Brooks Digital Marketing

Archive for August, 2009

We don’t always blog about digital marketing and some innovations just have to be talked about.

Last night on the Gadget show (UK) I was blown away and please excuse the pun, by an invention called the ‘AIRpod’. No it’s not a lightweight iPod and has nothing to do with the ubiquitous Apple corporation. What this product does have in common is that it is as brilliantly clever and as stylish as anything Apple have ever produced.

The AIRPod is the latest in a relatively recent string of environmentally friendly cars but this little fella (or maybe it’s a girl – I don’t want to offend any of our fairer readers) runs on you guessed it, air!

On first impressions it looks a bit goofy. Sort of like a cross between a washing machine and a recycling bin. It also has a weird wheel set up with two sort of bicycle size ones at the back and a a pair of tincy wincy trolly like wheels situated at the front-centre. For me I can’t see how this is conducive to a comfortable or even stable ride however, last nights reporter seemed to have no complaints.

Steering is by way of a joystick so all that gaming I’ve done on Flight simulators has now proved to have been worthwhile! And it has an incredibly tight turning circle so parking in any City’s limited spaces would be a doddle – watch out scooter riders.

Incredibly at just over 2 metres long it seats 3-4 passengers quite comfortably although at 1.6 metres wide I’m not sure your larger friends would agree and there is even space for some luggage!

In terms of performance the AIRPod is surprisingly successful across distance and speed. For one Euro your AIRpod will take you 200km and at a speed of a safe and not so embarrassing 40mph.

Filling up is very quick and easy using a compressed air filling station (not sure how many of those there are about) and can even be done overnight via some sort of external sucking contraption if you can’t be bothered to do it yourself.

Unlike the Sinclair C5 (the link is for our younger readers to go and enjoy this unsung marvel of the Eighties!) it really has the potential to change urban transport forever with Paris inviting MDI to tender for the city’s “Autolib” but should also enjoy success ferrying people about cost effectively in larger airports, train stations and other urban locations.

Models should be available around the end of 2009 and the demand is already high. It is a real possibility that the AIRpod could be the standard way of getting around for London’s ECO friendly tribes and might well be the next big style statement.

Clearly this isn’t a step in the right direction for petrol heads who surely realise now that it won’t be too long before the primeval growl of a ‘real’ engine will only be heard at specialised racing events and enthusiasts show days like the Festival of Speed at Goodwood.

With all these attributes and at under three grand I think in the AIRpod we might have found the answer to a lot of our urban transport problems.

I can hear West London’s school run poseurs and Jeremy Clarkson crying into their cornflakes but sadly the planet comes first not your egos. Go get yourself an AIRpod.

This is just a short post and I’m sorry if this old news but for those of you that don’t have a decent in browser competitive research tool this is for you.

This handy little piece of kit allows you to pull all of the data you need from the web sites on a search engine result page in one scoop.

You can export the data into a spreadsheet and use it to get strong idea of which sites stand in our way and exactly what you need to do to take over their rankings.

There is also the ‘SEO Xray’ function which will give you a quick look under the hood at keywords, links and other domain related data.

An absolute must for any serious marketer.

Get your SEO Book Competitive Research Tool here.

Pay Per Click Advantages

Pretty much instant exposure – even in competitive markets – as long as you have bid high enough and have got a good quality score for your page (actually creating a page that lowers the bid price and converts well into sales is an area where many novices fall down).

Campaign control - Google provides tools that make your advertising campaign easy to track the conversion ratios and monitor budgets.

Targeted – You can use the keyword matching options to target specifically e.g. ‘Tennis shoes or you can target the phrase e.g. ‘Red Tennis shoes’ or ‘Tennis shoes red’ or you can broadly match to a keyword so ‘Discount shoes for tennis’. You can also exclude words using the negative keyword option.

Pay per click is great for testing the market with new products and services. By posting an advert for your latest idea leading to a ‘squeeze page‘ you can collect data and gauge the interest over a few days and avoid potentially costly market flops.

Pay Per Click Disadvantages

Continuous investment – Pay per click is like just renting space and when you stop paying for your listing it disappears and click prices can fluctuate and in many markets are likely to rise.

Not as trusted as the main listings – Users are 60-80% more likely to click on the organic listing (underneath the top advertising slots) meaning less exposure. However a point to note is if you are getting a lot of clicks for your ad it is a good idea to check out the organic competition to see if there is an opportunity to get an organic listing as your ad copy could be well worthwhile deploying there too.

Profit margin can be small or non-existent – Keywords can be very expensive and outweigh the returns in very competitive markets so you have to be very careful how you select them. It is critical that you quickly discover the ‘buying keywords’ early on and optimise your pages for them.

Organic SEO Advantages

Long term value – Organic listings can be cheaper to attain in less competitive markets but very difficult to achieve in competitive markets, however once attained maintenance can be lower. The graphic shows the initial investment to be higher but as time goes by performance increases and investment lowers.

Graphic supplied courtesy of Elliance.com

Better click thru rate - SEO is responsible for around 60-80% of the clicks available (in most markets – not all) since users tend to prefer to visit the web sites found at the top in the main organic listings.

Element of stability – Organic listings once attained can be cheaper to maintain and don’t disappear overnight once the funds dry up!

SEO activity benefits your entire web presence – Organic SEO focuses on building reputation through links and content on the web site and at web properties where you have posted content such as blogs, article directories and forums. Investing in your web presence will have satisfying long term rewards.

Organic SEO Disadvantages

Need lots of patience! – It can often take many months to get top ranked for mid/high competition keywords

Less control – Changes in the search engine algorithms, although usually not too volatile, can destabilise rankings without warning.

Resource heavy - Organic SEO can take up more marketing resources initially due to it being a content based strategy

Conclusions

Unsurprisingly both methods are highly effective, especially when compared to offline channels however, the key is to select the the right approach for your business. I often advocate an SEO campaign backed up by pay per click.

The reason for this is that with SEO we only target a handful of keywords and these are often the cream in terms of volume. This leaves us sort of invisible (I say sort of because our well written SEO copy will have long tail phrases salted within it) for a huge swathe of long tail keywords that receive fewer searches but are often higher converting.

A pay per click campaign targeting broad match versions of our main keywords will work towards hoovering up any potential customers that use these long tail phrases where our main organic listing page do not show up. Sweet!

Click here for some free SEO training videos or call 05603 145 278 for a free no strings consultation.