Engage Web May 2010 - Engage Web

British weather makes UK ideal online market

Posted on May 31, 2010

It’s another British bank holiday so the sun must be blazing down where you are right now, with the garden calling you and a bottle of Pimm’s with your name on it? No? It’s raining, really?

As sure as eggs is eggs, the British weather never fails to disappoint – but that’s actually a good thing for online marketing. Britain has the largest online market than anywhere else in Europe – and it’s thanks in part to the weather. If you lived in sunny Spain, or the South of France, would you spend all day indoors looking out of the window while browsing online? Of course you wouldn’t – but the UK weather makes online shopping not only convenient, but a lot more (more…)

Posted by Carl Hopkinson

Google cost US business millions through Pac-Man homage

Posted on May 30, 2010

Google recently celebrated the classic arcade game Pac-Man when it featured a playable version of the game on its homepage as its logo. Google’s custom logos are famous for their inventiveness and always have a special meaning behind them, but this one had an unexpected impact on the US economy.

Researchers have estimated that the playable logo, which allowed visitors to Google on Friday 21st May to play Pac-Man, cost US businesses in the region of 4.82 million man hours as employees whiled their day away reliving their childhood in a bid to pop one more pill and chase some ghosts.

Estimated figure suggest that Google received an additional (more…)

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

Readers like to be kept in suspense

Posted on May 30, 2010

The most successful writers are able to create such suspense in their work that it compels readers to keep going until the last page, often staying up late in the process. While content writing and article writing are quite different from fiction, some of the same principles can be applied, with the result that pieces will be more gripping.

The technique most often used to create suspense is to set up a desired outcome and then to hint that it might not be forthcoming due to various adverse events. If the reader is made to care deeply about whether a certain outcome happens or not, that can help to keep pages turning until the end of a book.

In a similar way, an SEO copywriter can begin their piece of content by telling a story, or promising to explain (more…)

Posted by Matt Jones

New nude social networking website

Posted on May 29, 2010

The industry of social networking websites is pretty competitive, with sites like MySpace, Twitter and Facebook leading the way. The surge in popularity seen by Facebook has meant that it’s almost impossible for any new social networking website to establish itself, unless of course it has a serious niche to it. That’s where Skinbook comes in, as Skinbook is a social networking website with one very specific niche – it’s for nudists.

Amazingly, Skinbook is actually a UK based website and it takes its rules and regulations very seriously for the benefit of its members. Members are not allowed to post lurid images, leave dirty comments, upload headless photos or generally misuse the website. It’s for nudists, people who feel more comfortable when they’re naked – and it’s a social networking website.

Skinbook is designed to use similar features to Facebook, and even has its own Facebook page to lure members away from the US based giant. Karl Maddocks, the co-founder of Skinbook, explained:

“For younger people, nudism is free from politics or activism. It’s purely recreational. For younger nudists, it’s just about (more…)

Posted by Matt Jones

Chuck Norris SEO Facts

Posted on May 28, 2010

Everyone knows who Chuck Norris is – he’s the hardest man in the world and laws of nature bend to his will. According to many Chuck Norris facts websites, Chuck was responsible for the Big Bang that created the universe, Chuck is the second biggest killer in the US, behind heart disease and when Chuck falls in the river he doesn’t get wet, the river gets Chuck Norris.

But what about Chuck Norris and SEO? Obviously Chuck is a master at it, and here are some bona fide, genuine, 100% accurate Chuck Norris SEO facts that we’ve just made up. These seven facts may also help to explain some common SEO questions.

  1. In 2006 Google had indexed as many as 25 billion web pages – Chuck Norris indexes twice that before breakfast.

  2. Google updates its PageRank when Chuck Norris tells it to.

  3. The most important ranking factors, in reverse order, are 3 – links, 2 – content, 1 – whether Chuck Norris likes your website or not.

  4. When Google first launched, chucknorris.com ranked #1 for every search term – but Chuck gave Google special permission to filter the results out of fairness to everyone else.

  5. Every time the name ‘Chuck Norris’ is Googled, somebody somewhere gets roundhouse kicked in the face.

  6. The Internet is all stored digitally on Chuck Norris’ left eyeball, and the entire net goes down every time Chuck blinks… Chuck Norris never, ever blinks.

  7. The average Google search takes around 0.17 seconds – enough time for Chuck Norris to deliver a roundhouse kick to the face of every person in China – which incidentally is the real reason Google is pulling out.
Posted by Carl Hopkinson

Twitter versus a shoebox full of letters

Posted on May 28, 2010

It could be said that the art of writing a blog is similar to traditional letter writing, with the author sending out a missive to her readers on a regular basis, like a traveller writing home from foreign shores. Unlike a conventional letter, a blog post can not show the writer’s mood in terms of words appearing hurried or slanting, or rounded and calm. Instead, a blog resembles a letter seen at one remove, where personal nuances have been filtered out.

This distancing effect could explain why blog writers are often more familiar in tone than would be expected, considering their ‘letters’ are on public display and can be read by strangers. Perhaps there is always an urge to make up for the sterilising effect of language being converted into text on a screen and forced into a restrictive, repetitive format by blogging software. SEO copywriters and content writers have (more…)

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

England and Spain players banned from social networking

Posted on May 27, 2010

The England and Spain squads at the Football World Cup have both been hit with bans concerning social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook. England’s players have been banned from using Twitter to avoid any further incidents such as Darren Bent’s Twitter mistakes last year when he attacked Daniel Levy, the chairman of Tottenham, over his move to Sunderland.

England’s players will only be able to share their thoughts about the World Cup with online fans via the official England website.

The Spain manager, Vicente del Bosque, has also banned his players from using social networking websites to ensure that the players are fully focused on the task at hand, and don’t fall foul of any online mistakes that could be highlighted through (more…)

Posted by Cheryl Mathews

SEO experience: Self taught or agency learned?

Posted on May 26, 2010

When people search the Internet for SEO jobs, they’ll find a wealth of available positions in search engine optimisation companies around the UK, ranging from down south in London, to up north in Manchester, Liverpool and the Wirral. SEO jobs usually request that applicants have prior experience of SEO, whether that’s from previously working in an SEO company or from personal experience.

However, which is better? Which makes the better SEO professional? Are you better off learning SEO for yourself in order to be an SEO professional, or should you join an SEO agency and learn from them. There are obviously two schools of thought on this.

If you work for an SEO company you will be taught the processes that work for them. These processes will usually be very methodical and clear, and will have been arrived at over a period of time and honed to produce a quick process that gets results. However, if you ‘just’ follow these processes, without thinking for yourself, you will (more…)

Posted by Matt Jones
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