Search Marketing Blog
Welcome to the Epiphany Solutions weblog, a place for you and us to discuss and share our knowledge on Search Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media Optimisation and Pay Per Click Advertising.
Eye Tracking Studies
Post by Gavin Smith on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 in Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation
Eye-tracking studies are great for understanding how the public view webpages, but it can often be hard to translate the results of these studies into real web design implementations. Recently I have been reading over studies such as Eyetrack 3, which was a study performed in 2003 by Steve Outing and Laura Ruel, as they observed 46 people view various mock information sites for an hour.
After reading over the study I decided to pick out a few nuggets of information that web designers can often overlook.
- Visitors read in the shape of an F. Visitors were found to generally scan WebPages in the shape of an ‘F’. Make sure important elements of your content are in these key areas to keep readers engaged. Place headers, sub headers, bullet points, and highlighted text along these lines so readers will be enticed to read more
- Headings draw the eye. In the majority of cases the first things readers have been found to look at on a webpage are the headlines. Make sure your headlines are not obstructed by other items on the page and that they are engaging enough to draw the reader into looking further through your site.
Google Analytics Account Set-Up Best Practice
Post by Daniel Peden on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 in Google Adwords, Google Analytics
We have recently taken on a client whose previous web development company set-up an analytics account and, upon gaining access, we quickly became aware that it was under the dreaded “all sites” account. Put simply, this means we cannot gain admin access which has a knock on effect on several key areas:
- The ability to link AdWords and Analytics accounts which, until Google’s update regarding cost data reporting meant all CPC traffic was recorded as direct.
- The inability to create new profiles – which are essential for testing and segmentation
- The inability to apply filters – essential for filtering out your own IP. Applying filters also has some very powerful data manipulation uses.
Goo on the Loose - Cadbury’s Social media Campaign
Post by Mike Gomez on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 in Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media Optimisation
Cadbury has long been known for its chocolate - from their traditional Dairy Milk to the crumbliest Flake, the Creme Egg and now its mischievous mutated form, the Creme Egg Twisted. As of late, Cadbury have turned their attentions to promoting the Twisted Bars through two competitions. One being available to the public and another made up of not so highly trained ‘Super Agents’ tracking down notorious ‘Goo Attacks’ around the UK and reporting back through different methods of social media.
Twitter Update!
Post by Mike Gomez on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 in Social Media Optimisation, Twitter
Last night Twitter updated their ‘Following’ and ‘Followers’ pages with two different views and improved usability with a nice little drop down feature to speed up replying to / following / blocking friends and peers. For those currently using Twitter, you’ll remember the page as a pretty basic list of people following you or a list of people you follow. The expanded view on the ‘Followers’ page shows your list of follows with their location and latest post (tweet). The dropdown menu (as shown in the image) then gives you the option of ‘mentioning’, direct messaging, following or blocking the user. The list view still provides the same dropdown options yet simply shows the username and name only.
Why Should You Launch an E-commerce Website?
Post by David Wilding on Monday, June 29th, 2009 in E-commerce, Search Engine Optimisation
It might seem like a strange question to ask, but a surprisingly large number of UK retailers don’t offer their customers the ability to buy their products online, or at least not a fully fledged service. H&M, Primark & Gap currently don’t offer their product range online for purchase in the UK at all. The latest incumbent to the field, TK Maxx, only offer the ability to purchase handbags.
So if these large companies don’t provide their customers with an e-commerce solution then why should you? There are some very clear and convincing reasons why you should be considering an e-commerce website for your retail business, if only to capitalise on the fact these big players aren’t participating…