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Online Reputation Management - Know your Brand

Published by Tom on 3 February, 2008 in Reputation Management and SEO. 0 Comments

Whether you’re an ASX top 100 company, small business or an up and coming star looking to land the next big job, your reputation is critical to what others think about you.

Today, prospective job hires and businesses are going straight to Google to see what might turn up. For small businesses, especially those with little or no brand awareness, a single negative story can turn a potential buyer off and onto one of your competitors. Today, no one can afford to ignore their online profile.

For job applicants even a MySpace or Facebook entry, especially if it contains sexual references could mean the difference between getting the job or being passed by. Your online profile is a real testament to your character that a potential employer is going to consider when deciding whether you fit in with their culture. If the employer finds a reference distasteful it could mean them placing your resume to the bottom of the pile without an opportunity to explain the incident.

The recent rise to fame for Corey Delaney, a teenage from Victoria who announced a party at his parent’s place on MySpace while his parent’s were away, is an excellent case study in online reputation in the making. If he decides to pursue a career as a playboy, DJ or MC then his current online profile will fit the part. However, if he has a change of heart and decides to try his luck in a professional role, all the negative news about his teenage antics could come back to haunt him. While one would hope that his actions will later be seen as a teenage prank, the sheer amount of recent negative publicity may lead a potential employer to unfortunately judge him on what she reads.

In a corporate example, a prominent Australian marketing firm came out the on the losing end with Google after pushing the boundaries with their own reputation. After 8 months, you’ll still struggle to find the company’s website in the natural listings on Google even when you search on their company name. Instead you find, a list of articles and stories on their tumble from grace. The company has had to resort to using paid search and has even taken the extraordinary step of changing their domain name to get a fresh start.

When it comes to information online, especially negative news, it doesn’t disappear and will only get pushed down if it replaced by more current and relevant information. Businesses that ignore what their customers are saying online are at serious risk of wasting money and effort they spend to build their brands.

So what can you do to build a positive online profile or improve on a negative one?

Monitor

The first step is to know you have an issue by monitoring your brand. For budding professionals you are your brand se beware of what is said about you. Tools such Google’s or Yahoo’s Alerts will keep you on top of what others are saying about you.

Analyse

Analyse your online assets including websites, trademarks, blogs, partner sites, online forums, consumer complaint sites and social networks. Are people talking trash or just disappointed in your service?

Influence

Influence the results by participating in the conversation. Become a leader in your field of expertise or industry to influence the conversation. Your participation will help improve the perception of your brand.

By taking control of your brand you’ll be in a better position to tip the conversation in your favour and show the real you.

When to use AJAX… and when not to!

Published by Marc on 10 December, 2007 in Web Development and Web Standards. 0 Comments

A client recently approached us with the plan to render most of their website in AJAX (otherwise known as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), a web development technique used in online forms and other interactive web apps.

For Responsive Webpages and Forms

AJAX is designed to make web pages more responsive - it allows for a page to be ’seamlessly’ refreshed with new data without requiring a reload and effecting the look and speed of the interaction. It’s fantastic in application forms where instant feedback or additional details may be required.

AJAX - Handle with Care!

But AJAX should be used with care. It can have a negative impact on a site’s search engine optimisation (SEO) and can prove problematic for disabled users. So here’s a quick breakdown of what AJAX is good at and what it’s not so good at…

What AJAX is good at:

  • Delivering small blocks of content - for small quick changes it works well.
  • Reducing the number of steps in a process - it’s great for forms with options (like application forms).
  • Delivering instant feedback such as validation of form fields and quick feedback on from submissions.

AJAX is not very good at:

  • Making content visible to search engines and any device that is not JavaScript enabled.
  • Bookmarking - once you’re some way down an application process in an AJAX rendered environment, you cannot bookmark individual steps like you could if each stage of the app is delivered in standard HTML.
  • Providing content for disabled users - the blind and vision-impaired are not able to access AJAX rendered content (and can have legal ramifications as in this example with Target in the United States and with the Sydney Olympics Website).
  • Providing speed benefits to users with slower machines as it puts the processing onus onto the user’s machine.
  • SEO: a typical implementation of AJAX is invisible to search engines. As you can replicate AJAX functionality with HTML, you’re better off using the latter for web content if you’re concerned about ranking on search engines.

To see an example of AJAX functionality, play around with the flight booking engine on Bezurk.com

What Australians Searched For in 2007

Published by Marc on 7 December, 2007 in General. 1 Comment

Google Australia just released its ‘Australian Year-End Zeitgeist Highlights Hot Searches in 2007‘ (try saying that quickly 3 times); a summary of what Australians searched online in the past year.

