Last week Kristi Hines published a post on KissMetrics relating to content scrapers (and some great tools for checking to see if your content is appearing elsewhere too) and in the same week a certain Manchester agency was pulled up by another agency for blatantly ripping off their blog posts. We don’t want to get into the middle of that particular issue and it seems it’s been satisfactorily resolved, but it does highlight some issues surrounding content theft.

There are pros and cons of having your content ’stolen’ and it’s not something you should immediately view as a bad thing.

The Good of Content Theft

Most content that shows up in multiple places other than the original post is caused by content scrapers. These are automated spiders that look for blog posts and articles that contain certain keywords and then simply copy them and publish them to whatever site or blog they’ve been programmed to.

There are certain link benefits to this if it’s done in a ‘good’ fashion – that fashion being the one that retains the links back to the original post. In other words, where credit is given via a clickable link. As Kristi points out in her post, the quality of these links is rarely high – no site publishing scraped content is ever going to be regarded as high quality by Google – but nevertheless a link is a link and from an SEO point of view every little helps.

The Bad of Content Theft

Unfortunately for us content producers, many content scrapers strip out any links back to the original and remove any credit whatsoever. What you end up with there is duplicate content at best and people mistaking the scraped content as the original at worst.

Your site or blog will suffer because of the duplicate content and there could even be the potential to view YOU as the plagiarist, hurting your brand. This is bad and you’ll want to contact any sites doing this and ask them to either give credit with a link back to your post or just take down the offending article.

The Ugly of Content Theft

This is what happened last week. Blatant, premeditated and just plain lazy copying and pasting of good quality blog posts and articles with no backlink to the original and, worse, the claiming of credit for it in the first place.

This is abhorrent behaviour. It usually comes down to a lazy and / or unscrupulous individual rather than a company-wide policy but that’s rarely comfort for the original author. Having your content ripped off by an automated spider is one thing. Seeing someone else steal it and claim the credit is quite another.

Here at Fluid we’re constantly finding our website content on other sites, even as far away as Australia. And this content isn’t being scraped, it’s being copied and pasted into other web designers’ and online marketers’ sites, presumably as they’re too lazy to write their own. It’s so lazy, in fact, that there have been one or two instances where they haven’t even bothered to take our company name out of the copy!

Conclusion

As a matter of course you should really be putting some time aside each month to check whether or not your content is appearing elsewhere on the web and if so, how. Don’t worry if your content has been scraped as long as a credit link is given. Don’t panic if it’s been scraped without a credit link – just contact the site in question and ask for credit or removal (and then monitor it!).

DO go ballistic if someone has blatantly ripped you off and claimed credit. This is just my opinion, not that of Fluid, but I’d publicly call them out on my blog/site, naming and shaming them while asking for an apology and that the post be credited back or removed. And I’d keep doing it until both the apology and the credit/removal was achieved.

It’s not only a matter of protecting your own work but of protecting others. Anyone who is prepared to rip you off is likely ripping others off. A public outing of this nature might give them pause for thought next time they have space to fill and are either too lazy or too stupid to come up with their own content.

That opinion has improved further now that they have launched a Google Analytics Configuration Tool at www.gaconfig.com.

Basic set up and installation of a new Google Analytics (GA) account for a website is simple enough, certainly for any SEO worth his or her salt, and it is sufficient for tracking the most basic visitor. GA, though, is capable of far more than that. Most webmasters are either unaware of this or don’t have the knowledge to take advantage. That’s where GA Config comes in.

The brainchild of Raven’s Taylor Pratt, GA Config assists with initial set up for single or multiple domains, Site Search tracking, 404 tracking and, perhaps most impressively, tracking KPIs and Goals, which is where most non-GA savvy people struggle.

Raven are offering this tool up for free, presumably with the aim of signing more people up to Raven Tools, and created it because, as Pratt explains in his blog post:

I dreamed up GA Config because I found there were two topics I constantly needed help with: Setting up my Google Analytics account and Setting up goals and KPIs. With the wrong code, you can miss important data that would have helped you make decisions for better conversions or sales online. That’s what makes GAConfig.com so valuable. It simplifies what can be very confusing for marketers who want useful data but don’t want to spend every day with their analytics.

So true. So how does GA Config work?

Right at the start all you need is your GA account number. Enter that into the GA Config, complete the following fields and grab your code. Install that where instructed and you’re done. The set up of the likes of KPIs, goals and Facebook tracking are a little more involved but far easier than trying to do it in GA itself.

