SEO News

Burberry and Topshop rule London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week has come and gone, leaving a trail of sequins and glitter all over the streets of our capital.

In the aftermath, it’s good to look at which brands generated the most excitement around their fashion shows.

Data from Hotwire PR shows that Burberry managed to drive the most conversations around its show with 21,958 tweets, while Topshop came a distant second with 9,108.

Read my post to find out what made these brands so popular.

Capturing the moment – @CaraDelevingne on the front row of the @Burberry Prorsum S/S15 Show #LFW http://t.co/6QKAiUZyiX

— Burberry (@Burberry) September 16, 2014

Duplicate dangers

Econsultancy Editor Graham Charlton has delved into Google’s search rankings to show the perils of duplicate content.

RBS and Natwest, two banks owned by RBS Group, use the same site structure and content to market their products to new customers.

As a result Google gets flustered and the two sites struggle to maintain consistent search rankings.

Results for the term ‘secured loan’ show that the maximum rank of roughly midway down page three on Google was achieved by Natwest in early January and hasn’t been bettered since.

In fact, both sites have lingered on pages five and six for most of this period, and virtually disappeared in the second half of January. For such a valuable term, this performance could mean a loss of business for the two banks. 

Click to enlarge

Digital natives are no better than the rest of us

New research from Kantar Media suggests that so-called digital natives aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

The TGI Clickstream study found that adults in Britain aged between 15 and 24 years old are no more likely than other age groups to participate in a variety of key digital behaviours.

For example, while just under 30% of these traditionally-defined digital natives have paid to download an app, this is almost identical to the proportion of 35-44 year olds who have done likewise.

These older adults are also significantly more likely than digital natives to have bought a range of products or services online.

Digital natives are only 8% more likely than the average internet user to buy music or videos online, whereas 35-64 year olds with ‘high Social DNA’ are 52% more likely than the average to do so. 

Travel bookings go mobile

Travel bookings via mobile devices increase by more than 20% in the first six months of 2014, according to new data from Criteo. This compares to just 2% growth on desktop.

Mobile travel apps become more popular as in-app bookings account for 12% of mobile bookings. Smartphones and tablets account for 21% of hotel bookings.

The value of mobile bookings is increasing in every area except for accommodation. The average booking value was 21% higher for air travel and 13% higher for car rentals, but 30% lower for hotel bookings on mobile devices than desktop.

The Travel Flash Report represents the activity of more than 1,000 travel websites worldwide in the first half of 2014.

Women love their video games

According to the IAB women now play video games more than men. The trend is driven 25-44 year old women downloading free puzzle and trivia game apps.

A survey of just over 4,000 GB individuals aged 8-78 found that females account for over half (52%) of people who’ve played some form of video game in the last six months, compared to 49% three years ago. 

The study also found there are now more people over 44 years old playing games (27% of gamer population) than children and teenagers (22%).

Customer loyalty

People are only loyal to three brands and three-quarters of us (79%) prefer those that have a physical store, according to a study by Emarsys.

21% of consumers say a physical store is the best place to experience the style and personality of a brand.

Two-thirds (65%) of those surveyed say they buy regularly from brands they trust, a quarter (27%) open all the communications received and one in ten (11%) act on brand recommendations.

What is quality content?

Google is always harping on about the importance of quality content for achieving high search rankings. But what is it actually looking for?

A new study by Searchmetrics which analysed Google.com search results for 10,000 keywords and 300,000 web sites suggests content that ranks highly includes comprehensive relevant wording (not just specific keyword matches), higher word-count on the page, and the presence of images and videos.

The analysis found that website content is getting longer on average, with search results in positions two to ten often having more than 900 words per page.

However well known brand websites continue to rank in the top positions in search results even if they fail to meet certain criteria that other sites need to meet if they want to rank highly.

Apple infographic

And finally, here’s an infographic from Somo detailing everything you need to know about Apple’s new gadgets.

Posted by randfishWe’re seeing Google continue to move beyond just reading pages, instead attempting to truly understand what they’re about. The engine is drawing connections between concepts and brand names, and it’s affecting SERPs. In today’s Whiteb…