Marketing

Google +1's Confirmed To Have "No Direct" Impact On Rankings

Mobile technology is firmly back in the limelight this week. Are E-commerce, website design and internet marketing companies taking the dominance of Smartphone users over the Internet? The answer is more than likely No, which will start to be a problem as the technology of Smartphones begins to overpower traditional PCs. Firstly the design of websites needs to be aimed more towards mobile users (see our blog on mobile sites vs responsive designs).

QTIC, Queensland's peak industry body for tourism, an organisation based on membership, has launched its brand new website. QTIC members include 14 Regional Tourism Organisations, 20 industry sector associations and more than 3,000 regional members working with local and government agencies to strengthen the voice of the tourism industry. Being able to communicate with members is vital to the running and continuation of QTIC. This is where the new website came in.

The subject this week is focused on Google search results and how social media might not be the best choice for some companies. Facebook is in the news again this week, not for its poor financial reviews, but regarding strict new laws brought in by the Advertising Standards Board. Google's search engine features heavily after sharing the news of Gmail accounts appearing in search engine results in new tests being released. Google has also answered some more questions, this time regarding how not to blacklist your website from search engine results.

This week the focus is on clever marketing using tools and features from Google Analytics and Google Adwords to find out the journey of customers. Google Analytics is bringing back the much missed $Index metric (now named Page Value) to understand the importance of content. Google Adwords experts this week are answering questions on the Search funnel's features to get the most out of the tool that allows companies to analyse a customer's search path.

With the Olympic games starting soon and Facebook's financial results for Q2 released you would be forgiven for thinking that nothing else happened this week. Even with those two brands dominating media coverage online, there were a few other interesting stories. In a surprising move, Optus has acquired the restaurant review website, Eatability, for 6 million dollars, and an Online Marketing Manager from Italy has received a lot of attention for his Google Analytics inspired personal website.

Yahoo! has been in the news this week with a new CEO hired from Google and their online Olympic coverage. YouTube is also adding face blurring technology to their site to help users protect the privacy of those in their video.

Mobiles featured strongly again this week, with a discussion on selecting the right micro-conversions to track for mobiles and choosing between building a dedicated mobile site or using responsive design to serve the one site in a mobile friendly format.