Google makes changes in order to find a way to serve its customers better. This is something that all organisations with an online presence should welcome because they ought to have the same thing in mind. However, even now there are a few fundamentals that haven’t really changed and that still prove useful in terms of internet marketing and in terms of delivering the right service to your customers.

Take content as an example. It is no longer worth shoehorning keywords into the content on your site because Google has developed a more subtle approach that rewards usefulness and quality, rather than a superficial smattering of phrases that appear to have genuine relevance.

Relevance is a funny thing. The fact is that a site that is full of good quality content that is useful for readers cannot really fail to be relevant. The key nowadays is not to push your luck. Google does not want your organisation to try and convince it that you are an authority on certain matters – it wants you to convince your customers of that fact and it wants you to do so in the most useful and natural way possible.

This means doing away with all the unnatural practices used in the field of content. It means trusting your instincts and focussing on quality. What do our customers need to know? What questions are our customers likely to ask? How can we demonstrate more readily to our customers what you do as an organisation? These are the questions you should be answering in your content, instead of questions like: How can we convince Google that we are the best?

If you already have quality content on your site then nothing much is likely to change for you. You will go on updating that quality content in a natural and relevant manner and you will reap the benefits. If your existing content is poor, contrived, unnatural, overdone or even underhand then you may run into difficulties because of it and few can doubt that this represents progress.

So assess your content and revise it if necessary. Get experts on board to this for you if you wish, but if what you find remains useful, natural and relevant there is little for you to worry about.

Mobile browsing figures are on the up. Your website may receive as much as 15% of its traffic from mobile users. The iPhone paved the way for a desktop-like browsing experience on-the-go with smooth scrolling and zooming of web pages; this is still a compromise. The best mobile browsing experience is still to be redirected to a mobile-specific version of your website which best suits how people browse the web on their phones: held portrait in one hand and thumb protruding over the screen for scrolling. Users want content in paragraphs of text that fill the width of the screen similar to time-tested readability of newspapers, vertical-only scrolling, large buttons that your fat thumb can’t confuse, and relevant content considering your user is probably on foot e.g. phone number, map, or address.

Other things to consider: Users may expect their mobile shopping basket to be synchronised with their desktop basket.

Native app or mobile website?

Android and iOS devices have great browsers but they also have the option of downloading native applications from their stores. Should you make an app? That depends. If you’re just hoping to promote your business to people searching Google on their mobile then probably not. Apps are more difficult to develop than mobile websites but can offer some significant advantages if you need them. It’s a huge subject but here’s a few of points that may be relevant to your business:

• Apps can provide functionality without an Internet connection. Perhaps you are a loans company and want to give your customers the ability to calculate interest rates on their phone. The calculations can be done by your phone’s CPU rather than a web server.
• You can charge for access to your app by selling it in the app store. There are low barriers to purchase because users don’t need to get their credit card.
• You can offer your app for free and get exposure through yet another channel other than search. App stores are yet another place where marketers can reach an audience.
• You can more seamlessly access the native hardware of the phone. Some confident online retailers offer apps with bar code readers which encourage users to use them in high street shops to prove they are cheaper; a powerful sales message I’m sure you’ll agree.
• Sometimes mobile is actually easier than desktop; you could give your customers the chance to review the products you sent them by making an app that uses the camera to film your customer’s product review and submit it for fantastic quality content for your website. This is arguably even easier than a desktop solution where operating systems, browsers, drivers, webcams, software, and practicality are all difficulties to overcome. The uniformity of mobile platforms is highly attractive.

Take advantage of mobile

I was recently in Manchester city centre looking for a traditional Sunday lunch. The one that we intended to go to was fully booked and I didn’t know of any others. I used the Google Places app to search for “Sunday lunch”. An entry came up close by which had reviews, good reviews in fact! The customers raved about it so we went along, loved it, and I even wrote my own review backing up the others. Mobile is important and will only get more so. Make sure your business is on the map for apps like Google Places. If you’re getting bad reviews use them to your advantage and use them as quality feedback from real customers and improve your business; some businesses pay a lot of money for market research!

Social integration

• Social is big and mobiles are a huge enabler due to their very nature.

• People keep their mobile close by.

• People like to tell others what they are up to.

• They can automatically identify your location to streamline and encourage being vocal in their online social network. I once got a free part of an F1 car when I showed a Vodafone representative that I had checked-in (told all my friends!) at their event.

