on the page.

3) Really quick way is to open the web page and press Ctrl A. This will highlight all the visible content on the page. Then copy and paste in a Word or Notepad doc. The content that appears is what the search engines can see. Any text that you can highlight with your mouse is visible text that the search engines can read.

Simple hey.

Leapfrogg Newbie and Google Base

Lo and behold, here is another Leapfrogg trainee making the jump into their first blog post. Laurence has kindly made the introductions; I am Claire, the other new addition to the Leapfrogg clan beginning to carve out a career in the SEM industry. I am currently getting to grips with the wonders of PPC, SEO and link building and one of my first tasks at Leapfrogg has been to unravel the mystery behind Google Base product listings. So here goes…

Google Base is a free Google Service that allows users to publish almost any kind of information on Google Base or other Google services. Users can submit products, job listings, house listings, recipes, blog posts, personal ads and much more. Searchers may find items on Google Base in results for searches on Google Product Search and even the main Google Web Search depending on the item’s relevance to the search terms entered.

All types of online and offline content can be submitted to Google Base and all this content is searchable on Google. There is the opportunity to link searchers to the original website if the content is already available online, thus Google Base is potentially a good way for companies to increase their site’s visibility on the web.

How does it work? Users must have or create a free Google Account to use the Google Base service. Users can post individual items by completing a web form or if posting multiple items (10 or more) then there is the option to submit a data feed. Items will be given a unique web address and can be edited or archived whenever the user wants.

All items can be posted with a list of attributes which describe the qualities and characteristics of an item to help people find them when they conduct related searches. Essentially, the attributes make the product easier to find during a search on Google Base. Therefore, users must optimise the individual item and/or data feed to get significant results. By creating custom attributes for an item, rather than using Google’s generic/suggested attributes the user has a better chance of attracting targeted visitors and converting those visitors into buyers. The more information the user provides in the list of attributes for their item, the better the results will be. So the recommendation would be that users should supply Google Base with a concise product description, a photo, product prices, and a specific URL to direct traffic to the relevant page on their website.

Sounds easy as pie doesn’t it? There have been mixed responses to Google Base and its usability issues, for example, items in data feeds can be tricky to update if there isn’t a CMS behind the website to pull all the product information off. It would be great to hear if anyone out there reading this blog has used/does use Google Base and how this has turned out. All feedback is welcomed by this newbie…Claire.

Why Leapfrogg Think Small is Beautiful Too

Image courtesy of Flickr

I was reading an interesting blog post this morning from Matt Mcgee on Search Engine Land on Why the SEO Industry Needs Small Businesses. He discussed that the search engine industry needs smaller business to continue to thrive as the bigger business that most believe is more profitable will start to decline as more and more search is brought in house.

In addition to this he stated that more and more small businesses will start to see the potential in online marketing and so this potential client base will grow.

We totally agree with Matt here at Leapfrogg and in fact have right from our conception 4 years tailored our entire business and future plans around providing our services to the SME industry. We have always understood the importance of the SME market for our industry and while many of our competitors are all competing for the larger clients we have been quietly but significantly growing with the SME market.

Here is why we have focused our entire business around working with the smaller guys.

1) When working with SMEs the work we do really makes a difference to their success as a company. So many times we have worked with a smaller company and helped them to grow their revenue and profit significantly through the web. Because we really care about our clients that gives us a nice warm feeling in our tummies.

2) The smaller budgets that our clients have compared to the big boys has challenged us and although at times frustrated us, has pushed us to be creative and innovative in our approach to what we do. This has helped us to shape our services for the better

3) When working with a smaller company we tend to deal with one point of contact who is responsible for all marketing activity. This enables us to get work implemented quicker than if we were working with multiple departments. When you couple this with the fact that we provide one point of contact for our clients and ensure there is one team of specialists working on any account all the time, this allows everyone to have a full understanding of the campaign and it's requirements at all times

4) Working on more smaller campaigns than less large ones allows for more diversity in our industry knowledge as well as giving our staff more stimulation

The above are just a few of the reasons why Leapfrogg think "small is beautiful." Add to this the fact that the SME market, is much larger, stable, and at the moment less competitive we reckon we are on to a winner.

Leapfrogg and our SME clients are just one big happy family and long may it continue!!!

Silly SEO's! Stop 'airing your dirty laundry' and do some work!

