Entries from June 2011

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

SEO Week: how Broadband Genie beats richer companies using unpaid search

Companies like Broadband Genie live or die by visitor clickthrough – the site needs to be found and visited all the time to make its money. In the third in a series of videos filmed last year at UCA Farnham, editor Chris Marling talks about the tricks he uses to beat big Google advertisers and win […]

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

SEO Week: Where does Broadband Genie’s web traffic come from?

In the second in a series of videos filmed last year at UCA Farnham, Chris Marling talks about where broadband comparison site Broadband Genie’s traffic was coming from last year. In a word? Google. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JGumGaB0g Traffic patterns 70% of the site’s visits come from Google. 10% direct 3% from Google News 3% Yahoo 3% Bing […]

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

SEO Week: How Broadband Genie makes money from online content

Can you make money online through editorial content? In a series of videos filmed last year at UCA Farnham, Chris Marling explains how broadband comparison site Broadband Genie achieves £1 million in annual revenue through clever use of SEO and targeted consumer editorial content. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86zLGUemjs0 The Broadband Genie business model The Broadband Genie web site makes […]

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Is Tumblr in trouble? Warning signs for free Web 2.0 tools…

Kathy Gill writes on Wired Pen that Tumblr has removed its RSS import tool. So Tumblr users can’t use the platform to aggregate content, and as a result she finds it “far less useful”. It could also mean Tumblr is far less secure financially. The telling quote is from Tumblr’s own customer services: In order […]

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Modern linguistic madness #1: Coinstar counting machines

Evidence that modern life is rubbish, linguistically at least: spotted in the local Morrisons, a handy Coinstar coin exchange machine. Unlike most other commentators, I’m not taking issue with the ridiculous idea of paying a machine for the privilege of counting my money. But I believe we must stand up against the incoherence of its […]

Friday, June 17th, 2011

Harsh sentence for semi-literate Facebook juror

A juror who has been prosecuted for contempt of the English language after using Facebook to contact a defendant in a drugs trial, has been sentenced to eight months of remedial language lessons. Joanne Fraill admitted at London’s high court using Facebook to exchange incoherent messages with Jamie Sewart, a former defendant in last year’s […]

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

“As seen on YouTube” information FAIL

So, YouTube has introduced a groovy new feature called “As seen on YouTube”, which creates special pages of videos embedded on various blogs and other web sites. It’s a celebration of content curators, apparently. Sounds great! How can I get my site’s curated YouTube video all in one place on an “As seen on  YouTube” […]

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Why your Facebook page keeps telling you it isn’t published

Apparently you have to “like” your own page before Facebook will publish it. Unless a page has at least one “like”, Facebook won’t let you go live with it (thanks, Squidoo). Which is so bonkers I can’t even begin to express it. And where’s that information in the Facebook help pages? Hmm?

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Facebook: why is the world’s most popular site so difficult to use?

Any reader looking to the right of this post will see a blank Facebook feed requiring a login to see a “Facebook public profile”. Or maybe a feed from my Freelance Unbound Facebook page. Or maybe they’ll see something else that I don’t see – because Facebook is nothing if not contrary. The other day […]

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

Prescient video of the week: “Salad, the Silent Killer”

In light of recent events, here’s Vogue food critic Jeffrey Steingarten talking about his prescient essay on “Salad, the Silent Killer”, from his collection of gastronomic writings The Man Who Ate Everything – (everything except, it would seem, salad). We should have listened…