Video advertising momentum according to Double Click

Digital video has brought new energy to brands and publishers.

Here are some of the trends DoubleClick's advertising platforms. Double Click found which advertiser and publisher categories are growing video ad investments, why programmatic is an efficient channel to buy and sell video, and how viewer choice benefits everyone.

Below you can find some vital stats on how digital video ads have brought new energy to brands and media companies in the infographic below.


Thanks to http://www.google.com/think/infographics/video-advertising-momentum-infographic.html

When to submit Google reconsideration requests

Thank to a post from Barry Schwartz on http://searchengineland.com/google-advice-on-when-to-submit-reconsideration-request-how-to-clean-your-link-profile-164263 - Google came out clean with when and how you should submit a re-inclusion or reconsideration request for your site through Google webmaster tools.

• Fix your website first before you submit the request, asking for help before you submit, is going to get you into more poop, if you're unsure what's wrong, ask an SEO company to assist you
• Use Google’s “links to your site” report within Webmaster Tools to analyze bad links pointing to your site. It's quite difficult and a very tedious process, if you're unsure as to what you're doing, rather ask someone that know's what they're doing. Removing links that you think are bad, when they're not will drop your rankings even further once you recover
• Remove bad links by disavowing them, nofollowing them and having them completely removed. This is easier said than done, however a good lawyers letter should the company who has your link refuse always works nicely
• Make sure when you submit your re-inclusion request that you give a detailed explanation of what you changed and removed and why. If it was your SEO company that did some dodgy link building, tell Google you've changed SEO companies as well
• Responses for reconsideration request can take a few days but may take much longer depending on the site and current workload. From my experience up to 4 weeks
• Googlers review each reconsideration request manually, so don't think their UBER bots are that clever 

These are guidelines and a summary of the original posting by Google - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/06/backlinks-and-reconsideration-requests.html

Tumblr launches ADS to promote blogs and posts

Finally, Tumblr, the world's largest blogging service has decided to launch an advertising platform. This Tumblr advertising platform will be used to either promote individual posts or the blogs themselves.
For the most part, the new ads don’t intrude on Tumblr’s users blogs. Instead, the company is using its Radar and it's spotlight features to highlight content from its advertisers.

Although Tumblr hasn't had the push and drive in South Africa's market, in the USA Tumblr has more searches on it's BLOG search than Google has on it's Google Blog search. 

So what does that mean for South African companies and how can we benefit from this service? Well, if your target market is in the US, here's a marketing platform that's going to be cheaper and more cost effective than Google adwords, Facebook paid ads and Twitter.

So, what is it that people are using Tumblr for?
Well, according to Socialmediaexplorer.com the TOP 5 blog categories are;

1. Celebrities
2. Humour
3. Photography
4. Art
5. Gaming

2 weeks ago at the SES london conference, can't recall who it was that stated this but stats have shown that 75% of the users on Tumblr are teenagers. This is also reflected in the TOP 5 Tags on Tumblr for 2012;

1. One direction
2. Exo
3. Tom Hidelston
4. Love
5. Harry Styles

To summarise; If you are launching either a band. a new song, love art or a new computer game and your target market is teenagers in the USA, Tumblr ADS is without a doubt your platform.

SES London 2013 - Paul Madden - Social Media and SEO

Paul Madden formerly blackhat SEO @SEOIdiot now SEO and in building guru based in the UK http://www.paulmadden.co.uk/ gave some great tips on link building post penguin.

I didn't take many notes having been a little stuck in the moment of listening however I did take some notes and hopefully caught the gist of what he was trying to get across.

Things to remember when link building;
- Links don't expire you have to take these off.
- Link data is a must!!!!
- Understanding the sites you get links from don't just say yes

GET A MONTHLY LINK AUDIT PROCESS IN PLACE!

Signals that should tell you your site is at risk;
-Far higher % of on anchor text
- site wide links are a no no
- stay away from suspect Cctlds
- Remove links that have died check BACKLINKS and if the sites still exists or not

% of link anchor text is the answer
GOOGLE IS BASED ON LINKS, don't forget this!!!

What you need to ask yourself when you are measuring link metric value;
What is the cctld
What is the purpose of site, is it of value?
Check for Banned words
Does the site have Links to bad places (use Xenu Link sleuth)
Commercial anchors
No interaction on site, comments, tweets, reviews
No social activity on site

TOP 4 things to remember when building links;
- audit link profile
- make sure the guys know what they're doing
- don't stop building
- watch link profile

Basically, measure, measure , measure and then keep track!!!
Link building is NOT dead, it's just getting tougher.