What a funny week it has been in search. One or two big players have been throwing their toys out of the pram over this article published at Search Engine Land. The article was criticised by many, Danny Sullivan quickly apologised for his misjudgment in publishing it (incidentally it was actually written by one of his colleagues) and that should have been the end of that.

However, much respected search marketer Rand Fishkin added his weight to the argument with a rather over the top (and frankly hilarious) attack on John Andrews who had already published some strong words about the original article.

Confused? Don’t worry. The details don’t really matter. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of the argument itself. Instead, I would like to provide a reminder or two to some of these ‘leading lights’ of search; people who, at times, appear to take great delight in attacking one another with nothing short of petty, self gratifying and frankly immature behaviour. Did it ever occur to you what a waste of time it all is and more importantly the damage it does to the reputation of an industry already tarnished by the spammers, opportunists and downright charlatans of this world?

Healthy debate = good

Personal attacks on one another in the public domain = bad

No doubt, you will wonder who am I to give such advice. I'm just a Sales Director from little old England; a million miles away from the jet set 'superstars' of search. However, if any of you will care to listen, I'll offer my ‘two bobs worth’ anyway!

Before you publish such attacks on one another, have a little think about what a person new to the industry might think if reading such rubbish. Or what a prospect, who happened to check in for the first time on your blog, would think of you. Do you think such content shows you in a good light? Does it portray the type of person a prospect would want to do business with? And what about those of us in the industry who, although we have never had the pleasure of meeting you, have great respect for the work you do in leading and driving the industry forward; do you think we enjoy seeing the most recognised names in the industry attacking one another in such a personal way? It is one thing to have a difference of opinion on a search related manner. It is quite another to publish comments which are derisory to one's character.

If you are new to search marketing, you are forgiven for wondering whether any of us actually do any work. In between the constant bickering, the blogging, the forum posts, the 'twittering' and attending conferences, I honestly don't know how most search marketers actually get any work done! And what is the purpose of much of this activity? For me, a lot of it is about attention and self assurance; a desire to be seen as ‘number one’. But whilst all of this time is spent on activities designed to win acclaim from those of us who actually already know that you’re pretty good at what you do, people new to the industry and new to search are being forgotten.

This is highlighted in the case above; a simple difference of opinion resulting in the airing of dirty laundry in a very public domain with no consideration to how it might look to the wider world.

Its almost as if some search marketers themselves are forgetting the new rules that we spend so much time discussing and educating our clients about; publish anything on the Internet and it can be easily found...by anybody! And what you publish can be potentially very damaging, no matter who you are.

One of the more recent services a lot of search marketers provide for their clients is reputation management. I think we all need to take a step back and think very carefully about our own reputations online. Such personal, and at times, rather vicious attacks (on one another!) do not show this industry in a good light. So for anyone who cares to listen please 'think before you type'.

Much love and respect from a disgruntled and disappointed search marketer in (rainy) ‘Blighty’.

P.S. Some may argue I am as bad as those individuals I have mentioned in even spending the time blogging about this. However, I feel passionately about this industry of ours and my comments are only meant to highlight the issue, not to get involved in any of the specifics of the argument itself. This is the last time I shall comment on the issue as I have no desire (or the time) to get involved.

First Blogs and 2008

Making an initial blog post can be a little scary to say the least, however as a new member to the Leapfrogg team it is a necessity! Starting at the beginning my name is Laurence, I’m originally from London and have lived in Brighton for nearly four years now. I came to Leapfrogg with a background in business development and project management and have taken the job as the new account manager.

Along with Claire, an SEM trainee, we are the tenth and eleventh members of the Leapfrogg clan and are still waiting to find our niches. I thought it could be an idea to look over the predictions for 2008 as there seems to be a number of new areas opening up, as well as an expected change to the models of last year’s businesses. The surge of social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo has been huge and backed by an almost as large number of strange and vague mission statements. With so many out there surely not all will survive with large enough communities of users to make them truly viable in the sense that the majority of your friends and colleagues etc. are all on there together. Yet this could herald more integrated ‘widgety’ applications and sites, through which you can control your whole online presence and receive all feeds in one screen. This must stop at some point though; surely there isn’t enough venture capital out there to fund all the new companies and their ideas?