Take a look at this example, where we set up a contact form (from the Event Tracking section):

It really is as simple as that. Fill in a few fields, grab the code, install it where instructed and then follow the easy steps for when you do have to go into GA. It’s the same for any other kind of event or goal tracking you want to do, and there are many options.

Once you’re set up you will have to teach yourself how to get around GA and find the data you’ve just started tracking, but that’s a lesson any webmaster, SEO or marketer should take anyway.

Considering this is a free tool it really is comprehensive and should be in the armoury of everyone involved in tracking website traffic, even experienced and knowledgable SEOs, even if they use it as ‘just’ a time saver.

We are responsible for the web design, development and ongoing search engine optimisation set up and support of Cartridge World’s new UK website (http://www.cartridgeworld.co.uk), which launched this month, and over 200 franchisee microsites (http://www.cartridgeworld.co.uk/store-locator), including development of the back end content management system.

“I’m very excited about this project. The new website was long overdue and it will bring big opportunities for Cartridge World to develop its online presence” says Cartridge World Marketing Communications Manager Lucie Turnbull.

Lee Turner, our MD, said: “We’re very happy Cartridge World chose Fluid to develop their web presence and ongoing strategy. It’s an exciting client to be involved with and we’re already working on some great ideas.”

With the site live, we are concentrating on search engine optimisation for both the main website and the 200 franchisee websites, focusing on local search for the latter.

The new product is a Chrome (and apparently Internet Explorer) extension called ‘Related’. It’s a nifty little tool. Once installed when you’re browsing around the web you will often see a little thin bar at the bottom of your screen offering content related to the page you’re on.

This could include maps, videos, reviews and other sites, providing you with yet more information to consume. Word of warning – you can easily get lost (not to mention lose track of time!) wandering around the internet going from site to site using Google Related.

It’s cracking, give it a go.

Slightly more serious for us SEO’s to consider is the tweak to the SERPs, specifically the display of site links. Previously site links were limited to a single row of four internal pages below the main search result before being improved to two columns of four links (See “The evolution of site links” – Official Google Blog). Now though, Google have given a massive boost to brands by making site links full size and increasing the number to 12. See below for our own:

These site links only when searching for [brand] or [brand + keyword] but as you can see from the image above companies now dominate the SERPs for brand related search terms, pushing competitors to just above (or even just below) the fold.

The ability to edit which site links are served up is sadly lacking but through Google Webmaster Tools it is possible to ‘demote’ up to 100 links. As Google admit themselves, however, that’s no guarantee those links won’t appear.

What it means for us is this. Web design and site structure now needs to be of a really high quality. Search engine optimisation must be geared towards earning authority and must take socialised results and all other ranking factors into account – if it wasn’t already!

When Google makes a change to search it is usually about making more money. How so in this case then? Well, there has been speculation that by pushing nearly all but one organic result below the fold and the only alternative to the brand result being the PPC ads, those looking for something other than the brand are naturally going to click those ads. That remains to be seen, but you can understand the logic of it.

Either way, for me it’s a good move and I anticipate spending quite a bit more time in Webmaster Tools from now on.

Finally, the rumour mill was turning full speed this week that Google had got into bed with Amazon and was returning Amazon product pages at the top of the SERPs, above even a brand’s own site and replacing Google’s own Shopping Results. The evidence was right there to see:

Courtesy of @SEOSherlock

As it turns out, the ‘problem’ was caused by the Chrome extension ‘Awesome Screenshot’ which was secretly inserting Amazon affiliate links into the SERPs. How Google let a spyware extension into their app store I don’t know, but if you’re seeing something weird in your results in future, try disabling your extensions and see if it still happens.

What could have been a story almost as big as Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility turned out to be nothing more than rogue extension messing with our minds. Still, it had the SEO world jabbering away excitedly for a few days.

A lot has been said about how good social media is for increasing brand awareness, online revenue, connecting with customers and even for SEO now that social signals improve your search engine rankings. And, of course, all that is true but very little has been said on how it can help businesses with physical locations increase foot traffic in their stores.

For this location-based social media services are perfect and there is none better than Foursquare.

Foursquare describes itself as “a location-based mobile platform that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. By “checking in” via a smartphone app or SMS, users share their location with friends while collecting points and virtual badges”.

More importantly for businesses, Foursquare goes on to say: “merchants and brands leverage the foursquare platform by utilizing a wide set of tools to obtain, engage, and retain customers and audiences”.

