Google + hangouts, a powerful engagement tool

According to Mashable, Google + now has over 62 million users, and is growing by 625,000 users per day, a significant achievement for the social platform which launched last summer.

Google has been subject to much scrutiny surrounding its ‘share’ feature hosted on the Google homepage, allowing users to instantly update their status.

Its circles feature is far more advanced than other social networks by allowing users to separate personal and work accounts, to categorise into anything from friends, colleagues, family, and so on.

Google + hangouts is an extension of Facebook’s chat application, Google + allows users to take advantage of video conferencing, desktop sharing, including sharing YouTube clips with up to nine people at a time – not as advanced as webex which allows 20 users at a time, but still a clear leader in the social media rankings.

Large brands have already tested out the application; Coca Cola launched a hangout last week hosting Olympics memorabilia, President Obama also jumped on the bandwagon by hosting the first ever digital interview in the White House last month, with over 227,000 questions submitted to the US President: http://bit.ly/wstBGB

The application opens doors for brands who want to engage with consumers face-to-face, and take a more human approach, fashion brands embrace it by allowing fashion bloggers to give style advice, tech companies give out IT support more personally.

We even had a little play with the application last week and recognise the huge potential of such a powerful marketing application, not just for our agency but for our clients. We cannot wait to host a webinar, workshop or networking event on the platform.

natalie.owen@ptarmiganbp.co.uk

Ptarmigan Bell Pottinger Google + Page: http://bit.ly/AzMU4d

The H1 Tag – It’s important but is it missing on your site?

Before we start I want to be clear that the H1 tag is a MAJOR factor in the online marketing ability of your site. I’m not talking about coding the H1 tag, just the importance of it for gaining natural search results.

Easy H1 Marketing

The H1 tag is a HTML coding element that stands for heading and they range for H1 to H6 (h1 to h6 to be correct). I’m only talking about the H1 tag and the reason why so many web developers (the people who do the website coding) don’t include it their builds.

Think of the H1 tag in the same way a newspaper editor thinks of their front page headline, which is the most important part of the page and I call it the hook.

As a business owner for example, what you need to think about is that every page of your website has a headline using the H1 tag. Using the heading tag in this way provides the search engines with an understanding of what that page really entails. Just to be clear every website page should ‘must in my opinion’ have the H1 tag / heading tag included not only for website standards in its basic form, but ultimately for core marketing reasons.

How to check for the H1 Tag

Here is the quickest way:

Open whatever web browser you use and load your own websites homepage by entering the URL in the address bar. (Browser I’ve used to check the following steps, IE9, Firefox 10 and my favourite Google Chrome)

Once loaded

1. Right click, find view source or view page source.
2. Then the HTML code of the site will be shown in a text file/new browser window.
3. Using your keyboard press the Ctrl + F buttons together.
4. Now type in <h1> and click find.

H1 Tag Results

Good	Bad
You found 1 <h1> tag	Did not find any
Found 1 <h1> with copy visible on the page	Found multiple <h1>
	Found <h1> wrapped round image
	Found <h1> with no copy

Development Mistakes

Good	Bad
Great you found one with copy in it which matches up to the copy on your page.Next action: test another page just to be sure.	Did not find any: Sack your developer, this is a basic principle of web design.
	Found multiple: Does one at least contain copy relating to your pages copy? If not sack your developer, this is a basic principle of web design.
	Found <h1> with no copy: If you can find an option to add in a heading title do it using your CMS, if not. If not sack your developer, this is a basic principle of web design.

The basics of basic on-page optimisation

Here are some super basic SEO reasons why you should include the H1 tag and marry these following areas up with a CLEAR marketing message.

1. Page title – This is what is shown in the search engine result and need to be a clear definitive marketing message.E.g. If I sell business databases, my website’s homepage page title would be along these lines.Page Title: Buy Business Databases, UK B2B Data, Marketing Lists and Contact Database
2. Meta Description: This is a very important part and also needs be a clear marketing message. It needs to be a snippet/short paragraph of copy contextualised from all your on-page copy.Meta Description: Buy business databases and marketing lists online from DatabaseSales.co.uk. We supply UK B2B contact data for all major cities like London, Manchester and Leeds.
3. H1 Tag: Marry this headline up with page title, meta description and on-page copy using primary keywords that ultimately describe that page’s product offering.H1 Tag: UK Business Databases and B2B Telesales Data
4. Copy/Words on your webpage: If you don’t have any words on your homepage, you’d best have a really really really good link building strategy in place. Words are what really make a search engine read your page and index it in to search results that relate to your products.Top tip: Make sure your landing pages have a good amount of copy on, 400 words minimum. In that copy also make sure that you are communicating a clear message throughout it which matches up with all the above.E.g. Paragraph:

   Welcome to Databasesales.co.uk, the UK’s largest online business-to-business data provider. Targeting the right businesses in the right cities will help secure new contact data, leads and sales for your own business.

   Buying London business data, Leeds B2B marketing lists or specific business sector information in Manchester will ensure you’re one step ahead of your competitors.

Synopsys: In that paragraph we’ve made it clear that we provide business database for our key cities, the types of B2B lists and related to other search terms people search for using Google.

Closure

So to conclude, if you find your site does not have the <h1> tag then you NEED to fix it ASAP because it is one of the fundamentals of online marketing and basics of website development.

Ensuring these four core on-page search engine optimisation elements are correct will pay dividends in the future of your online success.

Kind Regards,
Joseph Gourvenec
SEO and Search Specialist

Money Money Money

As I handle the PR for the National Lottery, a great source of discussion at work and amongst friends is why do some people go public with their win? Would you go public? And how much would you have to win before you decided to tell the world and shout from the roof tops about your amazing good fortune?

EuroMillions is the one that produces those mega jackpots and in the UK we’ve had numerous big winners, including the biggest ever lottery win in Europe won by Colin and Christine Weir from Scotland.  In fact, only yesterday did a young couple from Nottingham, the second in as many weeks from the area, go public with their win of £45 million.

But what makes these people go public? The majority of people that I speak to say that they wouldn’t dream of going public and would much rather take the money and go on holiday to enjoy their new found wealth.

However, whilst that might be a lovely idea in an ideal world, in practice that is rather harder to achieve. First of all, if you decide to keep your win a secret that means that you won’t be able to tell anyone for fear of it getting out. So that’s no telling family members, friends, work colleagues, no putting it on Facebook – or pictures of you celebrating with a bottle of champagne whilst I mention it – or any other social media network.

If you have children, what are you going to tell them? Because I’m pretty sure that they won’t be able to keep from telling at least one of their friends at school!

And then we get onto the subject of the spending spree. If you’ve won a big amount, let’s assume that a new car, a new house, a luxury holiday and treats for the family might be top of the shopping list. Now, how do you about hiding those things?

Winners that do go public say that they do so because they want to be honest and open about their win. It’s some good news to share and yes, there may be the odd begging letter but Camelot are there every step of the way to support and guide through all the emotional ups and downs. After all, they are the experts and have been through it many times with different winners.

So the question is, would you go public? For me, if it was a big amount, I think I probably would.

Welcome to the millionaires club! Cassey Carrington and Matthew Topham are the latest EuroMillions winners to go public

Sandrine.powell@ptarmiganbp.co.uk

@SandrinePowell