• People love pictures and they attract attention. Take advantage of the cameras people carry around with them.

And it’s very difficult to disagree with that. Content Marketing is important. Content Marketing is the future.

Companies who get content marketing are usually the ones who are progressive, understand the industry they operate in and look out for customer’s best interests. Therefore they are more likely to be profitable.

Why I hear you ask?

Well it is because content marketing is an art. Not the art of selling something to customers who might not want it or need it. But the art of communicating relevant and useful information/service, that will engage and inform the customer.

It is better to deal with an educated buyer who understands what the product means or does and how it will affect their business, than trying to hard sell a service they have little knowledge about. The customer essentially wants to give their hard earned cash to a company that is knowledgeable, progressive and consistent in providing latest information about their product. This ultimately translates into customer loyalty.

So we’ve just established two important outcomes related to content marketing. It will eventually reward you with business and customer loyalty. Isn’t that what all businesses strive for at the end of the day?

And guess what? It genuinely works. It is here to stay. It is the past, present and the future. Don’t just rely on me saying it. Even the big multinationals like Microsoft are engaging and believe in the power of content marketing.

Many wonder about the type of content to put out to the customer. What should content do they also ask? Well in essence content should help you achieve your business goals and long term strategy.

The process of identifying content is a long and complicated one as you have to consider many factors such as audience, messaging and topics. And these are only some of them. There are more to consider. Believe Me.

Let’s go through some of these factors together:

• Audience- Analysing your users in detail is a very important start. For example when you want to target “customers”, do you mean existing customers or prospective customers? Do you want to target customers who are interested in Product A or Product B?  Once you get a clear understanding of target audience, then you can begin the process of tailoring your content that will be useful to them.

• Messaging- This is where your content strategy comes into life so to speak. It is the actual content that you will send it out to inform, engage and update the audience and gets you closer to your business target.

•  Topics- So what shall we talk about then? There are so many topics to pick from that you can get lost in what you actually trying to achieve. This why you have to narrow it down to few topics that are relevant and user will actually find useful.

So there you have it. Marketing will NOT work without Content. It is the one tool that can truly connect you with the customer. It is how positive relationships are developed and nurtured for the long term and the real way to selling your products.

As a Business Development Manager you are responsible for developing sales of Just Search products and services through developing contacts with prospective customers, negotiating and closing sales. You will generate your own leads and communicate with the Country Manager – Ireland on a daily basis on the progress of current prospects.

Key Responsibilities:

• Sales of Just Search products and services to predominantly new clients
• Generate leads through research, networking etc
• Generate interest in the company and product
• Respond to and follow up all incoming sales enquiries using appropriate methods
• Carry out the entire sales cycle with prospective customers
• Communicate, liaise, and negotiate externally using appropriate methods to facilitate the development of profitable business
• Achieve both personal and Company revenue targets
• Plan and prioritise personal sales activities and customer/prospect contact towards achieving agreed targets
• Manage your own time in relation to current prospects and future leads
• Manage product/service mix, pricing and margins according to agreed aims
• Record, analyse, report and administer according to systems and requirements.
• Attend and present at customer meetings
• Constantly update and develop your own knowledge and understanding of industry changes and Just Search products
• Develop your sales techniques to constantly improve performance

If you are interested in applying for this position and for further information, please forward your CV and current/expected salary to hr@justsearch.com

The SEO Team is responsible for analysing clients’ websites in order to recommend SEO strategies, as well as carrying out all the programming work on clients’ websites, ensuring the best possible ROI.

The team uses a custom built project management system and a quality management process to ensure the highest level of service for our clients.

As an SEO Programmer you are responsible for defining, implementing and monitoring effective SEO strategies across a number of our clients’ web sites on a daily basis. This is a technical, hands on role, where you will be liaising with clients to achieve the required results as well as continual optimisation. Knowledge of HTML is an absolute must, as is knowledge of an additional language such as PHP or ASP. You should have a strong understanding of SEO principles, as well as an interest in the field and a willingness to learn.

If you are interested in applying for this position and for further information, please forward your CV and current/expected salary to hr@justsearch.com

As Head of Search you will work closely with the other members of the senior management team in order to define our strategic direction.  Your vision and commercial acumen will filter down through the search department to allow industry leading campaigns to be delivered across our entire client base.