Quite appropriately then maybe 2008 will be a year for seeing which of these companies survive and prosper whilst also closely watching the newly established giants and how they settle after such rapid growth. The start of mobile based applications such as Zkout, which is coming out of private testing during Q1 this year, will advent a change in where and how we can access information. For sites like Facebook they must evolve into something with is truly sustainable, rather than lose out to the next big thing. Unsurprisingly things are going to change in 2008, it’s just a matter of how. So folks, keep your eyes peeled and come back for the next instalment!

SEM Teamwork on and off the field!

Source Flickr

Prior to Google's Pay Per Click (PPC) quality score system, there was a certain freedom when it came to adding and removing search terms over the course of a natural SEO campaign which was also combined with an integrated PPC campaign. For instance, if it was felt approprate following further analysis that a search term should be replaced on a page in the natural campaign, there would be no collateral damage to the PPC campaign.

Not any more! Teamwork is now the order of the day for all medium to large SEM agencies. Why? Many medium to large SEM agencies currently organise themselves along the lines of teams who specialise in one particular discipline eg natural search, PPC or link building and social media. Following the roll out of Google's PPC quality score system, it is essential now that any ongoing search term analysis for the natural search part of the campaign now takes into account Google PPC quality score. For example, if a term is removed from a page on the natural search campaign, in theory, it could adversly affect the Google PPC quality score if an advert is running incorporating that same search term. To quote from Google "Quality Score for minimum bid is determined by a keyword's clickthrough rate (CTR) on Google, the relevance of the keyword to its ad group, your landing page quality, your account's historical performance, and other relevance factors."

It goes without saying of course that any integrated natural search and PPC campaign should always be planned carefully taking into account the specific objectives of the campaign and be closely monitored. However, gone are the days when both natural search and PPC can run independantly of each other should amendments be made to the natural search part of the campaign!

Ps Can you spot me in the crowd?

Search Tip of the Week (10)

The first search marketing tip of the year is a quick check list of what to consider when reviewing the search terms you are promoting your site for.

It is key to ensure that your search terms remain the right terms to gain rankings for that will drive the right people to your site.

The terms that you promoted your site for a year ago may not still be the right ones for you.

So make sure you run through the following questions at least once a year for each of the terms you are promoting your site for:

How well is the site ranking for the term?

Is the term driving any traffic to the site?

Is the term still a popular search term according to keyword research tools?

Are there any terms driving high numbers of traffic to the site that you are not promoting?

If you have good web analytics set up, do visitors to the site through the search term convert for you?

Then apply the following thought process:

If a term is not ranking well but it is still popular leave it as a promoted term in the hope that one day your hard work pays off and you gain positioning for it.

If a term is ranking well but driving no traffic (and you have a well written title and description in your listing) then take it out of your list as it is not resulting in visitors for you.

If a term is driving traffic to the site but is not an actively promoted term, you need to make sure you make it a promoted term to capitalise on it's visitor potential.

If a term is ranking well and driving high amounts of traffic to the site but that traffic is not converting, then bin the term.

Add any terms that are relevant to your site pages that are receiving a high number of searches but you are not actively promoting. However, remember a limit of 4 to 5 key search terms on each page for successful optimisation and promotion.

The above points should give you some food for thought!!!

Any changes you decide to make to the terms you are promoting your site for then need to be incorporated into the content, internal link navigation and Meta Tags of your site. You then need to ensure your link building and social media promotion efforts include the new range of terms.

Remember not to carry out this review process too often as any changes you make as a result of a search term review will take a while to kick in before you can determine their effectiveness.

Have fun!!!

Search Made Simple - Links

Yes folks its time for another thrilling installment of search made simple. Today I am going to explain why links are so important. So here goes:

"Links are like votes for your website!"

Many clients know links are important but to really motivate them it helps to explain why...

A few years ago when there were fewer optimised sites it was possible to optimise a website on the page and achieve great rankings as a result. However as competition increased search engines (In particular Google) had to find other ways to rank their sites. They realised that quality sites would be linked to by users and in fact they could use this information to rank sites. This means in essence they get humans to do the work the spiders can not.

Simply put search engines see back links as a vote for a website, however this is no democracy as links from some websites carry much greater weight than others. For example a link from the home page of the BBC website would be worth thousands of links from smaller non reputable sites.

This highlights the need not just for links but for links from relevant quality sites.

