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No Noise Friday 25 July’14

The latest news about web marketing, SEO, PPC & Analytics. But only the stuff that matters from a New Zealand perspective. Less noise, more signal!

If your business has anything to do with the online world you know how much information is out there. It’s overwhelming and constantly changing.  Finding out what’s relevant to your business amongst all the noise is time consuming and can result in information overload.

At SureFire Search we want to help you by sifting through all the noise and highlighting what’s new and noteworthy in SEO, PPC and Web Analytics. But more importantly, answer the question – Why this might matter to YOU and YOUR business here in New Zealand.

Here’s what caught our attention this week…

  1. Finally a dedicated iPhone app for Google Analytics
  2. FaceBook and Twitter are fighting for the ecommerce dollar
  3. Launch date announced for .nz domains
  4. Google in-maps ads have been given a new look
  5. Target users by device with Facebook
  6. Tantric Sex – Be careful what you wish for

1.Finally a dedicated iPhone app for Google Analytics

Finally, Google has released an official Google Analytics app for the iPhone. This app provides all the information usually reserved for the web dashboard – visits, sources, page views and user behaviour insights.

Analytics Iphone App Screenshot

Why should you care?

One of the best features about this app is Real Time reports. These reports show your websites activity as it happens. This means you can now get t-a-glance real time information about what’s happening on your website without needing to check via your desktop. This app is also available for android phones.

Suggest you check it out – it’s free and downloadable from Apple.

2.Facebook and Twitter are fighting for the ecommerce dollar

Two of the heavy hitters in the social media space are making significant moves towards eCommerce capabilities. Twitter has purchased CardSpring and Facebook is rolling out a “Buy” button.

The two company’s are well aware of business owners wanting to get more out of their social efforts than just “likes” or “follows”.

Businesses want real dollars for their social efforts.

Twitter has acquired CardSpring. It’s a platform that enables among other things – electronic coupons that can be triggered by the swipe of a credit card. A way this could be used is; a tweet from a company is sent out to its followers saying “enter your credit card number to receive a 20% discount on your next purchase.” When the follower of that company uses their credit card at the store (after entering their credit card number) a discount has been automatically loaded to that card.

Facebook’s “Buy Now” button is a call to action that enables a customer to purchase from a business without having to leave Facebook.

Why should you care?

If you are in the eCommerce space and active on social media this can only be a good thing. It may make your social media efforts more profitable and Facebook and Twitter will be hoping companies still on the fence will be encouraged to use their platforms.

SureFire will keep you up to date with any developments as to when these features will be available in New Zealand.

3. Launch date announced for .nz domains

From 1 pm 30 September 2014 the Domain Name Commission Ltd has announced that people will be able to register ‘.nz’ domains in addition to traditional options like ‘.co.nz’ and ‘.org.nz’.

For example you will be able to register both ‘yourdomain.co.nz’ and ‘yourdomain.nz.’

Why should you care?

Like the recent release of the ‘.kiwi’ domain, purchasing the ‘.nz’ domain is optional in our opinion. You may want to consider purchasing it to protect your brand. Especially if you have a domain name that doesn’t have your brand name in it.

For example, if you sell tow bars and your website is www.besttowbars.co.nz, you wouldn’t want someone purchasing www.besttowbars.nz.

If you do purchase a ‘.nz’ domain, we recommend putting a 301 redirect in place to send visitors to your original website domain – provided you have one.

If you want to see if a specific ‘.nz’ domain is available have a look here.

4. Google in-maps ads have been given a new look

Google has made the announcement that it’s surfacing and displaying ads on Google Maps and Google Maps for mobile.

The ads will be shown above the organic results and advertisers can utilise Location Extensions and Call Extensions.

A business can now have an advert in-map that shows an offer and can be expanded giving more information.

Below is an example of an in-map advertisement for the search term “Auckland Gym”

In-Map Advert Example

When you hover over the advert it expands to show the offer.

In-Map Example 2

Why should you care?

In-map advertising is another avenue to capture the attention of potential customers with local intent. For example, if I was in the market for a new gym I might search for “auckland gyms”. The results would show that Hilton Brown was having a special. If Hilton Brown was local to me I might be swayed to see what they are offering and click the advert. I would then land on their website with purchasing intent.

5. Target users by device with Facebook

Facebook is allowing advertisers to target potential customers at an even more granular level. Facebook’s mobile targeting improvements will be released within a few days and they will allow you to deliver adverts to people using specific mobile devices.

Why should you care?

This is good news. It means that if you know that a certain model of phone sends your company a large percentage of revenue you can choose to specifically target users of that model.

Facebook has also released some tips for mobile device targeting in their announcement.

  • Audience Size – Don’t go too narrow. An audience size of at least 500,000 is recommended by Facebook.
  • Customise – Facebook recommends trying to make sure that your advert resonates with the intended audience.
  • Different Adverts – They recommend creating different adverts for different models and optimising bids for each.

6.Tantric Sex – Be careful what you wish for

This is just a warning to be careful what you wish for.

A Netherlands investor by the name of Greg Lindae has successfully lobbied Google to remove from European search results a Wall Street Journal article from 1998 that named him as a participant in a Tantra workshop.

He stated that “This could, and in fact is, having a material effect on my career”.

The thing is, that since he lobbied Google to remove the article he has drawn more attention to it and himself. The 1998 Wall Street Journal article may have been removed but what about the new 2,014 articles that have been published?

For example – www.theaustralian.com.au & www.online.wsj.com

Just searching for “tantric sex” in Google News brings it up as the number one result.

Tantric Sex Example

In requesting a right to be forgotten and winning he has, ironically, increased his chances of not being forgotten.

The moral of the story – be careful what you wish for, as it may come true.


OK, that’s what we think. We’re keen to hear your thoughts on any of the above – please comment below. 

Click here to read previous editions of No Noise Friday web marketing news.

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About the Author SureFire

These search marketing news updates feature articles of interest picked up through the week by the SureFire team.

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