That’s a nice bit of blurb but it doesn’t tell you how you can make the most of it for your business. Here’s a little guide on how to do just that.

Foursquare Specials

This is the real value for businesses with stores. Foursquare offers the ability to create ’specials’ – basically offers that you can give to people checking in to your venue, as Foursquare refers to places. But before you can go about that, there are some steps you have to take.

Firstly, your store or business needs to be on Foursquare. This is relatively simple to do. Once you’ve signed up, do a search for your business. If it’s there, you’re oon your way. If it’s not, you can create it by checking in to it yourself. You’ll be given the option of adding the place as you do. That’s it, your venue is now there.

Secondly you need to claim your venue. This is not as easy as it might sound. There’s a verification process that, at least in my experience, is not too reliable. In the States you can simply request a phone call to verify your claim to the venue. In the UK you have to rely on being sent a verification code though the post.

When trying to claim a venue on behalf of one of my clients I requested this code be sent no less than eight times in two months and it never showed up. In the end, I had to submit a ticket to Foursquare’s helpdesk explaining the problem and to be fair to them, I had my claim verified within 24 hours that way. Worth doing if you find you’re waiting too long.

Once claimed though, Foursquare is a joy to use. Log in to the website, search for your venue and you’ll immediately see an ‘Edit Venue’ link, from which you can tweak various details and the like. Make sure you include as much information as you can and you’re all set.

At the top of the screen you’ll see a ‘Manager Tools’ link. It’s from here you can see your venue’s stats, who has checked in and, importantly, set up your ’specials’. Click the green ‘Start a Campaign’ button near the top right and choose the venue for yours special. You’ll be presented with this screen:

You have several options for your specials:

• Swarm Special – create an offer for when a lot of people checking in at the same time
• Friends Special – create an offer for when a small group checks in
• Flash Special – create an offer for the first X number of people checking in at a certain time
• Newbie Special – create an offer for people checking in at your venue for the first time
• Check In Special – create an offer for anyone checking in

These are geared towards gaining new customers via check ins. To retain existing customers and reward loyalty you have these options:

• Loyalty Special – create an offer for people who check in a certain number of times
• Mayor Special – create an offer for the person who is Mayor of your venue (the Mayor is basically the person who has checked in the most times over a certain period of time – you can see who that is from your venue page)

Once you’ve chosen your special you can then decide when it gets unlocked and how many times per day it can be claimed. For example, if you choose the Swarm Special, you can state how many people need to be checked in for the offer to become valid and, of course, how many claims can be made.

The next step is to create a description of the offer. Let’s say you run a restaurant and decided the special unlocked after 20 people checked in. Your description might read “Get any side order free with your order when 20 or more people check in!”. You’re limited on characters here, so be succinct!

Finally, you can add optional details such as the fine print and a more detailed description should they be required. As you create your special there’sa handy little graphic on the right that shows you how your special will look on a smartphone.

Now click create special and that’s it! People can see your special on their smartphones through the Foursquare app whenever they are near your venue. If they like the look of your offer they’ll call in and you’ve gained customers you would never have had otherwise!

The next step is to make even more people aware of your offer and this is where Facebook, Twitter and your own website come in to play. You can promote your special via the various social media channels you have available to you in addition to Foursquare itself.

Foursquare Brand Pages

In addition to claiming your venue and offering specials, Foursquare now offers you the ability to create a brand page for your business. This is very simple to do and you can verify your page by tying your Twitter account to it. No need to wait for a code through the post.

Fill out all your details, website links, branded banner and description and you’re ready to get started. With a branded page you can encourage people to ‘follow’ you on Foursquare as they would on Facebook. Search for venues near your business on Foursquare – for example, if you’re in Manchester then Old Trafford and the Etihad Stadium are obvious choices – and leave ‘tips’ there.

A tip at Old Trafford could read: “Watch Manchester United take on the rest of the Premier League at this magnificent stadium. And you’re not too far from [your business], check in with us and claim [your offer]!”

Foursquare users following your business and checking in near to Old Trafford will then see your tip ‘pop up’, increasing brand awareness and reminding them of your offer. They can then add the tip to their ‘To Do’ Lists too, creating a reminder of your business in their own profiles and increasing the likelihood they will pay a visit to your venue.

So there you have it. A relatively easy way you can use social media and Foursquare to drive foot traffic to your store, restaurant or other business venue.

