What a year 2009 was. Google and Bing started to understand the intent of a search query and started to gain a better of idea of what formats of content were most engaging in relation to the search query. For the 1st time ever search engines measured organic positions against engagement time and bounce back rates etc, and all of a sudden (as if we were surprised), a better blend of real time, local and universal search results began to appear in the results pages. It’s a start in the right direction.

In times of financial uncertainty, many companies are inclined to bury their heads in the sand and simply wait for the storm to pass. Other companies, however, may look at an economic downturn as an opportunity to get more advertising for less money, thereby keeping the brand in their customers' minds for when things do turn around.

Recent developments and the ongoing economic recovery have led to a real shift in the boardroom mindset. CEO's and MD's across all industries have realised that Digital Marketing is where the marketing industry as a whole and consumer reach in specific are heading. With budgets under careful scrutiny, being able to monitor results from advertising spend has become increasingly important.  Long gone are the days of frivolous spending with little regard for ROI and measurable results.

One of the biggest criticisms of Facebook has been its inability to generate revenue and turn a profit. This is an ongoing challenge for the company as a whole, but that does not mean that marketers shouldn't use Facebook as an excellent tool to reach target markets, expand market potential and incorporate Facebook into overall marketing activities. It is fast, effective and relatively cheap. With the right direction and consistent content updates, this could be a useful weapon in your business marketing arsenal in the next year!

Ambergreen are pleased to be supporting the Edinbooks project, being carried out by our own, Eliza Dashwood. The project will see volunteers carpet bomb the city with books on every subject, from fiction to self help, travel to history.

The idea behind the project is to share books that would otherwise be taking up space on bookcases, encouraging reading throughout the community. The project will also demonstrate how online social media can be used to promote a cause, either for charities, events or businesses.

Microsoft and Yahoo have finally agreed to put their cultural differences aside for the benefit of a long term business strategy that hopefully may stop the tide turning against them as their global competitors Google move forward from search and social media, to operating systems and platform development.

An examination of changes in Google and the significance of not ranking first.

Can losers come first? Sure they can. If you look at the online marketing world in terms of pure winners and losers, the winners are going to be those companies and websites that reach their goals. And since for the large majority of businesses the main objective is to generate revenue, conversions are ultimately the bottom line in measuring site performance.

The commercial measures of social networks

Social networks have been around for a while, and Facebook has been the absolute spearhead in this amazing growth over the past two years. The market, once in infancy, has quickly matured and evolved into an array of individuals, companies and corporations who spend their time Facebooking, Blogging, Twitting, Beboing, MySpacing, creating, commenting, interacting, bashing, selling, buying, annoying, faking, gratifying and generally interacting in what has truly become a world wide web. 

You know, the problem with so many one day internet marketing seminars is a distinct lack of engagement between the audience and the speakers. All the speakers know each other and five percent of the audience do all the speaking on behalf of everyone else, whether they like it or not. It's a bit like going back to school: those that speak and those that don't. Isn't Twitter a bit like that as well?

There have been some recent changes creeping into Google's search results over the last few weeks. We should be used to algorithmic shift on Google by now. Since the Florida update in 2003 and the many filters, penalties and updates since then, things have never really stood still. So what's new?

Since the turn of the year, more and more big brands are appearing in the top 10 results for highly competitive generic search queries, without making any noticeable changes to their SEO or linking strategies.