Published: November 18th, 2009
The topic of the day on the office radio is not the flooding that has prevented one of my colleagues from reaching work. Oh no. It is the question of whether or not a ‘help’ button should be added to Facebook and Myspace in order to prevent online bullying for children. So why is this topic so important?
Well, according to i-safe, 42% of children in America have been bullied whilst online (I couldn’t easily find any statistics for the UK – though interestingly a page titled ‘where is all the UK bullying statistics’ ranked quite high up in the SERPs, but that’s another blog post!) so the issue seems to be prevalent in many young lives.
The debate is therefore: would the addition of a ‘help’ button reduce this percentage?
My view is…well…no, probably not. The belief that a ‘help’ button would prevent bullying rests upon the belief that children would use it. I’m not so sure this is the case. Research on bullying over the years has shown that the majority of victims are too scared to get help for fear of making bullying worse. And the internet is a bigger place than the playground, where anonymity rules and children access a range of social networking tools. The fear of making it worse is still very real in the virtual world.
Is online bullying any different?
However, as mentioned in many reports, the button is very small and it can’t harm to add it, even it only prevents/aids a very small number of cases. One life saved or one happy child should be worth a small amount of screen space.
My warning is that those that expect it to work miracles are making a distinction between online and offline bullying culture that doesn’t exist. Offline, the victim is often too scared to tell their teacher, parents, the police. Would a help button somewhere in the playground make any difference?
Published: November 14th, 2009
Blueclaw have won two prestigious DADI trophies at the award ceremony that took place at the Royal Armouries in Leeds on Friday 13 November.
The Blueclaw team took home the awards for “Best Use of Organic Search (SEO)” and “Best Use of Paid Search (SEM)”, both awarded for the staggering search engine marketing success they achieved with one of Europe’s largest online golf retailers, www.direct-golf.co.uk.
Published: November 6th, 2009
Most people get into SEO by through necessity; by trying to push their own site up the rankings with little or no budget. Hence this is why many become obsessed with onsite factors – something they can learn and do without spending much money. For many, going out into worldwide web, spreading the word and getting those links seems far too much like hard work.
However, there’s no way around it. Learning the tricks of getting links is the most important thing you need to know when doing the SEO for a site by yourself.
I could give you examples of how to email people in order to do this etc. et.c, but it’s pointless me telling you. I’ve seen these tips given out (such as using a made-up girl’s name!) and now they don’t work as everyone is doing them. You have to find what works for you by experimenting. The only advice I can give you is to try and be original. The best way to do this is though making your request personal and relevant.
The same goes for blog comments or forum posts. Be original, sincere and relevant. Then the chances of your point of view being deleted as spam are much slimmer.
The key also is not to feel overwhelmed – link building is not an impossible task. To build, you have to do so block by block. If you set yourself a target of 2 or 3 links a day and just keep chipping away then you can still make a good contribution to optimising a site.
Published: October 27th, 2009
I’ve recently read that Youtube is now the second most-used search engine, ahead of Yahoo and Bing. If it is, then what does it mean for the long-discussed future of vertical search?
In case you don’t know what vertical search is, it means niche search engines that focus on a particular area of search. For example, you go to Youtube to search for videos only. So far, many have predicted that vertical search will take over from the current search paradigm, as vertical search can provide better results for the user – by better fulfilling their search expectations.
Google has noticed this coming and has diversified its product line to accommodate – e.g. Google Product Search, which focuses on…product search. So far this has proved successful in staving off the apparently imminent migration to niche corners of the internet.
Published: October 23rd, 2009
This is a question I often ask myself. As far as I can see, the answer seems to depend upon two factors – the emergence of real time search and how SEO progresses within the marketing mix.
At present it is impossible to see beyond Google when looking into the future. However, the emergence of a viable competitor does not seem as far off as it did a year ago. The merger of the Bing and Yahoo could make an impact – as long as they stop trying to play catch-up and start looking beyond existing search conventions.
One avenue that looks like it could impact upon Google’s quality-weighted algorithm is real-time search. At the moment, real-time search doesn’t offer much in terms of value for businesses. This is because of its current prominence in the social media sector. The failure of businesses to convert social media into revenue means that the connection between real-time search and revenue has not really been made.
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