You may remember the late 90’s when Ask Jeeves was the top dog search engine (at least in this country…for me). It encouraged you to ask a question to a butler called Jeeves (he’s recently come back from holiday too) in order to deliver your answers.

Well, from personal experience at least, this search query type hasn’t gone away. And it can be a huge source of targeted traffic.

According to Hitwise, search engine queries are getting longer. I believe that this should in part be attributed to the rise of sites such as Yahoo Answers and the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) sections of websites. Personally, I constantly search for question-related queries in order to find an instance where someone has asked the same question and received an answer.

So how do you optimise for question-related queries – and how do you find the right ones to focus on?

How to optimise for questions

Optimising for question-related queries is easy. As mentioned, you may have a FAQ section on your website, so you can put them in there. Or you could put the question as a title of a blog post and answer it.

A better method (to potentially increase conversion rate) is to include questions in the formatting of your product pages i.e. use questions as headings.

The more specific the questions you answer, the more likely you are to answer the final question of a user that is ready to buy. And if the product is right in front of them then they are more likely to do so from your site.

For example, say you sell…memory cards. You could structure your memory card product page copy with the following headings – using general questions first and working down to more specific ones:

What is a memory card?

How do memory cards work?

How much can you store on a memory card?

…and so on.

Finding which questions to focus on

Finding the right questions to focus on is harder. Google Keyword Tool won’t really help you out. However, if you’re willing to spend a little bit of money, then Wordtracker is a brilliant source of question queries. Simply think of some question words (who, where, what, how etc.), combine them with your product/service (memory cards) and search to see what comes up.

For more information give us a call on 0114 279 7779.

Apparently most children grow up to become still more inquisitive adults in nature (at least in my case), which must have been in some way been the premise of social search.

So, what is social search?

Social search incorporates the wisdom of real people rather than of the semantic wisdom of search engines for queries that range from “What is the best dog food brand that I could buy?” to “How do I plan a wedding?” In a way social search is more an extension of the social media available online. Though social search sites began cropping up a few years ago, it’s never been as exciting as now for marketers to tap into the potential of what social search sites can offer for promoting brands.

Fluther is one such social search site that creates a ‘trusted community that shares diverse experience and knowledge’. The free question and answer service gets more than 700,000 unique visitors each month where users have until now answered more than a million questions. Fluther founders Ben Finkel and Andrew McClain, see their service as a tool for “knowledge-networking.”

More such Q&A sites that are populating the internet include Quora, Hunch, ChaCha as well as the recently purchased Aardvark. Aardvark was bought for a nice sum of $50 million by Google sparking interest among investors for other social search sites.

What does social search mean for business?

So what would social search mean to an average marketer? Not only would they be able to glean information from social search related queries but they would have an opportunity to participate as well.

When people pose questions, they inevitably reveal a lot of information about themselves.

I investigated a question and answer thread on the best place to eat sushi in Sheffield on a local website.  As well as discovering the popularity of sushi in the city I found revealing information on the demographics, age, gender, and disposable incomes of the people in the conversation. All information like this is hugely valuable for knowing where to market products so that they reach carefully targeted audiences.

You could also use Social Search in specific sectors. Let’s say you own a sushi business in Sheffield. How could social search help you? For starters, social search hubs could offer you all that information on a platter. You could get an idea of what your target market thinks of your competitors or what they would be willing to spend on a decent sushi meal.

After all, if social media has given any indication of what marketers spend online trying to woo people on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, it’s only a matter of time when you get a shampoo brand trying to get your attention on your question on ‘how to take care of your thinning hair’.

Think you could get some marketing mileage for your business out of social search? Why not give Quba a call on 01142797779. We will be glad to help you find cash generating conversations.

It’s really hard working out which is the best league to join with so many options to choose from. Some look great but are unworkable, others are brilliant but you can only afford one decent player and some sites have rules that are so cruel that you don’t dare transfer players who are having a nightmare season.

So where should you manage in 2009-10? There’s so much choice this year so we’ve asked members of the Quba team to review five of this years options to help you decide.

Metro Fantasy Football- Will Barron (Designer)

http://fantasyfootball.metro.co.uk/

Most expensive player: Didier Drogba – £10M

Best value: “I’ll take a guess and say Ben Foster – £4.1m. He might not have done very well at Manchester United, but he could easily follow in Joe Hart’s footsteps & have an excellent season with Birmingham.

Usability: “The Metro’s fantasy football isn’t bad, however it doesn’t live up to my high expectations from being an long-serving user of the Official Premier league fantasy football.