Responsibilities of the role:

• Be our search figurehead; defining our search philosophy for the future.
• Working at a strategic level with our most important accounts to ensure premium search campaigns are delivered.
• Be responsible for developing best practise for our search teams.
• Develop strong inter-departmental relationships.
• Develop exceptional relationships with external suppliers and other industry leaders so that Just Search is always at the forefront of a rapidly moving industry.
• Develop and implement processes and infrastructures that will allow us to continue to thrive and produce industry leading search campaigns.

If you are interested in applying for this position and for further information, please forward your CV and current/expected salary to hr@justsearch.com

The Natural SEO Team is responsible for analysing prospective clients’ websites in order to recommend SEO strategies, as well as carrying out all the programming work on clients’ websites, ensuring the best possible visibility for the website within the main search engines. The team uses a custom built project management system and a quality management process to ensure the highest level of service for our clients.

As an SEO Team Leader you are responsible for managing the flow of work across your team of SEO Programmers, as well as supporting and supervising your team members. You are also required to carry out analyses for new business sales and advanced SEO reports and consultation.

You will support the programmers in defining, implementing and monitoring effective SEO strategies across a number of our clients’ web sites. This is a technical, hands on role, where you will be liaising with clients to achieve the required results as well as continual optimisation. As an SEO professional you should have an advanced understanding of SEO principles, as well as a keen interest in the field and a willingness to continue learning.

If you are interested in applying for this position and for further information, please forward your CV and current/expected salary to hr@justsearch.com

Edgerank isn’t new, but it is important. Edgerank is a Facebook specific algorithm that still seems to have a lot of social media marketers stumped, but it’s really not the dark-art many think it is. A lot of social marketers either don’t know about it, think it’s complicated, or just aren’t using it efficiently to create and distribute the most visible content possible for their community – and as a result the messaging from a lot of Facebook brand Pages is wasted through lack of exposure.

Just like the search engines, Facebook uses algorithms to determine what shows up in people’s newsfeeds. Unlike the search engines it’s nowhere near as complicated. Put simply, whenever an image is uploaded to your newsfeed or someone comments on a status it creates the opportunity to be seen.. and we all want to be seen, right?

Facebook Edgerank is broken down into 3 components, all playing a part in the overall perfect mix for how our content can be displayed to our audience:

Affinity

This is the level of interaction between a Page and its followers. If someone’s already posted or commented on your previous content they have a greater chance of your fresh content appearing in their streams. You’ve established a relationship already. If a dialogue happens between the Page and the individual, even better. It pays to say ‘thank you’, or even (heaven forbid) just ‘lol’ – but make conversation natural, Pages that always have the last word are a personal pet peev.

As a point: all interaction should be done ‘by-hand’ via the Facebook interface. Facebook doesn’t like automated tools (like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck) and we never recommend them to our clients for Facebook (though they are invaluable for Twitter scheduling etc.). By Facebook lowering the affinity rating on all 3rd-party applications it prevents them from having a higher EdgeRank and spamming people, such as gaming applications like Mafia Wars and Farmville.

To boost your Affinity give people a reason to comment. If you post a picture of a box of cream cakes with a message saying ‘It’s Claires birthday today, so we bought cream cakes! ‘Like’ if you like cream cakes.” Then it ‘s fun content with a clear call to action that will get people clicking and commenting. Simple messaging like “Friday at last. Anyone got any plans for the weekend”, all help to give Affinity a boost by promoting conversation. Ask questions, host competitions, all the usual things to get people interacting work, and use this as an opportunity to build relationships.

Edge Weight

Certain content has a greater ‘weight’ (or importance) when the algorithm is deciding if it should display it in people’s streams or not. Image posts rank higher than simple status updates, as do links, and leaving a comment on a post carries more weight than just “Liking” it due to the Edgerank perception of the effort involved in that level of engagement.

Custom text added to links and photos, a description and explanation, are important. Those without have a lower Edgerank rating. The pattern here is the effort (or Edgeranks perception of effort) that you put in. At JustSearch, every post we do is custom created for our community, and we know when we press ‘send’ it will hit the widest audience possible. Experience has shown us that posts that have in excess of 141 characters (possibly to differentiate them from auto-posting via Twitter) actually receive the lions share of engagement (apparently size IS important).

Time Decay

‘Time Decay’, I love that phrase. Basically, this is how current a post is (and unfortunately nothing to do with Doctor Who). The older the post, the further it drops down in your newsfeed.

