With the new-format Google ads running alongside standard text ads for nearly a month, we’ve noticed some quirks, understood a bit more, and most importantly – seen the benefits. Google announced the change back in May, and launched the new Extended Text Ads (ETAs) at the end of July. Advertisers have until 26 October to create old-style standard text ads (STAs); after this only ETAs can be created. Google hasn’t given an end-date for running STAs, but it’s in your best interests to make new ads. We recommend you start by running both sorts of ads simultaneously; if your ETAs don’t perform as well as your old ads, tweak them until you are comfortable removing the old ads. The Google guide to expanded text ads is helpful, as is the Google blog post from the day of the launch. More Content The old-style character limit rule of 25/35/35 no longer applies. ETAs have 2 headlines and a description, and the […]
17 August 2016 16:15
We all talk about bounce rates, but it seems that many people don’t fully understand what a bounce is. Simply put, a bounce is a one-page visit. It doesn’t matter which page it is, how long the visitor spends on the page they visit, or if they click on a link on that page which leads them to a different site. It doesn’t matter if they come to you via a search engine or type in your URL. What matters is that they only visit one page before the specified session-timeout occurs. If you’d like to learn more, Wikipedia has detailed formulas for calculating bounce rates, and Google has tips for improving them.
24 July 2015 10:00
Now that you have a shiny new e-commerce website in a different language, how do you drive international traffic to it? One simple answer is: a translated blog. Blogs on eCommerce sites help to optimise a website in several ways: • Increasing the number of pages and content • Increasing the text to code ratio • Creating internal links back to the main website
22 July 2015 14:24
Following news that the popularity of language learning is declining year on year (The Telegraph), it’s clear that less young people are considering modern foreign languages to be an important consideration for their future careers. Yet ongoing research consistently suggests that this doesn’t match up to the needs and expectations of UK Business. Back in 2013, the British Council published a report in which they pinpointed ten languages that would be crucial for the UK’s long-term prosperity, security and influence, using various indicators such as export trade, emerging markets and diplomatic concerns. The results were as follows (in order of importance): 1 Spanish 2 Arabic 3 French 4 Mandarin Chinese 5 German 6 Portuguese 7 Italian 8= Russian 8= Turkish 10 Japanese The report found that 75% of the adults polled were unable to hold a conversation in any of the languages highlighted, and the British Academy declared the UK to be trapped in a ‘vicious cycle of monolingualism’ whereby […]
26 February 2015 09:00
Last week we looked in to the types of eCommerce platforms available to you; Hosted, Open Source and Hosted Shopping Cart. This week, we will look at the features of specific platforms to help you find your perfect match. Shopify is a hosted e-commerce platform that is favoured by small retailers and start-ups because of its ease of use. All the technical information that a self-hosted solution would require you to set up is already taken care of, so you really can hit the ground running. There is also 24/7 help on offer so you will never feel stuck.
19 May 2014 09:00