The site has a glossy look & feel, however the interface can be a little fiddly & difficult to follow when it comes to making your initial team selection. ” 6/10

The Mirror You The Manager- Jessica Penny (Senior Symphony Account Executive)

http://youthemanager.mirrorfootball.co.uk

Most expensive player: Frank Lampard £9.5m
Best value: “On a value for letters basis Bilyaletdinov is unbeatable at a mere £4.5m!.”

Usability: “As a fantasy football virgin, I was really going into this blind.

The site looked appealing (even to someone who doesn’t like football) and I could easily and quickly work out what I needed to do as a paragraph of text titled ‘Selecting your team could not be easier!’, was big. Each step of the setup process was also user friendly.

A scroll bar enabled me to easily view players from each of the relevant categories and I could find key information I was looking for. Unfortunately there were no photographs of the players though which was a big disappointment!

Realising that perhaps, choosing players on the basis that they had nice sounding names probably wasn’t going to get me the best results, I also found the ‘reset’ button very handy!

A colleague pointed out that it was unusual to not be able to pick subs so perhaps this is an area where this site falls down. Other than that, the site surprised  me in terms of how easy it was to use and I actually had fun using it!” 7.5/10

Skysports Fantasy Football- Matt Solly (Junior Developer)

http://fantasyfootball.skysports.com/

Most expensive player : Didier Drogba £7.9m
Best value: “Looking at the points from last season in relation to this years’ prices I’d say Drogba again. He scored 201 points last season with the next best being Wayne Rooney at who scored 181, and he’s only 0.1m cheaper!

Usability: “I found the onsite Usability to be really good and the layout was also easy to use which made selecting my team easier.
Like most of these games you are only allowed to pick 2 players from each team in the premiership; but it was good that once you had 2 players selected the other players from that team were greyed out so they couldn’t be selected.
The only issue is only being given £55m to start with, which doesn’t seem very realistic in some of the valuations of players in todays market. Rooney is easily worth somewhere between £40m and £50m!” 8/10

Official Premier League-Ben Franklin Developer

http://fantasy.premierleague.com/

Most expensive player : Frank Lampard £13m

Best value: Javier Hernández Balcázar £7.5m (My tip to do big things at Man Utd!)

Usability: “I feel I had an easy review having been given the official Fantasy Premier League. I’ve been entering teams for around 5 years now, and I always find it slick and easy to use. To be fair there are plenty of features I haven’t even touched, such as the Pundit and Fantasy Stats sections, but the ease of creating private leagues and the simple transfer system keep me coming back. It is the choice for Quba, and has been for the past few seasons.

The only negative is last season I picked a team full of ex-Sheffield United players, and they all let me down big time!” 9/10

Telegraph Fanstasy Football-Jon Eaton (New Business Executive)

http://fantasyfootball.telegraph.co.uk/

Most expensive player: Drogba/Lampard £7m
Best value: “Andre Arshavin £4.7m. If Fabregas does go to Barcelona the little Russian maestro will surely be given the more central role he craves.”
Usability: “Overall I left the Telegraph site more confused than amazed. I liked the tactical options and that all players came with a photograph (useful for finding lesser known world cup players) but the additional features were fiddly and unworkable. Some of the links back to the main site failed and the navigation was far from intuitive; what would happen when you need to make changes quickly before a mid-week game? or when someone gets injured? Imagine the stress!”  5/10

If you want our opinions on your site please give us a call on 0114 279 7779

Having lost count of the number of website briefs that I’ve seen over the years, I wanted to share what I think needs to go into a good website briefing document.

The documents have ranged from half-a-side of A4 to a 30 page book full of technical information and specific instructions on replying. To give you the agency point of view on tenders I’ll share three tips that will ensure you get the best value from your agencies.

Step 1: Have clear decision-making criteria

Take time with your project stakeholders to work out what factors are most important to the success of the project. Is it creativity regardless of price or is it cost first. For each project you have three elements working against each other:

1. Price; how much you’re willing to pay
2. Requirements; what you want
3. Timescales; how soon you want it

So for some businesses the overarching requirement is to have a really creative website with high quality photography and attention grabbing copy. Other businesses have budget constraints and will happily accept stock imagery (so long as they’re not too pricey). Controversially timescales are too often cited as being critical, when all too often they’re just an arbitrary date with little significance.

There may be other factors to consider, for instance is being geographically close to the agency important to consider.

Once you’ve selected, defined and agreed on your criteria create a shortlist of agencies based on research, word of mouth recommendations and directory searching (Quba are now on the Recommended Agency Register). Obviously Quba should always appear high on the list!

Depending on your timescales now may be the time to filter down your list of agencies. Review their portfolio and results, contact the sales team and ask for testimonials, day rates and example project costs.

