YouTube Best Practice and Top Tips

  • 26 October 2016

  • 6 minute read

  • Learning & Development

For marketers and business owners video is an engaging way to create and share fresh content, and there are more options than ever for doing so. YouTube is currently the third most popular website in the world and has over a billion users. It’s easy to embed YouTube videos across social media platforms, however native video uploaded directly to the likes of Facebook and Twitter seems to be performing better than YouTube video in terms of reach. Choosing to include YouTube into your marketing plan is also about embracing the community and making the most of this channel’s ability to help you get discovered and increase awareness. YouTube should become part of your video strategy, alongside an onsite gallery or the use of video on other social networks.

Why Choose to Use YouTube Google search – videos are appearing more in search, so including video on your page could help to improve authority The second largest search engine – YouTube is bigger than Bing, Yahoo, Aol and Ask combined with over 3 billion searches a month Advertise – there’s lots of effective options for YouTube advertising Tell your story – a fantastic way to tell your story online A Global Audience

YouTube has global audience of 88 different countries and 76 languages. Because so much of the content on YouTube is instructional, it may be that people from all over the world can watch and learn without subtitles. But there is now a wide range of languages available for subtitling too. Video content in the native language to those you’re targeting is always best – if you need to caption, always have a native speaker review for accuracy.

Appeal to How and Where YouTubers Watch Video

Unsurprisingly most YouTubers watch video on mobile, but surprisingly... Continue reading

Why Online Reviews and Testimonials are So Important and How to Make Them Work For...

  • 12 October 2016

  • 4 minute read

  • Industry insights

    Learning & Development

According to BrightLocal 92% of us read online reviews and 68% consider them a significant trust factor. So as well as building local reputation and trust, reviews can impact your rankings and testimonials can win you in-SERP stars. Many local businesses may also use third-party review sites. But what does all this mean, and what’s the difference?

Third-party reviews are reviews from customers on external sites such as Tripadvisor. Traditional testimonials are snippets taken from a customer and placed direct on your website. The thing is here, you may only choose to display the most positive testimonials on your site. Onsite reviews via website applications now allow business owners to have customer reviews posted directly on their site, often including ratings or stars, or allowing for owners to reply and comment. So there’s lots of options, and Miriam Ellis, local SEO expert at Moz suggests to yield maximum benefits, you’ve got to:

Know the guidelines and technology Have a clear goal and a clear plan for achieving it Commit to making a sustained effort

Each site, e.g. Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc. has a different set of guidelines in relation to customer reviews and using schema technology. For more detail about this check out the advice from David Deering on this Moz blog.

In terms of defining your goals for your own on-site consumer feedback pages, you will need to do this per city or area if you have more than one location. Here are Mike Blumenthal’s (GetFiveStars’ co-founder and renowned local SEO) top tips for creating your goals.

Be customer focused – make sure your testimonial page is easily accessible and portrays your brand well.

Be Google focused – get your testimonial page ranking well, ideally showing a star rating. You can also have... Continue reading

Is this the AI game-changing smartphone?

  • 05 October 2016

  • 3 minute read

  • General

    Industry insights

This week, Google launched the first phone made both inside and out by Google that is set to change the landscape for smartphones as we know them.

Equipped with a whole range of advanced features, including a fingerprint sensor on the back that users can swipe to access their notifications, a fast-charging, long-lasting battery (up to seven hours in just fifteen minutes), an incredibly high-quality camera and Google Assistant. It also comes in two different sizes; the 5in (12.7cm) or 5.5in (14cm) OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen.

Pixel is the first phone with Google Assistant built in. Somewhat like Apple’s Siri tool, users just need to say, “Ok Google” or touch and hold the Home button to activate. Labelled as “your own personal Google, always ready to help”, the tool allows you to hold a more advanced conversation with your device than any smartphone has before.

Instead of just giving commands in isolation like its competitors, Google Assistant is dialogue driven due to the advanced and sophisticated way in which it stores data. It can bring up anything on your phone from last weekend’s photos to a review of your day on request. It also offers help with directions to a location your friend gave you in a text. Just say, “navigate there.”

Now, the camera. The Pixel camera is the highest rated smartphone camera anyone has ever made, scoring a DxOMark Mobile of 89.  The 12.3MP camera features an f/2.0 aperture and a sizeable 1.55 micron pixels that enable users to capture exceptionally high-quality photos in any kind of light.

Capture action shots easily with Smartburst – a tool that takes... Continue reading