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Hit Search help Bear Grylls on his Arctic expedition

by Andrew Redfern @ 13th August 2010 4:11 pm SEO News

Hit Search have been working with outdoor clothing brand Musto to promote the latest Arctic expedition of renowned adventurer Bear Grylls.

Musto will be supporting Grylls by providing him and his team with a range of technical clothing to protect them against hypothermia and other life-threatening conditions, as they tackle the infamous Northwest Passage between Greenland and Canada, one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth, later this month.

Grylls and his team will be aiming to tackle the 1700-mile route in a Shockwave Zodiac rigid inflatable boat (RIB) in just fourteen days.

The kit that Musto will be supplying them with includes Musto HPX Ocean Drysuits, Musto HPX Ocean Jacket and Trousers, as well as HPX Ocean Boots and Musto Dry Bags.

As Musto’s digital partner, Hit Search have assisting them in their online promotion of Grylls’ adventure, using their SEO and social media expertise to promote his Arctic adventure.

Hit Search Director Andrew Redfern commented: “Working with Musto and the videos of Bear Grylls has been such fun. The videos are have a great theme and are so well produced that they have a natural viral element to them, building great brand awareness for both Bear and Musto repectively.

The videos have been backed up with a substantial online press release campaign which has only strengthened the exposure of the campaign.”



Bing “Decision” picks up on sports craziness

by Andrew Redfern @ 8th July 2010 9:16 am SEO News

Legendary NBA player LeBron James has tough decision to make today - where to spend the next few years of his life shooting hoops. This decision is on the lips of every sporting American today and so much so the man himself will be having his own TV show live on ESPN to announce his decision.

Now coming from sunny England this sounds a little strange, a possibly a sign of things to come for our sporting stars, but interesting thing for me was the way Bing has aligned themselves to gain some much need publicity.

Lisa Gurry, Bing, Director commented on the official blog “We are excited to be a part of LeBron’s important day and to be the official decision engine of the site LebronJames.com and one of the presenting sponsors of “The Decision” program.

Microsoft has a long-standing relationship with LeBron, including the launch of a website in 2007 – LeBron.msn.com, which was an inspirational, storybook-style Web site for kids and teens, that allowed people to explore his road to athletic achievement, his dedication to basketball and academics, his devotion to his team, friends and family, and his role as a community activist and people’s champion. The site won a Webby, the Internet’s version of an Oscar, for “Best Visual Design” in 2007.

Bing offers many features for sports fans, including instant answers for NBA athletes, like LeBron, as well as late-breaking news, video, social search results and more. Bing is thrilled to support LeBron on his journey, and most importantly, raise funds for the Boys and Girl’s Club via our sponsorship of “The Decision”.

Just in case you were wondering LeBron will be making his decision on a special program, “The Decision,” which airs live this Thursday, July 8, at 9 pm. My guess is he will go to the New York Knicks. Stay tuned.


Your Online World Cup and Employment Law?

by Andrew Redfern @ 18th June 2010 5:29 pm SEO News

Internet focused staff these days have a massive distractions for procrastination and the world cup is becoming the daddy of all distractions. How do you work WITh you online staff to get the best out of them?

Interesting snippets on how to help your business during the barmy (army!) season

Employment Law compliance experts Citation have found an increasing number of our clients are anxious about how best to prepare for any disruptions to their business that the world cup may cause over the forthcoming month.

There are a number of actions that businesses can consider in order to minimise disruption. Citation advise that clients communicate the businesses stance on some or all of the following to ensure that all employees are clear about the company’s expectations of them whilst working during the tournament:

* Holiday: if employees wish to take holidays to watch matches, they must request annual leave in accordance with the company’s holiday policy, which should be granted in accordance with operational requirements.

* Options to consider: unpaid leave, shift swaps, extended lunch breaks, flexible start and finish times or allow staff time off to watch the games but make up the time later. Careful thought should be given before employers allow changes to working patterns

* TV equipment: consider providing television equipment for employees to watch in the workplace to prevent excessive absenteeism, bearing in mind current TV licence requirements and health, safety and welfare implications of people at the premises.

* IT, Email and Internet: remind employees about the company’s IT and email policies and the stance on watching matches online, visiting online football communities websites and gambling online or in the workplace.