Step 2: Be specific about budget or requirements for the best value

“Do you have a budget in mind?”
“We do. But we wanted to see what you come back with to ensure we’re getting the best value.”

In most cases this view is a fallacy. To get the best value from your web agency you should be specific in either of the following ways:

• A. Create a very detailed brief and response guideline for the agency to quote against
• B. Set a budget range with a loose brief that the agency can interpret

The reason that this works for you as a client is that with option A the agency has very specific criteria against which to quote. Therefore you can quickly compare prices. To be competitive the agency has to offer to meet your criteria at the best possible price. It also allows the agency to demonstrate clearly how they will add value.

Option B is about approaching the project from the other end. The agency will take your loose brief and come up with a solution that matches the budget. Agencies can then be compared on the basis of what they offer rather than what they cost.

Step 3: Consider the marketing of your website

Back in the good old days when I was cutting my teeth as a junior programmer, it was considered good enough if you just rammed a load of keywords in the META Keywords tag. These days digital marketing has multiple channels that need to be considered.

In the brief tell the agency about current traffic figures and website conversions (unless it’s a new website). Explain your goals in the brief and ask the agency for their ideas on how they will achieve this. You should always base this on the number of conversions your want to receive not where you want to rank!

Summary

If you’d like the team at Quba to help you get more from your website get in touch with David Sealey on 0114 279 7779 or via dsealey@quba.co.uk.

A well functioning website should be jigsaw of inter-connecting pages that cater for multiple user groups

Have you ever wondered how much of what you do is unnoticed?

Every day in the UK good work escapes praise. People get ignored and services get forgotten. Answers get lost and questions remain unanswered. It’s life..but it shouldn’t be, especially when it comes to your business’ website.

We’ve had loads of enquiries about getting your site indexed by search engines recently so we thought a blog article could help turn sites from secret gardens into public parks.

We’ve had a whip round our team and come up with the following tips.

…

Improving navigation gets users to visit more pages on websites.

“Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.” Francesco Petrarca

There should be a logical route to any page on your site from your homepage in three clicks or less.

But what if you have thousands and thousands of pages? How can you get them all in your site within three clicks? You need to be creative, this rule is not for bending.

1. Drop downs – A dropdown menu categorises content quickly which helps a targeted user to find what they want, fast.

2. Tabbing – Tabbed pages are useful for multi-faceted organisations or businesses who have a wide range of services. By skipping to the pages relevant to their area users only find content useful for them.

3. Calls to Action – Getting users to contact you can also be done by offering clicks to themes or subjects rather than business areas. Think outside the box.

4. Landing Pages – Be flexible. Cater for different kinds of users by incorporating search forms or having good quality related links to pages on your site that interest them.

Correctly linking to pages within your website gets them high up the rankings

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” Galileo Galilei

Everyone knows that users need to find your website when using search engines. But finding the right page within your website can be the difference between a bounce and sale.
When a user searches for a phrase related to a service or product you offer, you want that specific page to be at the top rather than the homepage. Why depend on the user to click three times when they can click once?

1. Link structure – Make the link structure of your website as flat as possible ensures that both product and service pages appear in the search engines.

This means linking to as many important pages as possible from each page. A great way to do this is again implementing drop down navigation.

2. Anchor text – Make sure your links have the right ‘anchor text’.  If you want a page to appear in the search engines for a particular key phrase, make sure that the key phrase is used as the text to link to it. This means both links on your website and on others.

3. Use the correct URL – When linking to your website, choose the most relevant page. For example, if you are promoting ‘family law’, then make sure you link to the ‘family law’ page within your website.

Use social media to generate targeted traffic

“When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

In most cases your website should be the hub of your online presence. Your social media profiles act as spokes or outposts around the hub to engage with your audience and drive traffic to your site.

1. Useful information only- Social media is great for sharing content, provided it is useful to your audience. An effective way to drive traffic to your site is to simply ask your fans or followers what they would like to see from you and then create it and promote through your communities. An on site blog, for example is one of the simplest and most beneficial methods for improving your website’s search engine rankings.

2. Find Relevent Conversations- Another way to use social media to drive traffic is to go out looking for conversations that are happening around your industry and services. Become a member of the community, offer expert advice and where appropriate link back to your website. Again you should always ensure you direct people to the most relevant page in your site.

If you would like to have a chat about improving your website’s search rankings and traffic levels, please call Jon Eaton on 0114 279 7779.

Speaking to The Guardian this week Zuckerberg talked about the future of Facebook, “If we succeed [in innovating and remaining relevant] there is a good chance of bringing this to a billion people… it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”

To celebrate this new milestone Facebook are running a sweet campaign called Facebook Stories where half a billion Facebook users across the world can share stories about how they use Facebook and how it has impacted their lives.

