Ever since Google launched its new social network, Google+, rumours have been flying around about when and how it would be integrated into search results. Well, now we know. Yesterday, Google announced the biggest change to the way search results are displayed for many years. They’re calling it ‘Search, plus Your World‘ and it could have a huge impact on the way people find content on the web.

The big idea is to merge ‘public’ search results with content from the searcher’s Google+ social network by adding three new elements: Personal Results, Profiles in Search and People and Pages.

The success and impact of these changes depends on how many people sign up to Google+ and start using it regularly. At the moment, with the dominance of Facebook, it’s hard to imagine users switching to Google+ en masse, but having said that, the uptake of Google+ has been huge with over 50 million users signed-up in a little over 6 months.

HeadRed will be keeping a close eye on the changes to keep our SEO Coventry clients fully informed.

This week The British Heart Foundation (BHF) revealed a new advert to promote the use of CPR featuring hard-man ex-footballer turned hard-man actor, Vinnie Jones. After earning a reputation as a tough man on the pitch during his time as part of the ‘Crazy Gang’ playing for Wimbledon FC, including that famous picture of him getting to grips with Paul Gascoigne, Vinnie then went on to star as a range of hooligans, criminals and a powerful comic book villain in films such as Lock, Stock and Two smoking Barrels, Snatch, Gone in 60 Seconds and X-Men: The Last Stand. But does the actor keep up his hard-man persona in this video?

The video is a very clever parody of the ‘Vinnie Jones’ character and shows him playing a gangster teaching how to perform CPR. The BHF have said that anyone without insufficient CPR training should not perform the “kiss of life” but focus on hands-only CPR instead and Vinnie shows how to perform the life saving procedure to the beat of the Bee Gees hit “Stayin’ Alive”.

Have a look for yourself.

The video has been a success for The BHF with the YouTube video on the official channel receiving over 150,000 views and nearly 5,000 likes. The video has also been picked up by a wide range of online news sites and blogs this week as well as featuring heavily on social media sites. Facebook has seen the video shared multiple times and a large quantity of positive comments on The BHF wall. The campaign has also been trending throughout the week on Twitter with the promoted hashtag #hardandfast trending as well as other phrases relating to the video meaning many people were discussing the humorous video.

The “Hard & Fast” video has been a great example of a successful online campaign to promote a good cause and message. The humorous angle taken by The BHF has appealed to many people who have then shared the video with friends via social media networks and the life saving advice featured in the video has meant coverage by a wide range of news sites. Online coverage of this level is beneficial for both conveying a message to a wide audience and can also lead to an increase in search engine rankings. More links to a site can mean improvements in rankings and sharing content via social media sites is a great way to gain these links.

If you would like to discuss a social media or SEO Coventry based campaign then get in touch with HeadRed today to discuss what we can do for your business or organisation.

Today is expected to be the biggest shopping day of the year in the UK with shoppers heading to the high street to pick up last minute Christmas gifts. There are expected to be over 30 million transactions worth over £1.5billion throughout the day, around 8 per cent more than the same time in 2010.

Much to the disgust of shoppers who bought in plenty of time for Christmas, many high street stores have decided to kick off their January sales early meaning that many have paid over the odds for their Christmas gifts. Stores like Argos, Debenhams, John Lewis and M&S are all starting their sales now in order to avoid piles of stock becasue of customers leaving it so late.

In contrast, online stores have been reducing prices for weeks with great deals to be had all across the web including Amazon and some of our ecommerce Coventry clients. Although it is almost definitely impossible to order online now in time for Christmas, the same great deals will be available after with the addition of some new ones as the Boxing Day and January sales start properly.

It does seem like online shopping is becoming the way to go for Christmas shopping. You can get the best deals early and avoid all the queues and hassle of the high street. Early reports suggest that online shopping is up 16 per cent this year from last and the number is expected to increase in the coming years. There has never been a better time to set up an online ecommerce business.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all here at HeadRed. We look forward to seeing you in 2012.

The last few weeks our blog posts have been focussed around Google so for this week we were adamant that we were going to change that and write about something that didn’t mention the search engine giant. But then they went and released their yearly Google Zeitgeist which details “the most popular and the fastest rising” search terms for the year. The Zeitgeist lists the top ten searches across different categories across different countries and gives an insight into the events, people and products that shaped 2011 so we couldn’t help but let you know about the fastest rising worldwide search terms for 2011.

The top ten features a wide range of people and products, with three searches relating to Apple appearing in the top ten. At number 10 we have the “iPad2” which was released throughout the world during the first half of 2011 and sold 500,000 tablets in the first weekend. The sad death of Apple founder “Steve Jobs” in October made him the first or two deaths that feature in the top ten. Number eight is “東京 電力”, which relates to the Japanese Fukushima Plant nuclear reactors which were damaged during the devastating earthquake. Two days after the earthquake saw a massive rise in searches as support and donations poured in from around the world.