This also explains why search engines place so much weight on links from social media sites these days. Tagging, bookmarking, sphinning, digging and stumblingupon are all ways in which users these days can let other users and the search engines know that they have found content that they like and is of use. Humans are still the best judges of a sites quality and search engines know this.

Hopefully understanding why link building is important can motivate clients to work harder at building relationships with complimentary businesses and consumers alike. It also explains why these days interesting, informative and entertaining content are so important.

Also lets not forget that good quality links can provide you with relevant traffic and in fact the traffic provided by links can actually be better value for money than PPC and SEO. Once a link is set up it can provide traffic for years with no extra costs.

Google Sitelinks Update

You may have read my previous post about Google sitelinks facts and theories. Well it seems that there is currently an update going on as we speak. In case you haven't come across sitelinks before Ihave pasted an example below:



Some of the Froggers are seeing sitelinks for many client websites which did not have them last week. However other Froggers in the office who may be connected to different data centres are still not seeing these sitelinks. This suggests that some kind of update is currently being rolled out.


It could be that Google have changed the criteria to obtain sitelinks and they are going to start appearing on a wider spectrum of sites.


I am keen to hear of anyone else that is seeing similar things for their sites?

I will post more information when I have it.

Is it a Leap year? It is for the frogg!!!

Following on from the previous post we at Leapfrogg wanted to wish our readers a Happy New Year!!!

We hope 2008 brings you all much prosperity both business and personal.

We at Leapfrogg have a few new years' resolutions we would like to share with you.

• To continue to provide an excellent service in the field of search marketing


• To delve into even more creative ways of gaining our clients visibility across the web


• To extend our offerings in all aspects of social media


• Continued extensive research into the field of search marketing


• To make sure we are on top of our game with new technologies e.g. mobile (should it ever take off)


• To persuade ALL our clients to become more active in video and audio content on their sites


• To continue to grow as a company whilst maintaining our extremely high and personable levels of customer service


• To be the best we possibly can in everything we do


• To ensure we remain a great company to work for


• To make our clients as much money as possible


• To develop this blog as one of the top resources for SME's wanting to learn about and develop skills in search marketing

We are delighted to reveal we grew by 215% in 2007 and our Leapfrogg staff family grew by 200%. We hope that is testament to the great service we provide our clients.

In 2008 we aim to continue this level of growth by providing our bespoke search marketing service to more and more SME's, helping them grow their companies too by the power of the Internet!!

So here is to a prosperous 2008 please feel free to share any of your resolutions with us too!!

Goodbye 2007, hello 2008 - what have you got in store?

Well, an eventful 2007 is behind us. The Froggers (including a couple of newbies!) have just about recovered from the excesses of the Christmas and New Year period, are back behind their desks and ready for another exciting year ahead.

So what does 2008 hold in store? Will the bubble burst for Google allowing Yahoo, MSN or Ask to make in-roads? Or will it be the turn of a new search engine, such as Powerset , Cuill or Hakia to challenger the big boys?

Will mobile marketing finally take off (at the beginning of each year for as along as I can remember, predictions have been that mobile marketing's time has come - each year passes and it just doesn't happen - I don't expect 2008 to be any different!)?

Will growth continue for the big social media players, such as Facebook and YouTube or will we will see a more segmented market with specialist sites popping up dedicated to specific areas of interest?

What about personalised and unified search? We have already seen Google pulling back on its roll out of Universal (no doubt because tests have shown fewer people clicking on its adverts!). How will Google replicate, if not better, Ask 3D whilst retaining valuable click revenue?

What's the next big thing? Last years most prominent event was the massive growth in the popularity of social networking, and in particular the numbers signing up to Facebook. Will there be another new kid on the block who makes quite such an impact (and sees their company valued at some astronomical figure on the basis of 'potential' when in actual fact nobody quite knows how to unlock the revenue streams...Facebook worth $2billion....pleeeease!??).

I see little point in making too many predictions in response to the questions above. I had a stab at it last year and I found myself to be wrong in most cases. Needless to say though it's set to another exciting and groundbreaking year for search so whatever happens the Froggblog will be here to provide our take and off the back of that, advice for SME's.

So goodbye 2007 and hello 2008 - I am sure there a few people locked away in labs somewhere who have a pretty good idea of what they would like to happen in 2008 - the rest of us are just going to have to wait and see!