Irish Web Awards Nominations

Quite possibly Ireland’s only real web awards, so don’t miss the opportunity to nominate your favourite websites now!

Want to read more?

1. Irish Web Awards – Nominate Now
2. Irish Blog Awards *cough* *cough*
3. Golden Spiders Awards 2007

Hopefully tonight I’ll meet some more interesting folk, and have some great discussions around Online Marketing in Ireland.

Next week I’ll be down to the Rebel Republic as the trainer of the Cork course.

Want to read more?

1. Website Architecture – Digital Marketing Institute
2. Search Marketing World 2007, ShareIT Cork, and A Few Other Pieces of Irish SEO News
3. I Blame It On The Lego

I’d really rate Tom and 2bscene, so if you’re in the market for some free online marketing help (and let’s face it, in this economy who isn’t?) head on over to get details of how to apply.

Great offer Tom.

Want to read more?

1. Free CRO Offer – Only 3 Days Remaining
2. A New Year, Some New Ideas, and My Time for Free!
3. €15k Conversion Rate Optimisation, Free, No Questions Asked

Not wishing to be outdone by Grandad, and just to tell the world that I too joined the illustrious list, I can announce that I too was on the distribution for the PR detailing the latest news about the Irish Times.

No more Pay-Wall, and moving to IrishTimes.com

I had heard about the changes when I met Roan Murphy (Commercial Analyst at Digitalworx) at the inaugural meeting of the IIA’s Internet Marketing Work Group. Nice guy, and I’m sure quite busy right now. At the time he mentioned some of the forthcoming changes, I of course had to ask about how they intended handling the migration (my mind has now been programmed to think first about crawlers…). It will be interesting to see how that’s all set up tomorrow when the sites are separated out.

But Back To Damien…

I don’t think there’s a brighter mind in Ireland when it comes to using the social aspects of the Internet to create dialogues. Not one that I’ve connected with anyway. I use the word ‘dialogues’ because that really is the basis of the social web – multiple interactions between parties. No more of this push-marketing now you know.

The PR I received is a great example of how old-school media technicians are still grappling with how the rules change online. Here’s a short list of what I see wrong with the Irish Times PR, and why I’m talking about the PR rather than the message:

1. Email had no message – just the boilerplate signature of the sender;
2. Not personalised in any way (nothing to personalise) – unlike SeedCorn
3. No introduction or overview – it’s nice to get a short overview of what I’m looking at (like most people, time is at a premium for me). The PR could easily be paraphrased in a few bullets, followed by why this might be of interest to me, and then close by mentioning that more detail is attached if I need it;
4. Email was sent from a @yahoo.co.uk email address, even though the boilerplate included a @q4pr.ie contact email. Very weird, and unfortunately spammy-looking;
5. Combine (1) and (4) above and I cold be forgiven for thinking twice about opening that attachment;
6. All recipients listed to To: field. Well at least we all know each other now. Not to mention that Grandad got a good chuckle out of it

The distro list on the mail was quite small, and I saw 6 bloggers on that list. So far it hasn’t been such a successful strategy – Grandad took the mickey out of the distro list, Damien used his usual down-to-earth language in describing the PR, the other 3 blogs haven’t carried anything yet, and I’m being me LOL.

So Seriously Business People…

Use your good-ole PR agency for doing the good-old fashioned PR ‘stuff’. Talk to someone who actually really understands online PR for all this new-fangled Interweb stuff. He might be outspoken, but if you appreciate someone who calls it as they see it, and who really ‘gets’ this stuff, then you need to speak to Damien.

Want to read more?