Pop star “Adele” was the seventh fastest rising search of 2011, with a 1,588% increase in searches from 2010. An interesting thing to note about this search is that it maintained constantly high searches throughout the whole year, where as other search terms peaked at a sudden point in the year. Another Apple search was at number six with the “iPhone 5“, even though the product wasn’t actually released. Many people expected Apple to unveil the product this year but they revealed the iPhone 4s instead. Video game fans made “Battlefield 3“ a high search term of 2011 with much anticipation for the first person shooter. The American case of “Casey Anthony“, who was charged with the murder of her 2 year old daughter but then found not guilty in July, was a high search term with people not only interested before and during the case but also in Casey’s life after the trial.

We begin the top three with the sad death of “Ryan Dunn” after the Jackass TV and movie star died in a car accident in June. During the news of his death there were nearly as many searches for his name as there was for the keyword ‘weather’. With speculation about drink driving and an emotional Jackass highlight reel shown at his funeral, fans kept searching for Ryan to make him the third fastest rising search of 2011. At number two we have “Google+“ as Google launched its newest attempt to capture the social networking crowd. Throughout the second half of the year the search term had a constantly high search volume due to the announcement, launch and then open sign-up of the product. Whether Google+ has the momentum to take on the might of Facebook is yet to be decided but as SEO Coventry specialists we will still be searching and following this throughout 2012.

And so we come to the number one fastest rising search term of 2011 and it’s safe to say that it most likely won’t feature again in the Google Zeitgeist in feature years.  A 13 year old American girl called “Rebecca Black” made a splash after releasing her pop song ‘Friday’ onto the unsuspecting public which went viral and resulted in over 167 million views on YouTube. At one point in the year Rebecca Black even beat global superstar Lady Gaga in search terms. If you are unaware to the phenomenon that is ‘Friday’ then have a look on YouTube to hear the song which made Rebecca Black the fastest rising worldwide search term of 2011.

There are many facts, graphs and information about the searches of 2011, so if you have some spare time then we’d highly recommend having a look at the full listings on the Google Zeitgeist with the top ten ‘Fastest Rising in Sports’, ‘What is…?’, and ‘How to’ searches for individual countries.

As we all know Google is the main go-to-point for the majority of people’s Internet searches and has been for the past decade. It also looks like Google will be the main search engine in the years to come with the search giant constantly improving its search algorithm and looking to add new products and services to its extending portfolio. The other week Google released a video via its official blog which featured a video chronicling ‘The Evolution of Search in Six Minutes‘.

The company are said to make roughly 500 different improvements to search in a year and 2011 alone has seen big changes including the much talked about Panda update which is said to have affected 12% of search results and crack down on sites with poor and duplicate content. Other changes over the past year include multiple updates to the Panda algorithm, the introduction of the +1 button, expanded site links when searching for brands and a ‘freshness’ update that focussed on returning recent content.

An interesting point mentioned in the video is how the terror attacks of Sept 11^th inspired Google to improve search results to return the latest news. When entering “the Twin Towers” as a search term, the results returned were sites with information about the buildings and not news about the attacks. This led to the development of Google News results to provide users with up to date news with multiple points of view.

Since the web has develop at such a fast pace with images, video, blogs and products appearing on more and more sites Google developed Universal Results to give search results that also covered the rich web to make sure users were also receiving these types of content in their search results. Other major introductions included paid adverts appearing with the search results in the form of AdWords and Google Instant with the goal to provide quick answers as users are typing in their searches.

Google looks set to continue its dominance of the search engine market with continued improvements such as the ability to drag an image into the search area to get results and voice search which will have great benefits for mobile phone users. To back sure you stay on top of these improvements and changes then get in touch with HeadRed, the search engine optimisation Coventry agency.

Seemingly not content with being the leader in web search and owning the most popular mobile operating system, Google seems to have it’s eye on a new market, online shopping. The Wall Street Journal has reported that several large US retailers, including Macy’s, OfficeMax and Gap, have been approached by the search giant about joint ventures.

Google’s most recent product Google+ was launched to take on Facebook in the social media space but this time they are setting their sights on Amazon and online shopping. A large amount of web traffic is people searching for things to buy and many customers choose to go straight to Amazon and bypass Google completely.

Specifically, Google will be taking on ‘Amazon Prime’ a service offering unlimited one-day shipping on over a million eligible products and large reductions on express and evening delivery options. The service is available for an annual fee of £49 and streamlines the shopping and delivery process for a huge number of online retailers.

Google already has some of the infrastructure in place to offer a service like this. Google Product Search allows customers to search for, compare prices and read reviews on products from many retailers across the web. Google checkout is an online payment service similar to PayPal that allows customers to pay for items on the web with their Google account. They will be looking to combine these existing services with the added convenience of shipping services.

At least for the time being Google wouldn’t be looking to sell anything itself but instead running the entire process from search to delivery for other online retailers. This is different from Amazon who run a large number of warehouses and are very much in control of the entire process. Google would have to outsource to third-party logistics companies for many of the things that Amazon deals with itself, perhaps increasing the chance of the service being unsuccessful.

Google are known for providing a good level of service to it’s many users but at the end of the day their main business is advertising. By taking some of the web traffic from Amazon they will be able to increase their advertising revenue.

Google has a habit of seeing a market and taking it but Amazon will be a tough competitor. We will have to watch the situation closely to see if any of our e-commerce Coventry clients could benefit from being part of it.