Digital Marketing Agency | Barracuda Digital

Happy Christmas from Barracuda Digital!

If you’re a B2C retailer then you will have spent the last 3 or 4 weeks packing padded envelopes with products at a breakneck pace. For B2B December is a time to take stock, and make sure your website and marketing are ready for the January surge.

It’s been a busy month in search and social media, so we still want to keep you up to date with the latest developments

How to set up a YouTube campaign

YouTube on it’s own is the world’s second largest search engine. Behind Facebook it also boasts the longest dwell times. So as a marketer it’s a channel that just can’t be overlooked. And the upside is that there aren’t many advertisers making use of YouTube, so the traffic is low cost too. Here are our 9 tips for setting up a YouTube campaign.

SEO News

There’s been quite few developments in SEO since our last newsletter. Local SEO continues to evolve with the launch of Google Place search. Google have started showing more results from single websites - handing a potential SEO gift to well optimised sites. And the introduction of Instant Previews means that in order to maximise organic traffic sites need to not only rank well but be appealing too.

Display Advertising Tools have evolved

Barracuda Digital took part in the closed Beta for the Google Display Campaign optimiser, and due in part to the results we achieved this product is now available to any advertiser with robust conversion data. It’s an opportunity for many advertisers to expand their Display advertising campaigns.

Mobile News

Sitelinks were a great innovation in desktop search, and Google have now made them Sitelinks available for mobile. These can boost traffic and reduce CPC. Contact your account manager to set up your first mobile campaign.

New researched showed that whilst desktop search volumes peak in the morning, we’re much more active on our mobiles in the evening. It’s an important factor to take into account with your mobile search campaigns.

Understanding what happens on each page

Google analytics have announced a new beta which makes understanding how people look at and click on each page of your website much much easier. Read more about in-page analytics. Visualize

And Finally…

In a typical end-of-year-what-have-we-been-up-to fashion, the Google Zeitgeist 2010 makes interesting visual round up of the year.

That’s it!

ThaIf you’ve any feedback on this news or anything else be sure to get in touch.

(This is us at the .Net Awards by the way!)

Last Sprint of 2010

If you’re in retail then November is the heart of the ‘golden quarter’. For other businesses it’s the last month when there are still strong search volumes around. And this year is no exception.

Product Extensions now live in the UK

Google have finally rolled out Product Extensions. These take the form of a plus box beneath the visiblt URL and – when expanded – show more products available from an advertiser. Used correctly they boost Click Through Rate and can help conversions too. Read more about Product Extensions.

Facebook have been busy

In a bid to get more advertising dollars Facebook have introduced a new way to assess the impact of your advertising on the world’s most popular Social Network. Read more the new Global Advertising Metric.

And the launch of Facebook Places has brought location based social networking to the masses. It’s a huge opportunity for almost every business. Read more about what Facebook Places means for your business.

Tracking your print campaigns

Thanks to cookies and web analytics, online advertising is easy to track.

Traditional media require techniques like dropdown boxes or customer questionnaires. But QR Codes can bring the trackability of online campaigns to your offline advertising. Read more about QR codes.

Getting more from Mobile

Mobile search queries on Google are up 3000% since 2007. But marketing to mobile users requires very specific techniques. Here’s how to develop a mobile search strategy.

Google have now updated their mobile AdWords creative to include distance information, helping to drive footfall in-store. Read more about Hyperlocal.

News from Google

The rate at which Google innovates leave us all a little bit breathless. This month they upgraded the bid simulator so it’s possible to find out how many impressions the top spot gets. And they took the Display Campaign Optimizer out of beta, bringing mass market display advertising to any AdWords advertiser.

Christmas is coming…

Xmas is just 6 weeks away – the perfect time to Xmas-i-fy your Google Places page.

Boost traffic to your listing

Whilst we’re talking about Google Places, here’s some tips to give your Google Places listing the best chance to rank high in the search engine results page.

That’s it for now

If you’ve any feedback on this news or anything else be sure to get in touch.

The Barracuda Digital Team

Welcome to the Barracuda Digital October Newsletter!