The Fastest Rising Keyword Searches

No surprise, social networking sites make a up a large part of Google’s fastest rising search queries in 07, most notably: Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Bebo. And if Aussies weren’t chatting with friends, looking at videos or sharing their lives through pokes and ranking their ‘top friends’, they were trying to escape – dreaming of owning an iPhone, jetting off on a cheap Tiger Air flight to Asia, trying to catch up on the Rugby World Cup, or getting the latest update on their favourite fantasy show like Heroes or the ABC’s brilliant Summer Heights High (Yes! That made the list too!)

Channel Seven – Winning the TV Wars!

If Google searches are anything to go on, then you would have to conclude Channel Seven is tops while Nine is all but irrelevant! Out of the top ten searched shows on Google, Seven had 6, including: Heroes, Today Tonight, Home and Away, Prison Break, Lost and Grey’s Anatomy. Channel Ten followed with its two hot media properties, Big Brother and the ever-popular Australian Idol, while the ABC’s Summer Heights High and SBS’ Top Gear rounded out the top ten. Where did it all go wrong Eddie?

Paris, Britney… The Whole Gang’s Here!

As you’d expect, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were top of mind in celebrity searches for 2007 – the Internet’s equivalent of the 18 car pile up (you can’t help but look, but you should really just move on!) Rihanna and Justin brought sexy back, John Howard didn’t, Steve Irwin will be fondly missed and Anna Nicole Smith closed out her 15 minutes on a sad note. What a year it’s been!

 For more insights on what Australians searched in 2007, check out the rest of Google Australia’s Search Highlights for 2007 right here.

American Express Australia tunes up its website - we review it!

Published by Marc on 29 November, 2007 in General. 17 Comments

American Express Australia (Amex) recently refreshed its website. For your reading pleasure we review it so you can learn a few do’s and don’ts from a major brand’s efforts to improve its online experience.

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Website: americanexpress.com.au

Overall Rating (out of 10*):      5

  • Look & Feel:    7.5
  • Usability:          5
  • SEO                 0.5

* Where 1 is Poor and 10 is Fantastic

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Amex Web’s Look & Feel

As with any top brand in the financial services sector, you’d expect American Express Australia’s website to ooze credibility, substance and style - to look every bit the fortune 500 company it is. After all, if you’re going to entrust your money to a credit card issuer, you’ll want to be sure you’re dealing with a secure, professional organisation.

It’s about selling credit cards

The good news - Amex’s new site delivers ‘credibility’ in spades. It’s slick, it’s flash (it really is Flash… of the Macromedia kind), it boasts a clear semantic layout, and it’s straight to the point. The good Amex people want you to sign up to their latest credit card offering and they want to make sure you do by placing an offer front and centre on the home page. Mission accomplished - if you’re looking for a new credit card (or charge card), American Express’ website will deliver.

Driving traffic online away from call centres

Cardmembers returning to the site to check up on their card balance will note the account login is now easier to find as it now sits prominently in the left hand column and in the upper right hand corner. (The account login was likely hiding under the ‘already registered?’ link inn the website’s previous version.) It’s a small change, but it should help American Express drive more users online and relieve some of the pressure from its much taxed call centres.

Look & Feel Rating (out of 10): 7.5

The User’s Experience

Reading vs pixel perfection

True to form Amex Australia’s website follows global style guidelines found on its other sites in the US and the UK - which means the font size is extremely small. Vision impaired users and those with less than perfect eyesight will struggle with the microscopic text in the cramped left hand column. This flaw might be forgivable if the pixel size was not fixed across the whole site - preventing users with larger browser font settings from re-adjusting the page to their specifications. Clearly we’re dealing with a fixation on pixel perfection to the detriment of usability.

Finding the credit card that’s right for you

So what if I wanted to get a Platinum Credit Card or a prestigious Platinum Charge Card or a Small Business Card? How easy is it to find the right card?

It’s relatively simple. Using a Flash presentation, Amex successfully showcases its card offerings and leads prospects to the appropriate card by highlighting each product’s most important benefits.

Where the process bogs down is on the main card page (for example on the Platinum Charge Card’s page) where contrast issues make reading difficult and where additional clicks need to be made to truly understand the card’s value. It takes a few clicks to read up on each benefit and the back and forth journey between product benefits gets tiresome.

Listing a series of attractive benefits in bullet form right then and there would likely produce a better, faster experience and lead to more sales. Unfortunately that’s not happening at present - but it can be fixed.

Usability Rating (out of 10): 5

Will Anyone Find the Site on Google?

In Australia, Google is the 800-hundred pound gorilla of search engine advertising. By its own estimates, Google accounts for 85-87% of searches online in Oz. In Australia, if you’re not Google’s front page… you’re not going to be found. Period.

SEO or SEM?

Will Amex be a player? Will it show up naturally on Google through good search engine optimisation (SEO) or will it simply rely on paid advertising (SEM or Search Engine Marketing) to show up on Google’s front page?