We’re absolutely delighted to announce that we’ve been shortlisted for the Best Use of Search award at this year’s Big Chip awards, organised by Manchester Digital.

We submitted our entry for the search engine optimisation work we’ve done on behalf of American Soda over the last 12 months, which culminated in the company requesting a long term three year SEO contract.

The awards will be handed out at a dinner onThursday 16th June at the Palace Hotel, Manchester. Fancy!

We can’t wait. It’s great just to be shortlisted and it’ll be great just to be there for the event. Though of course…we want to win!

For those who know what we mean by that, you don’t need to read on (but do it anyway!), for those who don’t, this is important, keep reading.

Your client is important, make no mistake, but even more important than them are their clients and customers.

Far too many SEOs focus on the client when it comes to keyword research in particular and this can be a big mistake.

It’s easy enough to optimise and link build for a B2C company. Generally they will provide Service A or Product B in Location C and those are the terms you go after. As a certain meerkat would say, “Simples!”

With a B2B company, however, it’s not so simples. To give you an example, one of our clients is a developer of very specific 3D CAD software. The term that immediately springs to mind is “3D CAD software”, of course. But that would be wrong(ish).

We HAVE to consider what their potential clients would be searching for. Is it really going to be “3D CAD software”? Isn’t that a little vague for an industry professional who needs a specific type of CAD software for his or her business to be searching for?

At the very least they’ll probably search for “3D CAD software developer” – a small but significant difference. In all likelihood, they’ll search for something even more specific than that, including the TYPE of 3D CAD software they require.

Now I’m not saying that targeting “3D CAD software” is a bad thing – but it’s not the ONLY thing.

For B2B clients the long tail becomes more important and a lot of research has to go into it to get it just right. That’s why at Fluid Creativity we always talk to you about your business and ask a lot of detailed questions about who your customers are and what they do.

Without that knowledge, we wouldn’t know where to start and we’d fall into the trap of optimising for the wrong keywords and phrases and driving the wrong traffic to your site. A trap too many SEOs (and PPC managers for that matter!) fall into.

So businesses…ask yourselves if your SEO provider has ever spoken to you about your clients and customers. If the answer is no, it might be time for a change. And SEOs…ask yourselves if you’ve ever even thought about your clients’ customers. No? Might be time to take another look at the terms you’ve been targeting…

Of course our clients are important to us at Fluid…but, in order to do a better job for them, we care about their clients even more.

American Soda insisted on long term contracts after a year long successful partnership with us.

The SEO, design and development work we carried out has seen American Soda’s website conversion rate increase by 27% from 3.6% to 4.6%, a 222% growth in number of products sold and a 108% increase in total transactions.

“The work Fluid Creativity have carried out both on and offsite has helped us grow our business hugely over the last 12 months,” said American Soda managing director David Hughes. “We want to build on this success, that’s why we’re more than comfortable entering into this long term partnership.”

We’re obviously delighted that American Soda are so pleased with the work we have done. We’re looking forward to working closely together over the next three years and beyond. I see this success as testament to our fantastic development and SEO teams.

Headlines like “SEO IS DEAD” aren’t particularly helpful or even informed. Nevertheless there have been plenty of them. Let me start by saying SEO is NOT dead. The introduction of Google Instant WILL change the landscape though.

When quizzed during a Q&A session at the Google Instant launch event, Google’s answer to the “How will Google Instant affect SEO?” question was simple – “ranking stays the same”.

Of course it does. Google Instant isn’t a change to Google’s algorithms. What it will do though is change the way people behave when they’re searching and it’s that that will impact search engine optimisation.

The general consensus is that generic terms – already highly competitive – will become even more competitive while traffic volumes for longtail searches will fall. This makes sense as instant results on every keystroke will likely lead to shorter searches.

This might sound like bad news but it doesn’t have to be. A skilled SEO should still be able to target and rank highly for just a couple of generic terms, giving them access to now higher search volumes.

However, those operating under a limited budget, those who previously targeted several longtail terms as a way of generating traffic, will now find it that more difficult to retain, let alone increase, traffic levels, at least in the short term.

At least, that’s the theory. The reality may be different and here’s why.

The number of people that will end up using Google Instant is limited – only those who can touch type will really benefit. If, like me, you look at the keyboard as you type you won’t notice the search results coming in until the full search is completed. What use is Google Instant to those people, me included?

In practice, none. I’ve tried it out and I can see the advantages but for me it didn’t really increase the speed of my searches as I had to keep looking up after every keystroke or two. No, the vast majority of people will continue to use Google in the normal manner.