Employers Turn To Web Following Ash Cloud Fall Out

by Andrew Redfern @ 19th April 2010 4:57 pm SEO News

Seems as though businesses are turning to the Internet to help communicate with their employees during the ash cloud crisis.

Twitter has become the quickest method for employees to get updates on the drift of the recent ash cloud and what it means to its employees. The recent twitter tag of #ashcloud has an array of travel information shared amongst the Internet population.

Whilst thousands of UK citizens have spent another night stranded abroad without any assurances of imminent repatriation; chaos, disruption and uncertainty is having painful consequences to UK businesses. With this cloud of volcanic dust failing to show any signs of clearing, and airlines still grounded, it is feared that the cost to the UK economy as a whole will continue to rise.

“A number of concerned employers have contacted our Helpline” says Andrea O’Hare of Citation PLC, “seeking advice and assurance on how to manage those employees who are unable to physically attend work, and how to deal with those whose holidays have been subject to last minute cancellations.

In these circumstances, employers are advised that they have no obligation to pay those employees who are unable to return home, however, our clients are reminded to use their own discretion in relation to allowing holiday extensions.

For those workers who have been unable to travel, many companies already have a procedure in place to cover situations where annual leave is cancelled and they should ensure that their decisions are consistent with their current policy”.

Citation’s compliance solutions in employment law provide SMEs with 24/7 advice and ongoing support to deal with situations like these enabling employers to easily demonstrate they have followed the necessary procedures.


5 Topspot Marketing Spring Clean Ideas

by Andrew Redfern @ 10th February 2010 7:24 pm SEO News

A recent report from the Consultancy group found UK businesses are set to increase their digital marketing budgets by around 17 per cent this year. With this in mind what is your business doing online to prepare for the extra competition?

We have come up with five new and fresh approaches to look at your digital strategy and squeeze out extra performance. Spring Cleaning has never been so profitable!

(1) Twitter Marketing
Firstly if you have don’t have a Twitter account for your brand set one up and actively engage with your customers. This not only provides great awareness of your product to a new audience but the process of active communication with your existing base will give a fresh look at your business. If you are a large company and have an established Twitter campaign, re-evaluate the returns on a regular basis. Firstly from actual visitors that arrive via this medium and secondly the brand uplift your investment has archived.

(2) Adwords PPC Campaign
Are you measuring to RIO/ROAS at a keyword level on your AdWords campaign? If not why not? no excuse the quicker your campaign gets to this level the more effective your overall marketing campaign will become.

(3) On-Page Website Optimisation
Spring is great time to review the very foundations of a website, aspects such as navigation, footer text and old code are things that sometimes get overlooked throughout the course of a business year. TIP: Get an outside agency (friend/ business associate) to review your website and provide you with good honest feedback.

(4) Linking Strategy
Relevancy and effectiveness are the watchwords of the day with linking; if a website doesn’t look relevant to your product range OR it doesn’t look like it would generate much traffic - Then spring clean away! try and remove the link if it is under your control.

(5) PR
How do you measure the effectiveness of your PR efforts? Brand uplift? Sales? or actual visitors? With press its important to measure its impact over a wider time frame i.e. weeks rather than hours.


Hit Search Online Marketing: Paid Search Predictions for 2010

by Andrew Redfern @ 8th February 2010 12:07 pm SEO News

It is widely expected that the amount of money invested by businesses into the paid search market will grow significantly over the next 12 months. This means that the need for campaigns to deliver an ever-increasing return on investment (ROI) is greater than ever. Digital marketing community Econsultancy has posted its predictions for the paid search market in the next 12 months.

•    High keyword prices will force marketers to try new strategies

According to research carried out in the US, two-thirds of marketers see their biggest challenge in the paid search market as high prices for keywords. Despite the growth of paid searches beginning to slow down, advertisers are continually pumping more money into the industry, and as a result, keyword prices are becoming more expensive.

Because of this, marketers will need to focus on careful keyword management, testing, and targeting, in order to increase the ROI on their campaigns. Quality Score optimising will become a priority; this will bring costs down whilst simultaneously driving conversions up.

Geographic and demographic targeting will also be more widely used this year, with these strategies reaching out to national advertisers and retailers.