1. Best Online Publication – The Irish Times
2. Realex Irish Web Awards 2009
3. Search Marketing World 2007, ShareIT Cork, and A Few Other Pieces of Irish SEO News

European Online Marketing Spend 2008

We all need figures to back up our assumptions and budget proposals. Here’s a handy prediction from IAB Europe which shows that Europe is fast catching up with our North American counterparts when it comes to advertising spend online:

[O]nline advertising spend within the IAB network in Europe during 2007 will reach 11.5 billion euro, up from 8 billion euro in 2006. This is a like for like increase of 38% on last year’s market value. The spend includes values for display advertising, search marketing, classifieds and directories and email marketing.

The release goes on to mention that in emerging markets the increase is likely closer to 70% YoY, and predicts 30-40% increases in the UK, Denmark, France and Germany.

I like the hypothesised drivers of this growth:

The growth is driven by higher levels broadband penetration across the regions and increased advertiser confidence in the medium.

Of course here in Ireland we don’t actually have demand for broadband… Oh, actually, that was the old eircom…

2008 predictions

Every market identified the same trends to watch in 2008: web TV, mobile internet, behavioural targeting and social media.

I would imagine they were most of the trends we were all watching carefully in 2007. Although, in line with my recent post about Multivariate and A/B Testing, I reckon that BT will take off more and more.

I wonder if their are equivalent Irish figures available? If anyone knows if these stats exist I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Want to read more?

1. Search Engine Usage in Ireland – The Facts & Figures, Statistical Analysis March 2007
2. Internet Marketing For Hotels – Best Practice & ROI Study
3. Keyword Data Is Often Very Skewed – Internet Marketers To Blame?

2008 to be the year of the site optimisation?

When I say ‘site optimisation’ I’m talking about page analysis and optimisation based on statistical analysis of different versions of your page/page elements. In common parlance – A/B testing, Multi-Variate testing and Behavioural Targeting.

I’ve always been fascinated by psychology, and the psychology of Internet users is super cool in my opinion. What makes the Internet such a great place to learn about human psychology? The ability to test and measure like no other medium.

I’ve mucked around with the Google Website Optimizer a bit in the past 6 months, and I’m looking forward to using both Optimost and Offermatica next year (I’m a lucky soul with a large client who wants to get into this area of website optimisation).

Multivariate Testing for Conversion Optimisation

Looking for good tests?

I sat in on the Multivariate Testing and Conversion Tweaking session at Pubcon. By far the best takeaway from that session was a look at how Google uses its own product to analyse and tweak there own landing and subscription pages.

Apparently they run Website Optimizer on many of their main download/sign up pages. They generally leave the tests running for 30 days or more, which I presume means a lot of traffic and high confidence in the results. The example used my Tom Leung, GWO PM, was Picasa:

Google’s Picasa uses GWO for multivariate testing

Oddly enough this page is not the winning page shown by Tom in his presentation. And I cant see the GWO code running on the page (this might be due to my location).

But Tom did mention that the three main elements to test are headline, hero shot and action button. These were the elements that gave best bang for buck from testing conducted by Google. Unfortunately I cant show you the winning version Tom showed at Pubcon, but it didn’t have the product image, and it used a high contrast blue button for the download link.

So as a site owner why should you care?

Given that competition is increasing in almost every vertical and niche, and traffic is becoming more expensive to acquire, it makes sense to maximise your return from the traffic you already have. Google’s Website Optimizer is free (you need an Adwords account), and once you run a few tests it becomes quite easy to use.

Tiny increases in conversion rates can amount to be increases in revenue. Consider this: you currently convert 1.5% of your visitors and generate €200,000 per month. If you can increase that to a 2% conversion rate by testing and tweaking you can increase your revenue to ~€267,000 per month with no extra traffic required.

Of course if you can combine that with traffic acquisition via SEO/SEM you could be onto a real goldmine. Roll on 2008

Want to read more?

1. Conversion Rate Optimisation Testing Introduction
2. €15k Conversion Rate Optimisation, Free, No Questions Asked
3. Free CRO Offer – Only 3 Days Remaining

I’ve packaged my presentation up and posted it to youtube:

Unfortunately it’s not easy to read some of the images used (if any attendee wants the .ppt file leave me a comment and I’ll email you the master).

