Posts By: Stuart Dinnie

5 construction social sites you’re probably not monitoring

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All the rave is about commercial social sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn but since doing quite a few online competitor and mention analysis; I’ve come across some social sites, mainly forums, which I would consider absolute goldmines for information when researching mentions of your brand online.

Firstly I’ve some across many conversations about some of the biggest brands in construction that took place back in late 90’s. It’s probably safe to say these companies are not aware of them. Read More

What does good SEO on a website look like?

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Firstly thank you to everyone who joined the webinar today on ‘What good SEO looks like on a website’. I hope it was useful and allowed you to assess your own sites and see if it included the basic elements of good search optimisation.

Below are 3 bits of material, firstly, the video recording and secondly the slides from the webinar – if you would like to download the powerpoint file then please click on the small link below the slideshare presentation below.

Finally, right at the end we have a bonus PDF checklist which you can download and go through your site to do your own assessment. It also includes links to some other useful resources which I’ve mentioned in the webinar. Check it out!Read More

4 things we did to grow organic search traffic by 208%

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One of the key objectives of any search engine optimisation strategy is to increase the amount of traffic you get from search engines from non-branded keywords/search terms to increase brand awareness. Another objective is to then convert that traffic growth into leads (sample requests, registrations, enquiries, call backs etc) but lets focus on traffic growth for the time being.

Non-branded search phrases are queries which users enter into search engines without using your company name or product names/brands. If you want to know more about non-brand search optimisation then please do check out this MDiTV video.

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Desensitise your sensitive information to win online

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Our digital marketing strategy process is quite intrusive, uncomfortably so in some cases. On that point, I was recently asked how we handle our clients’ sensitive information given that we work in such a paranoid industry [his words not mine].

It’s a fair question that I’ve come to expect to answer at the outset of any engagement with a new client. In truth, on occasion, we’ll sign an NDA [non-disclosure agreements] or similar confidentiality agreement – principally because if it makes the client feel more comfortable with the process then that’s what we’ll do.Read More

What Architects want when seeking sustainable product information – 3 must-haves for your website.

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This is a guest post written by our close friends over at Competitive Advantage who recently completed some research to find out what types of information Architects are looking for when sourcing sustainable products:

Designing with Sustainable Products Research

The architect is probably the most important member of the design team, distilling the requirements and advice of the other members. Recently Competitive Advantage completed research called Designing with Sustainable Products, this looks into how Architects design non-residential sustainable buildings and the information they need from manufacturers.Read More

Webinar: What does a well optimised building product manufacturers website look like?

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Over the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed quite a few construction and building product manufacturer websites being launched – without even the basic signs of any search engine optimisation. I’ve been trying to work out why that could be. Could it be that the marketer didn’t plan for SEO? Or does the marketer even know what SEO is, is more education required? Could it be that marketers or their agencies just simply don’t know what to look for even if they think their website has been optimised for search engines and people?Read More

Why you will see an increase in direct traffic from mobiles in Google Analytics

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Some of you will be keeping a close eye on mobile traffic through to your websites and noticing that the number is constantly increasing month on month, year on year. No doubt, majority of your mobile traffic will be coming from the Apple iPhone and Apple iPad.

Some of you may also dig a bit deeper to analyse where this mobile traffic is coming from (sources) so that you can see which sources to improve or add more resources to. With the launch of iOS6, the iPhones default browser, Safari, now uses Googles secure search (SSL) meaning the keyword or search phrases no longer pass through to analytics tools such as Google Analytics.

The refferer data is also missing which means if you are analysing the sources of mobile traffic you may start to see a dip in traffic sent via Google. Secure search is the reason why you are seeing (not provided) in your keyword report – it is people searching on Google who are logged into their Google accounts.Read More

It’s not about you…..part 2

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I’ve been compelled to write a follow up to an article I wrote a couple of years ago titled ‘It’s not about you’.

It was a recent tweet that prompted me, a brief but telling interaction that said a great deal about where the ‘Tweeter’ was in their marketing thinking.

Here’s the long and the short of it…

We ‘followed’ a company on the Twitter (we do this a bit) and their brief response went something like this:

“thanks for the follow, to find out more about us visit our website www.yadayadayada”Read More

5 Google Analytics questions you should ask your agency today

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For many who follow this blog you will be aware that we love working with data, especially Google Analytics data. Using Google Analytics to assess the performance of tactics, channels and content effectiveness over periods of time help marketers do better with their online marketing.

Some marketers will use Google Analytics quite a bit and some won’t so I’ve tried to include questions everybody can ask their agencies, designers or in-house web teams today.Read More

Why a cut in marketing budgets might not be a bad thing for marketers

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Over the last few months there has been various studies released focusing on headcount and marketing budgets as we approach 2013. Research conducted by Lead Edge ‘Construction Market Barometer‘ recently showed that 28% of companies are expecting no change to their marketing budget, with 36% expecting growth. Whilst that is a good sign I personally also think that leaves more room for random acts of marketing (do more! do more of the less effective stuff!!).

Which means the remaining 36% of companies surveyed are looking at reducing marketing budgets. I can only assume that the companies which belong in this bucket are trying to assess which tactics, channels and strategies to cut or eliminate as we move closer to 2013.Read More