Posting regularly helps, if you are the sort of Page or business that has suitable content without seeming spammy, but it’s also important to know how frequently you can do this without alienating your audience. Most of our clients only post once a day, but we make sure this is at peak viewing times to get the best possible exposure for them. Some of our clients, the more conversational or international brands with larger communities, post up to 4 or 5 times in a 24hr period. It’s important to experiment and consult your Facebook Insights (measure and adapt) to discover what works best and when the most interaction and distribution of your content is happening. The JustSearch Facebook Page, for example, consistently gets it’s most viewers around 2.15pm due to our various European clients and internal departments checking in around lunchtime for their daily news. Looking closely at your Insights will also help you work out which content and topics are most popular with your followers.

So, in closing, make sure you have good rich content – images, uploaded videos, links to original blog content, polls, etc. Make sure you’ve put the effort in. Speak to your audience and experiment with what’s available. Don’t use 3rd party applications for posting. Ask questions, and provide answers. Give nice, clear, fun, calls to action on a regular basis, and post when your audience is there to see it. There’s no real hidden magic to it. Just be social, and remember there’s no short cuts.

We want to make sure our clients channels are fit for summer and working for them, so we’re doing a special deal this month exclusively for customers renewing their social campaigns:

Only £600 (+ VAT) save over £355! (usually £955)

Feel like you’re running out of things to say? We’ll create a conversation guide for you, giving you a list of subjects to talk about – with examples – designed to get you talking and sharing. These are touch points of real value to your audience that will keep you in the conversation.

Not sure how to reach out? We’ll build you a custom stream of people who are asking about your product right now, so you have a constantly updating conversation to join. We do this through custom code in Hootsuite, so it’s always there and always up-to-the-minute with people who want to know about your product or service.

Not confident about how to say things? We’ll create a brand personality for your company, especially for social media. This is a voice through which you can be heard – documenting clearly the way you should talk to stay on brand and engage your friends, fans, and followers.

Need some examples to get you going? We’ll then take that ‘voice’, and use it to create a whole months messaging for you in Twiter and Facebook, 3 Facebook posts a week and 3 tweets a day, to give you some great examples and to get the conversation flowing again.

Fancy some feedback? We’ll add a whole months measurement, plus recommendations on how to improve your efforts for the future. Look at it as your social media report card for 2012!

Channels not growing as quickly as you’d like? We’ll show you how to import up to 5000 email addresses into Facebook. Regularly inviting new people who have subscribed to your newsletter (or bought from your firm) to sign up to your page, via Facebook!

And the cherry on the top? How about an extra 1000-targeted Twitter followers to boost the credibility of your twitter account? Guaranteed!

Now that’s a bargain way to get you fit for summer! Contact our UCR team to learn more, on 0844 8531391.

Oracle claims that Google infringed thirty seven copyrights and other patents which they own. The claim relates to the Java programming platform they bought from Sun Microsystems in 2010.

When they first made their claim against Google in August 2010, Oracle was seeking a multi-billion damages payout. However, if they are successful, a damages sum in the region of hundreds of millions and an injunction to force Google to pay to use Java is more likely.

The jury on the case was sworn in on Monday and some of Google’s big names, including chief executive Larry Page, are expected to take the stand.

Google say they haven’t violated Oracle’s copyrights and remain steadfast that Oracle doesn’t have the right to copyright certain parts of the Java platform anyway. However, sources say that they may be willing to pay $2.8m and 0.515% of any future Android revenue. Google doesn’t make money from the sale of Android but they do receive advertising revenue suggested to be in the region of $2.5bn.

If Oracle fail in their bid for compensation, their control over Java could be gravely compromised.

Oracle’s lawyer Mark Jacobs said in his opening statement:

“We will prove to you from beginning to end … that Google knew it was using someone else’s property.”

Google’s lawyers are expected to counter Oracle’s opening statement today.

The trial will take place in three parts, each expected to last around two weeks and comprise of copyright claims, patent claims and, if Oracle are successful, damages.

The case boils down to the use of the Java as a computer language, it’s not about Oracle’s Java APIs or tools. And this very computer language had previously been released by Sun as an open-source platform before it was acquired by Oracle.

Many developers believe that because Java is a language, albeit a computer language, it cannot be copyrighted anyway. The best analogy is trying to copyright the English language. You can’t copyright the alphabet, but you can copyright works created using the alphabet, i.e. books.

News from the case will no doubt be featuring on every TV station and internet news site over the next couple of months. We’ll wait with bated breath to see if Google’s world domination is halted and a chink appears in their seemingly impenetrable armour.