The stories range from funny to moving, for example “Holly Rose, a mother in Phoenix, who credits a friend’s Facebook status message telling women to check for breast cancer with her being diagnosed in time to treat the disease. She used Facebook for support during treatment and became a prevention advocate herself.”

This got us thinking, what would happen if Facebook disappeared? Would you care? Would you be able to cope?! To answer these burning questions, Quba Director Darren Bristow and Account Exec Jonathan Eaton took to the streets armed with a video camera and microphone. Here’s what the folks of Sheffield had to say:

The special occasion.

Not long after the wedding, baby ‘online reputation management’ was born. Everyone was happy and a long life together seemed on the cards.

The problem is, as Jeremy Kyle can confirm, SEO wasn’t really the father.

It had quickly gone back to its old ways of indulging in link building with dodgy websites and Social Media was left to have it away with old man Mr. Brand Manager, 79, from Harvard (whenever she could get a look in).

However, I still think the marriage can work. SEO and Social Media should stay together and raise ‘online reputation management’ as their own. But maybe rename it ‘online audience engagement’ to dispel the bad memories.

As you may know, ‘online reputation management’ is the process of finding mentions of your brand name (usually by using social media tools) and then getting involved in the conversation. This can sometimes result in you being able to link back to your website.

You can also take this further, monitoring the internet for mentions of the keywords you’re focusing on and doing the same – something I like to combine with ‘online reputation management’ and call ‘online audience engagement’.

The problem for many SEOs seems to be engaging in a meaningful way, with the process being too lengthy for not enough SEO benefits.

This is because many SEOs in competitive markets subscribe to the approach that the value of links need to be judged in terms of their perceived popularity and the time it takes to build them. This essentially means spending as little time as possible getting links from sites with as high PageRank as possible.

In other words, they subscribe to a purely short term approach, which usually leads to using methods that Google works against.

The benefits of integrating Social Media and SEO can be exponential for your brand in the longer term, if you spend time trying to do it well.

For example, if you engage in a meaningful way, with something to say of value to the audience, then they are one step closer to becoming advocates for your brand. And how do you advocate a brand online? By linking to it.

If you devote just a small amount of time towards Social Media in your SEO campaign and strive to do it well, then it could be well worth doing it at the expense of some of those mediocre ‘quick win’ links.

Quba account executive Jon Eaton discusses how the Rauol Moat case shows the power of Social Media in reporting live events and exposing the unknown.

In the three weeks since Rauol Moat went on the run 700 pages on Facebook have been created, tens of millions of tweets have been tweeted and upwards of 800 videos have been uploaded to Youtube. Online audiences have remained huge since his death with social media channels playing a huge part in keeping the story current and on the lips of 61 million British people.

One group praising Moat attracting upwards of 30,000 fans has even prompted the Prime Minister to condemn supporters of a man he publically dubbed a ‘callous murderer’.

In such extreme circumstances it is difficult to see what a business could learn from what appears to be exceptional online behaviour in exceptional circumstances.

How could this be relevant for my business or organisation?

How can online hysteria make me money or generate interest in what I do?

Social media channels are becoming increasingly important for people looking for information on live issues.

The amount of references to Facebook and Twitter in news reports show that both the press and public are increasingly trusting social media to find reliable information. By having a credible and active presence on these areas you can gain exposure to audiences hoping to find useful information which influences their opinions and decisions.

Using different social media channels together can tell a story in a multi-media style.

Using different kinds of websites such as Youtube, Twitter and Facebook together can produce a content rich and engaging informational resource which will boost your online reputations and encourage people to visit your website. Being able to give users a complete experience helps to retain and entertain them which improve your chances of doing more business online.

Social media can undeniably create huge momentum and interest which you can use to your advantage.

From nowhere the Rauol Moat story has become one of the most debated online issues with huge numbers of users participating. When social media users find something of interest to them their behaviour almost acts as a free publicity tool. The ‘viral’ effect of large numbers of users talking about the same thing promotes strong engagement. All you need is the right message.

Social media monitoring can find unexpected sources of dissent.

If there were thousands people rallying against you or actively supporting an opposition wouldn’t you want to know? By watching the activity of people you do business with online you can find out where your service is doing well and falling down. If you ignore your online audience behaviour in your sector could you be in a position where your reputation is being damaged and you can’t defend yourself?