If you’re looking for a good generic keyword tool my personal favourite is Wordze. For purely Irish data I’d advise using an Adwords campaign.

I have to say I think this si a really great marketing move by Digiweb – they get some excellent brand exposure by giving site owners free access to Ireland’s leading web experts (Eoghan and Lar anyway!). And they don’t force any hard sells on the attendees.

Given that I tend to talk quickly and go off on some tangents I’d be more than happy to answer any follow up questions people have – just leave a comment and I’ll reply ASAP.

Want to read more?

1. Another Great Free Online Maketing Offer
2. A New Year, Some New Ideas, and My Time for Free!
3. Free CRO Offer – Only 3 Days Remaining

The position is Fixed Term Contract for an email marketing specialist (but I’m sure if you’re the right candidate they’ll want to hang onto you).

Some Details:

Role: Email marketing specialist responsible for building HTML email marketing campaigns;

Desired Experience:

* HTML, DHTML, CSS expert
* Experience of email marketing tools (e.g. Responsys/Exact Target)
* Experience with DreamWeaver
* Photoshop background an advantage
* Familiar with OOD and OOP
* 2 years experience in either email marketing or web design/development

If you meet the above, and are looking for a move to a company that is recognised as a web leader, drop me a mail and I’ll hook you up with the appropriate people.

Last word – this job is a serious trophy to have in your CV.

Want to read more?

1. How About Some Serious Irish Viral Marketing
2. Overture Keyword Tool Dead, but Wordtracker Saves The Day (and now Trillain jumps on board)
3. Internet Video – The Next ‘Big’ Marketing Theme?

Well entertainment.ie have just launched a new site design, and I have to say it’s quite a revelation compared to its predecessor:

entertainment.ie homepage redesign

Here’s the old homepage which I pulled from Google’s cache:

entertainment.ie homepage old

There are some great improvements there. Clean design, and so many engagements points. I for one think it’s quite cool. Even the noise of dynamic imagery and flash is not so distracting a to ruin the user experience. Certainly a step in the right direction.

There’s always a but…

The big issue is that Google seems to be caching the old homepage:

This is G o o g l e’s cache of http://entertainment.ie/ as retrieved on 22 Sep 2007 06:54:44 GMT.

Why is Google not updating it’s cache since then? Normally news sites will have there homepage cache updated daily. Not so apparently for entertainment.ie.

More bad news…

It appears that whoever was managing the migration forgot about what happens when you change your site structure without considering your users and the search engines. All the old paths appear to land you on a plum 404 page.

I give it about 5-7 days before search engine traffic all but disappears for entertainment.ie – October wont be seeing 2.5m page impressions methinks. And nor will November if this is handled correctly. I wonder how much traffic to the site is SE referrals?

Downright ugly…

Take a close look in the footer of the new site:

entertainment.ie footer link

Very opaque link to ‘Event List‘. Now who could that be for? (Warning – Prepare to have your browser go berserk if you follow that link.)

All I know is whatever the intent there it wont work. That particular implementation is very misguided.

Well done on the new design though.

Want to read more?

1. Google News Finds HSE ‘Entertaining’
2. Irish Times Where Art Thou?
3. Google News Acting Weird?

Can’t think of any way this couldn’t be considered spam?

From the Ebay listing:

Please Note: This is not an auction for a free car hire in Ireland, or to purchase or receive a free Sat Nav system, but it is a promotional offer from Murray’s Europcar for a free Sat Nav rental when booking your cheap car rental in Ireland.

Should you wish to bid on this offer, please contact seller and your request / reservation will be made.

*sigh*

Want to read more?

1. Another Great Free Online Maketing Offer
2. Search Engine Registration
3. For IBA Nominees Accepting My Offer – Please Read

Funda were the guys behind Shamrog Island viral campaign that hit the headlines last year.