The other thing to consider is the type of search. Let me quote this blog post I found, which gave a perfect example:

“This will only affect users who are searching in instances where the shorter or predicted terms match the users end goals. For example, if I am searching for “buy shoes online” and get as far as “buy sh” the top results are sites which clearly suit the needs of a searcher for “buy shoes online” and thus – this may work to the detriment of sites who rank well for “buy shoes online” as they may well lose traffic. In the case of a site targeting, oh – I don’t know – “seo consulting” there will likely be little affect if any. The searcher, looking for an SEO consultant, will find once they’ve entered “seo” that they are presented with Wikipedia and Google – sites that, while informative, don’t offer the services (or results) desired and thus – the searcher would be less affected. Once they proceeded on to enter the “seo c” the searcher would be presented with the results for “seo company” but I’m prone to believe that if the searcher wanted those results – they would have searched for it. For this phrase I’m confident we’ll see little in the way of negative affect from Google Instant.”

You could now be tempted to believe that far from killing search engine optimisation, Google Instant doesn’t affect it in the least. That would be a mistake. SEOs need to consider it when devising their strategy for a particular website, especially in terms of keyword research.

The decision to be made is choosing between targeting one or two very competitive terms for high volume traffic or continuing to chase 10-20 longtail terms with potentially reduced search volume but higher clickthrough rates. It will all depend on the industry and target audience.

Once that decision is made, through solid, thorough research, it is carry on as normal because “ranking stays the same”. And is that really any different to what we do now anyway?

I’ll finish up with this quote from another blog. After reading a lot of opinions stating what I said above – that longtail search volumes will fall as generic, shorter terms become more valuable (or relevant), I came across this:

“To conclude, it is more likely that predicted search suggestions will increase volume on the mid-tail and longtail…”

The reasoning was well explained and plausible too. So we’re back to square one!

Everyone has an opinion and until Google Instant has been taken up by enough people, used often enough and ultimately proved a success (or not), we’ll not know who was right.

In the meantime, it’s business as usual for SEOs, with just one more thing to think about. After all, “ranking stays the same” – it’s user behaviour that is (maybe) going to change.

We started out life in 2001 and live out in the foothills of Hyde in Greater Manchester; with loads of transport links we’re easier than you’d think to get to. Our offices are pretty sexy too, we’ve got a large and pretty meeting room with a Nintendo Wii, there’s a small gym and we’ve even got a space agency trying to put a man into orbit right next door.

Fluid are a growing business, we’re always looking to take on new talent. There are some fantastic opportunities with very competitive salaries on offer and the opportunity to progress rapidly: so what you waiting for get applying now!

SEO Technician:

Fluid Creativity requires an SEO Technician to join our growing online marketing team. This is an entry level position suitable for a web savvy someone, preferably with experience of working with website code and / or content.

SEO Consultant:

Fluid Creativity requires an SEO Consultant to join our growing online marketing team. This position is suitable for someone looking to advance his or her career in a forward thinking and growing company. The ideal candidate will have worked with website code and / or content, and have some previous client-facing experience.

PHP Web Developer:

Fluid Creativity are continuing to expand their highly skilled team of web savvy developers, designers and marketeers. We are looking for a talented new PHP web developer to join us at our lovely studios in Hyde, near Manchester.

Business Development Executive:

Responsibility for increasing sales of Fluid Creativities web and Internet services through generating new leads. The selected candidate will be responsible for the full sales process.

We pride ourselves on a great working environment and don’t just take our word for it hear what the team have to say:

Michelle O’Brien, Digital Strategy Consultant says: “I love working at Fluid, the people are great, the studios are really fun and it’s miles from the regular boring offices I’ve worked at in the past. One of the huge benefits for me is Fluid are always open to new ideas and we’re currently working on some really exciting new projects”

James Chapman, SEO Consultant added, “The opportunity to work in a hands on client facing role with a range of clients from a variety of sectors is as much a pleasure as it is a challenge.  It’s also great to be working alongside talented designers and developers who you will always be learning from.  What I especially like is that there’s no ego about Fluid and everyone is encouraged to chip in with ideas, regardless of their speciality.  That and there’s 4 chip shops nearby.”

We would love to hear from you, if you fancy a chat please don’t hesitate to give us a call on 0161 368 9814 or drop us your CV with a covering letter/email to careers@fluidcreativity.co.uk