It’s October and it’s raining. Bad news for the tan, but good news for search volumes! We’ve seen a boost in impressions and clicks against the same period in September.

Google Instant Research

Following on from last week’s big news, we’ve carried out research into the effect of Google Instant. Read how it is affecting your campaigns.

Getting Local

This month we’ve got lots of tips about how to boost traffic and sales for local businesses. To start with, here’s some clear advice on how to highlight your business to local searches by using location extensions.

This works for mobile too, and is a perfect way to reach users when they’re out and about and searching for your services.

Make it Social

These local campaigns get more exciting when you combine them with social media. Thanks to GEOtoko you can easily launch location based offers on Facebook Places, Foursquare and Gowalla.

We do this stuff

We’ve brought all our local expertise together to offer local campaigns under one service – Barracuda Digital Local.

Google Updates

In other news: It’s been a busy month for Google. They took their keyword tool out of Beta and also launched a new bidding format called Enhanced CPC. They’ve improved the targeting options for advertising on YouTube
and gave us the options to target specific handsets on mobile.

That’s it for now

If you’ve any feedback on this news or anything else be sure to get in touch.

Welcome to the Barracuda Digital September Newsletter!

The holidays may be over but search volumes are yet to see the bounce back experienced in 2009. As the weather worsens we are forecasting a steady increase for the coming 30 days.

Exciting news at Barracuda Digital: we have a new website! Your feedback is gratefully received (as long as it’s nice!)

Google Instant has been called the biggest change in search in a decade. Impressions are up; clicks are static; and it is generally accepted that this will push traffic more towards head terms.

Barracuda Digital is on the leading edge of mobile search marketing. This month we’ve highlighted how to kick start your first mobile search campaign. Mobile – of course – is just right for local business too. Here’s how to make it easy for mobile users to find your business. And we’ve also got a handy guide on how to track visitors from mobile ads.

Google released an update to Analytics called Search Funnels, which allows you to identify all the searches a user carries out on the way to their purchased

Boring but important: September also saw the implementation of a new Google AdWords Trademark Policy, having the biggest impact on Resellers and Affiliates.

Please let me know if you’d like more information about any of this news.

Welcome to the Barracuda Digital August Newsletter!

The World Cup is now a (thankfully distant) memory, but the warm weather and school holidays have had their usual impact on search volumes. For some this means a boost, but most markets are down. All eyes are on September – a traditionally strong time – when PPC and SEO campaigns will pull at their hardest. It’s important to have plenty of budget set aside for then.

Over on the Barracuda Digital blog we’ve been talking about the importance of fostering good reviews, now that those reviews and ratings are now starting to appear on AdWords ads.

We’ve also taken a look at whether or not it’s worth putting a phone number on your PPC ads.

Plenty of clients ask us whether its worth investing in either PPC or SEO. We’d say both! But here’s the view from Google on which type of click is worth the most.

With 1 out of every 5 display ads served within Facebook, every marketer needs to get to grips with this Social Network. Here’s our Beginners Guide to advertising on Facebook.

When it comes to display ads, Google are continuing to beef up their play. Here’s how to plan a campaign on the Google Display Network.

And for the latest SEO news catch our round up.

Want to get the latest in PPC, SEO and Social Media as it happens? Sign up here.

Welcome to the Barracuda Digital July Newsletter!

The World Cup and warm weather have had a big impact on search volumes this month, pushing traffic south across many markets. Despite this, there’s been a lot of innovation to keep up with.

Google quietly launched a new match type called ‘modified broad’. This can give you all the control of phrase match with the opportunity to grab the extra exposure offered by broad match.

The Google AdWords Sitelinks feature has also been updated. Adding Sitelinks has become a lot more important for all AdWords campaigns.

Google did a big favour to larger retailers by introducing brand suggestions in the Search Engine Results Pages. They then gave something back to the smaller website owner with the addition of something similar.

In our roundup of the latest SEO news, there’s confirmation that a few well chosen links help a lot more than many low value links. We’re also got some good advice about the best link building tools.

And finally is this the future of Telecommunications [VIDEO]?!

That’s all for now!