•    Paid search will be more integrated

Although search marketing accounts for more than half of digital marketing budgets (representing tens of millions of pounds for the larger companies), most search marketing programmes are still managed separately from traditional marketing departments. This year, organisations will look to integrate their paid search operations more tightly into the business, rather than running them as a standalone unit.

Integrating systems will make search marketers change the way they report and organise their KPI’s, leading to a big shift in how this information is communicated upwards in the business. Search marketers will therefore need to adjust to new processes, using dashboards and proposals for investment. In return, they will be looking to see more executive support and therefore larger budgets.

•    Paid search will go multichannel

Google recently found that over half of online shoppers research their purchases on the internet before eventually buying the products in-store. On this basis, search marketers are currently missing out on credit for half of the revenues their campaigns are driving.

However, the tools for measuring across channels are now much more accessible to businesses, whether it’s linking phone numbers to keywords, or taking in-store surveys to see how the customer learnt about the products they’ve purchased.

These tools will make it much easier for firms to make properly informed decisions on the allocation of their search budgets, and also make sure that they are driving both online and offline conversions. Learning how offline buyers are researching their needs will allow multichannel traders to find new, low cost keywords to drive profitable expansion of their paid-search programs.

•    Facebook and Twitter Will Give Google a Run for Its Money

Social networking sites like Facebook, which currently has over a billion queries on its site every month, will extend their own search technology to allow users the ability to query the content in their news feeds. This will make it much easier for users to get recommendations from their friends on anything from restaurants and mobile phones, to films and TV programmes.

Advertising money for keyword placements is sure to follow suit, therefore search marketers will need to alter their campaigns to account for a more social set of keywords. This will enable them to catch consumers earlier in the consideration process than they could on traditional search engines like Google or Yahoo! And since these users will still in the research phase of purchasing a product (ie, placing a lot of value in word-of-mouth recommendations) these clicks could be very valuable.

While it will be difficult to incorporate all of these changes into campaigns, those marketers who can capitalise on some of these trends will most likely be a step ahead of the competition.

Ref: HSLP0101AA206


Google AdWords PPC - Optimising The Content Network

by Andrew Redfern @ 7th January 2010 6:54 pm SEO News

A blog post on the official Google Inside AdWords blog today was some helpful insight into some new initiatives to optimise the content network.

The blog post by the Inside Adwords crew comments “We’re often asked, “How can I maximize the ROI from Content Network campaigns?”

As part of our new Optimisation University initiative, we’ve developed a Getting Started Guide and a series of 6 videos to help answer this question for you. The guide and videos provide a conceptual walk-through and demo of the major steps involved in executing a Content Network campaign.

These include:

Campaign setup best practices
Creating appropriate ad groups
Selecting effective keywords
Developing high impact ad creative
Bidding strategies
Conversion tracking and tweaking for ROI

Along with simple tips and tricks to improve ROI, we also go over several tools, such as the Wonder Wheel, the Keyword Tool and Conversion Tracking, that can help you be more efficient. These recommendations are based on our analysis of thousands of campaigns to understand what works and what doesn’t. We hope you can start applying them to your campaigns today.

If you’re starting a new Content Network campaign, watch the first video below; you may find it to be particularly valuable.

The content network has for a long time been a massive opportunity for Google if it can get the quality right; this initiative from Google will only go to help improve the quality.



Other Related Stories That May Be Of Interest:

  1. Hit Search Secures Contract with MatchesFashion.com
  2. Internet Marketing - Brand Awareness is Key to SEO - Google Algorithm Changes
  3. LEGO Search Campaigns Wins Search Engine Strategies Awards
  4. Skittles Throws Its Brand Into The Twitter Bear Pit
  5. 5 Topspot Marketing Spring Clean Ideas
  6. Google Ocean - Yes they have done it again!
  7. Local Search, YouTube and Google Maps
  8. FREE Search Engine Optimisation(SEO) Booklet: Chapter 4…
  9. Companies Who Have Embraced Social Media: Delta Airlines
  10. Hit Search News - Google Ocean Find Atlantis, Britons online stalking & Chris Brown Facebook

Hit Search Limited, Liverpool Innovation Park, Liverpool Digital, Baird House, Liverpool, Merseyside, L7 9NG. Telephone Number for Search Engine Optimisation, Search Marketing, Pay Per Click and all other enquires is 0845 643 9289.
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