David mentions an email sent by Funda’s CEO Ronan Higgins (who has been appearing with increasing frequency in my referrals of late) to clients explaining that

it was not possible to achieve the market leading position within the target time frame in order to make the business financially viable.

I imagine that is a bit of a red herring from Funda. I doubt they had any expectation of becoming the market leader, certainly not within a 1 year time horizon.

More likely the decision was purely strategic, and very much tied into the general state of both the economy and, more importantly, the property market. recent declines in property prices will likely lead to deflationary expectations. This coupled with expected interest rises is likely to further lead to a confluence of conditions that makes the Irish property market highly prone to some form of shock.

In effect I imagine Funda concluded that this market was not nearly as attractive going forward as it was in 2005-06 when they first decided on an entry strategy.

[Off with the economists hat, back on with the Internet marketer cap.]

From a marketing perspective, I noted back in September last year that I was underwhelmed by Funda’s follow-through after creating so much buzz from the Shamrog Island. I thought then, and still believe, that the timing of the campaign wasn’t right – they were unable to build on the momentum they generated from the viral campaign.

Pity – the viral really was cracking IMO.

Want to read more?

1. Funda Ireland, €30k (excluding the SEO)
2. Dublin Coastal Development a LOT Slicker Than Funda.ie
3. Estate Agents sell MyHome.ie

It’s great to see an organisation the stature of EI embracing podcasts, and I think a great example of how you can use rich media as part of your overall online strategy.

The topic of the discussion is eMarketing, and if you would like to listen in to the conversation between Cathy McGovern (inspiration.ie), Fergal O’Byrne (IIA) and myself you can listen to and/or download the full podcast (or smaller excerpts – great example of ‘letting your customers consume how they want’) on the EI website:

Enterprise Ireland eMarketing Podcast

A large part of the discussion centred around SEO, and I think there is some fantastic material in there for any company looking to formulate and/or implement an online strategy.

The discussion was chaired by Ralph Averbuch (ENN), and I’d like to thank Eoin O’Sioichru and Karen Hynes of EI for very kindly asking me to participate, and Fergal and Cathy for the great conversation had.

If you do listen in I’d love to hear what you thought of the discussion. All comments very much appreciated.

Want to read more?

1. Enterprise Ireland Podcast on SEO Search Engine Optimisation
2. Bord Failte Web Check Thread on Enterprise Ireland Lyris Mailing List
3. Enterprise Ireland Doesn’t Look Too Good

Wrong number

I get quite a few calls from people looking for Google. Apparently I rank quite well for ‘Google phone number‘. It gives me a laugh now and again as people try to figure it out. I especially like the ones who tell me that Google told them this was the number

Last Thursday I got a call from someone looking for FAS. I don’t think I rank for ‘fas phone number’, so that must have been a mistyped number. But yesterday I had another wrong number call.

Captivate Digital

Ok, so sometimes the dark side of me comes out and I cant help but draw attention to those things in life that bemuse me. As was the case in a previous Captivate Digital post where I highlighted the fact that they had released a PR stating that many Irish firms failed in Search. While the release made for some nice bites in quite a few news publications, unfortunately it didn’t reflect all so well on Captivate Digital. This was primarily because they also failed pretty miserably in the Search Engines (they didn’t even have a working website at that time).

Wrong Number Part Deux

So yesterday I had my first wrong number call for Captivate Digital. A nice English lady, probably selling something. She was a bit confused. So was I have a brief moment.

Now I wonder why she thought mine was the phone number for Captivate Digital?

A search for Captivate Digital on Google.com.
My location: Asia.
Personalisation: none.

Want to read more?

1. 53% of Irish Companies Fail On-Line Search, Says Captivate Digital (Who Also Cannot Be Found)
2. Mobile Opperators To Launch Search Engine – Sounds Like More Walled Gardens To Me
3. When You Get Exposure Leverage It