Digital agencies can help you coordinate your social media operations in a way which is completely advantageous

Knowing how and when to communicate on social media sites to deliver results is both complicated and tactical. Deciding what to say and where to say it requires carefully planned individual strategies created by experts. At Quba we use cutting edge monitoring skills and our knowledge of online behaviours to deliver measurable results for your business. To find out how please contact David Sealey on 0114 279 7779.

Being a Sheffield born lass working in a Sheffield agency again this means a lot to me, as it does to all Sheffield’s proud residents.  Sheffield’s bid is supported by a website, Facebook fan page, Twitter account, Flickr photo group and YouTube channel. Phew! Great work guys!

Sheffield’s bid is based on 13 principles including music, talent, history, environment and so on. One of the most interesting for me is Sheffield: Connected City and Sheffield: Business City. These are detailed on the website as follows,

“In 2013 Sheffield will sit at the heart of the most digitally connected region in the UK. The £90 million Digital Region initiative will bring the first major deployment of super fast broadband in the UK to our city, providing endless possibilities for our 2013 programme and the city’s digital future. With 5 international airports and 9 million people within an hour of the city, Sheffield will invite the world to visit in 2013.

Sheffield aspires to be the most creative city in the UK by 2020 and aims to be a benchmark for the way in which businesses operate and innovate through a creative approach. Electric Works, part of Sheffield’s new and unique Digital Campus, is the only office building in the UK with a helter-skelter slide!”

I moved back to Sheffield a couple of years ago after being away for seven years. Since then I have been amazed by the enthusiasm and passion for collaboration I have seen between people in the city. Sheffield really is an innovative city for business, especially digital business. I think of grass roots groups and events such as Sheffield Geek Ups, The Girl Geeks Dinner, Unconference to name but a few. These people take the time to organise and attend these events simply because they love what they do. I think of innovative Sheffield based small businesses like eco-friendly bag producer Bag It Don’t Bin It or Scout and Guide social network Skowt and I feel so lucky to be a part of this vibrant and exciting community.

So, my fellow Sheffielders, lets say a prayer for our beautiful city and trust that we’re going to be the next City of Culture not only because of our rich cultural contribution but for our fantastic people, our innovative and creative approach to business and our forward looking principles. I love you Sheffield! Let’s create something amazing!

The event was organised by Quba alum Rob Wilmot and the keynote speaker was Chris Brogan. If you haven’t heard of Chris before, he is an eleven year veteran of social media, web and mobile technologies. He is the best selling author of the books Trust Agents and Social Media 101, and his blog is in the top 5 of the Advertising Age Power150, and in the top 100 on Technorati. Obviously I was keen to hear him speak…

Anyway, Darren Bristow and I arrived Wednesday morning and I immediately spotted Rob sitting with my former Together Agency colleagues, Jason Burrows and Nick Wright (now of Hubbub Ideas ). After the joyous reunions, I was introduced to none other than Chris Brogan himself. I sat down to chat and was pleasantly surprised to find him soft spoken and eager to pay attention to what other people have to say.

They often say that what makes a person popular is their ability to make whoever they are talking to feel like the most important person in the room. Chris certainly has this skill, I observed him quietly working his magic on everyone who timidly (or otherwise) approached him to chat throughout the day. He also takes care to remember names and to tailor his talks to his audience. For example, being nervous and not sure what to do, I gave him my business card after we finished chatting in the morning. During his introductory talk he made a passing comment that he “throws away 90% of business cards” he receives. I was mortified until he followed up with “Rebecca yours is safe”. That’s a good memory!

The key points I took from his talk were points that marketers should tattoo to the inside of their eyelids. So simple, yet so often forgotten:

Listen - The first step of understanding what people want from you (or your brand) is to just LISTEN. People are talking, don’t try to stop it or move it to a more acceptable platform just spend some time finding out what they want.

Be humble – Do not go on about yourself all the time (ooops). Chris emphasized the 12:1 rule, for every 12 posts you make helping others you can make 1 promoting yourself. When you do make your one request for help, people are much more likely to help you.

Be human – Find out people’s names, who they are, what they do and what they need. Make them feel important, be compassionate and build a mutually satisfying relationship. This is pretty hard to fake, but hopefully you won’t need to since your customers are the ones paying your bills ;p

He wound up the presentation with strategy points for career and personal development as follows:

• Lay out your lifestyle wishes online and offline
• Pick a niche
• Set goals (business, financial etc)
• Build a homebase (website)
• Visit outposts (social networks)
• Promote others and get yourself noticed
• Refine how to be helpful
• Provide value every day

Do you know what counts as value to your audience? What’s your niche? Do you have a homebase and do you know which outposts you need to visit? What should you do when you get there? If you would like to discuss any of these questions, feel free to mail, comment or tweet me.

Image source: Flickr