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The Social In Business Is The Business Of Social

Social business. Do eCommerce brands really understand the term? Or do they think that collecting as many Facebook ‘likes’ and Twitter followers in six months is ‘doing’ social media and then bitterly complaining there was no sales, no interest, not even an enquiry?

Social is a mindset, a principle of engagement. Creating a community audience takes time to build trust, credibility and connection to show brand transparency and approachability.

Three month experiments swamping Twitter and Facebook with marketing messages or forced friendliness is not a search and social policy, it’s a turn-off to customer prospects.
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SEO And PPC In The Age Of Search And Social Relevance

The sanctity of ‘relevance’ is the fundamental message applied to content preached far and wide across the online communities of social media.

Yet relevance has been a rigorous discipline practised within online marketing since the earliest days of internet creation.

Aiming to receive the ranking beneficence of Google, which the correct enactment of SEO keywords and PPC ads can bring to search results and click traffic, truly remains the venerable ‘holy grail’ of eCommerce site owners.

Site owners can frequently issue missives…
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Avoiding The Drop In Google Ranking By Thanking Your Lucky Content!

We may be living in a search and social media networking age but many eCommerce siteowners are still concerned over Google page ranking as a chief source of their customer traffic.

It’s perfectly understandable for those SMEs reliant on SEO keyword, link building campaigns.

But today, we also inhabit a Panda Penguin controlled internet where Page ranks seesaw as Google gains a better picture…
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target

Attribution, Content And Engagement – A Real Social Policy Of Customer Conversion

Who is your audience? What are they interested in and what are they looking for?

Is your brand, website and social media presence ‘doing the business’ for them – for you, for Google…?

Yep – the big questions that only get bigger on today’s search and social, multichannel internet.

With the focus firmly trained on providing a ‘quality customer experience’ just to attract eyeballs and sufficient trust before any engagement is likely to take place, ‘knowing thy audience’ is all about attribution – or getting the bigger picture.
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panda

Avoiding Google’s Daily Panda Patrol Ranking Penalties

News that Google plan to send Panda out on a constant rolling refresh instead of on major periodic assaults is obviously aimed at sending a clear message to site owners.

By integrating Panda into the search engine’s daily algorithms to act as poor quality content police, the aim is to do constant battle with spammers.

What can SMEs do to keep their online marketing strategies ethical and ensure they will not suffer daily fluctuations in ranking, now likely to increase as Panda gets to visit daily to chew content over?
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cost_per_click

Consumer Confusion And A Hidden Uptick To Pay Per Click!

New research has found a surprising but striking example of the kind of disquieting disconnects that seem to become all too apparent between brands and their target niche audiences.

There have always been time lags between the introduction of internet changes and adoption by users and consumers. Currently, Internet Explorer 10 is coming down the pipe while some businesses prefer to stick with much earlier browser versions until they’re no longer supported.

As a new study shows, the consumer knowledge gap of established eCommerce marketing strategies can also be seriously lacking….
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research

Nielsen Report Highlights Rise Of Search And Social Internet Research

A Nielsen Global New Product Report of nearly 30,000 internet users from around 60 countries clearly shows the dominance of interest in certain key consumer products and the increasing use of social media in the decision-making process.

While it’s not surprising that items like electronics, appliances and music are clear favourites, other common categories consumers research, such as food and personal health, have risen in frequency.

The pathways taken to find a relevant website are as much influenced by internet research via social networking and word of mouth advocacy as they are by traditional online marketing strategies and Google ranking.
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graph

Why Facebook Graph Search Will Be Crucial To Social Ranking Results.

Does the imminent launch of Graph Search signal that Facebook is about to transform itself into the ultimate social search engine?

Graph Search offers opportunity for eCommerce and the social media savvy SME to gather more audience follower information and build even closer, relevant online marketing strategies.

Can businesses satisfy the eternal content hungry audience appetites of both Google and Facebook now that internet search intent is fusing further into social discovery?
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ppc

PPC Adwords ‘Enhanced Campaigns’ Targets By User Context Not Device

Last week’s launch of ‘Enhanced Campaigns’ flags up Google’s new thinking about PPC Adwords in response to the smartphone and tablet-led change in consumer search behaviour.

Targeted online marketing is now focused more on user ‘context’ rather than by device. What this means for the SME site owner is that content for search is increasingly being driven by the ‘situation’, irrespective of the device used at the time.

It also means that Google will decide which is the most relevant result to return to a user’s search, based upon where it thinks the user is searching from – at home, at work or on the move.
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eggs

As More Keyword Data Is ‘Not Provided’ It’s Time To Go Social!

Towards the close of 2012 it was estimated that around 6 in 10 businesses were ‘integrating social media into their overall marketing strategies.’

Developing a transparent, trusted and credible presence with targeted audiences on the web is growing ever more important to the monitoring of customer interests and behaviours.

At the same time, increased use of privacy settings means that crucial SEO keywords are increasingly ‘not provided’ by Google Analytics as the ‘secure search’ experience becomes industry standard…
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devices

Smartphone Tablet Or PC! Which Is Doing The Business For eCommerce, Christmas 2012?

“The PC is dead – the future is mobile and tablet!” has been a persistent industry message in the last few years. Second screen viewing, browsing and purchasing was undoubtedly a big theme in 2012.

As we reach the final shopping days to Christmas, how has eCommerce found the online purchasing behaviour between the various devices so far? Has the PC still brought in the click traffic or has the prophesy for mobile and tablet come true?

First indications from a UK online retail Christmas shopping report shows some interesting results…
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