With a site grounded in Flash and JavaScript and not featuring the keyword credit card even once on its home page in a manner that’s readable for search engines, it’s a safe bet the marketers at Amex or the agency acting on their behalf have decided to buy their way onto Google’s front page via paid advertising.

It’s not the end of the world. Amex will still be visible in paid searches - but it will cost them and they’ll be sacrificing all organic traffic (approximately 40-60% of clicks on search engines) and relying solely on SEM to deliver sales.

So what’s so bad about Flash or JavaScript?

Used in moderation, JavaScript and Flash do not hinder SEO. However, when they replace all meaningful content a search engine could latch onto to learn what the site is about - as is the case with American Express Australia’s site - you end up with a site with very little content/meaning attached to it.

And if a search engine cannot decipher what your site is about via content, it won’t list your site. In that sense, American Express’ site is all but invisible to search engines in its present form.

Redirect at your own peril

What’s worse, the site is not based in Australia. http://www.americanexpress.com.au/ redirects you to the Australian section of Amex’s US server: http://www.americanexpress.com/australia/. And when the user is not registered or logged in (and that would usually be the case), he/she is redirected once again to an intermediate page, http://www.americanexpress.com/australia/homepage/personal_notreg.shtml., which ultimately redirects you to the homepage, https://home.americanexpress.com/home/au/home_p.shtml, also located in the US.

Confused? We are. Why so many redirects? No idea. Why a secure https homepage? No clue! A secure homepage is not needed as no one has logged into a secure area yet. Go figure…

I’m not Australian… Ignore me!

From an SEO perspective, redirecting traffic outside of Australia sends a clear message to the search engines, namely: ‘this is a US based site… Not an Australian one!’ It’s one more nail in the coffin in what is essentially a non-optimised site.

SEO Rating (out of 10): 0.5

Final Analysis: Does it sell Credit Cards?

So… does American Express Australia’s’ site do the job of selling credit cards? It’s straight forward and professional looking. It takes you to its product simply and quickly, but it’s somewhat slow at laying out product benefits and taking you to the sale - and there’s no offer to sign up or any meaningful call to action.

With regards to driving traffic to the site via search engines like Google, American Express Australia will need to rely heavily on Search Engine Marketing. In its present form the site will likely remain invisible for important keywords like ‘credit card’, although its powerful brand name, significant SEM spend and other marketing efforts will still bring in sales.

Overall Rating (out of 10): 5

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Want to get your site evaluated for free?

Send us the link and we’ll post the results of our investigation on this blog and send you a copy via email

For a full audit of your website (a detailed analysis of every critical SEO variable) - call us on (02) 9007 2494 or email us with your requirements.

Social Media Optimisation - what the heck is it?

Published by Marc on 14 November, 2007 in SEO. 1 Comment

A client recently asked us about Social Media Optimisation or SMO as to ‘what the heck it was’ and if he should ‘get in on that action?’ Little did he know he was already applying many SMO techniques - he just didn’t know it!

SMO as defined on Wikipedia is ‘a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites’.

So if like our client you’re performing SMO if you are…

Adding links back to your site

Search engines like Google and Yahoo value links and reward sites who have many incoming links from other websites (especially relevant links from heavily trafficked websites). So listing your business on paid or free directories is a sound strategy for improving your natural (organic) search rankings.

How to find directories and acquire links

A good place to start: Type ‘Australia Directory Listings’ into a search engine and you’ll come across some popular directories, many of which are free.  Simply submit your site and wait to receive confirmation of your posting!

Popular directories include:

Making your site easy to tag and bookmark

Giving visitors to your web site the opportunity to bookmark your content is also a sound optimisation strategy. Don’t lose your traffic! Make it easy for users to stick around and engage with your brand by providing them with the tools to reconnect with you again and again.

Popular bookmark tags include:

Adding content mashups

A further way to enhance your website’s content is via content mashups. Add videos, maps or streamed content from a news source provider to provide a better web experience or facilitate a sale. It’s surprisingly easy and a handy way to take your website to the next level and as search engines improve, those new forms of content will count ever more towards your quality score.

For example:

Sharing your content

It pays to share. And that saying certainly holds true for the web. Sending your content on via newsletters or posting to your company blog interesting topics like ‘Social Media Optimisation’ can only serve to increase the number of repeat visitors to your site.

So share your content through:

  • Blogs (like this one)
  • newsletters

A little site called Facebook

And finally… Is there a person who has not heard of a little website called Facebook? Synonymous with social networking online Facebook is great way to network, keep in touch with friends and link to people with similar interest locally and internationally.

Launched in early 2004, Facebook has grown from a niche university social networking site into a worldwide phenomenon. By starting your own ‘special interest group’ on Facebook or joining an existing network of likeminded individuals, you can rapidly expand the reach of your content and broaden your link profile.