Category: News (page 34 of 1505)

Cheshire, United Kingdom (22 June 2011), SEO Consult, a market leading agency specialising in search engine optimisation, have been ranked as the No.1 UK SEO Agency by topseos.co.uk , an independent search vendor, for the thirty-sixth consecutive month.

The Cheshire-based SEO specialists have been ranked as the no.1 agency for the month of June 2011 due to their continued success in providing comprehensive and effective SEO services to their clients.  topseos.co.uk produce a monthly list of the top 30 UK agencies based on a number of ranking factors.

SEO Consult achieved a perfect overall score by showing excellence in factors such as keyword research, on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation techniques as well as reporting methods.

topseos.co.uk also lists other features of the top ranking UK SEO agencies.  These show that SEO Consult currently employ between 51 and 100 employees and have over 250 active clients.

SEO Consult have achieved this top ranking consistently since December 2008, with the June 2011 award marking more than two and a half years of being ranked as the UK’s number 1 agency by topseos.co.uk.

“Here at SEO Consult we consistently strive for excellence, so to have our success acknowledged by topseos.co.uk, who have again ranked us as the No.1 UK SEO Agency, is a tribute to the hard work carried out by our team of SEO professionals.  We also want to thank our clients, because without the faith they put in us, our success would not be possible.” said Matt Bullas, Managing Director of SEO Consult.  “But the hard work doesn’t stop here.  As well as continuing to meet and exceed the expectations of our clients, we are further developing our team dedicated to SEO research and development.  This promotes our intention to remains as the No.1 UK SEO Agency, while still offering ethical and transparent services that keep pace with industry developments and updates.”

For more details about SEO Consult, visit the website at http://www.seoconsult.com  or call 0845 205 0292.

About SEO Consult:
SEO Consult is the specialist SEO division of Click Consult. Established in 2003, Click Consult is a leading provider of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) solutions, including Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaigns, Content and Banner Advertising, Search Engine Optimisation, Affiliate Marketing, Shopping Feeds, Website Design and Development, E-Mail Marketing and Online PR. With over 60 Staff in Cheshire and London, Click Consult has over 250 PPC and SEO clients in every major industry. Click Consult is fully certified by Google AdWords, Microsoft adExcellence, the Internet Advertising Bureau, SEOCertification.org and TopSEOs.com.

Contact SEO Consult:
Rory Truesdale
SEO Consult,
Unit B1, Willow House,
Oaklands Office Park,
Hooton Road, Hooton,
Cheshire,
CH66 7NZ
Tel: 0845 205 0292
Email: pr@clickconsult.com

Three years ago, the Journal Register Co. was one of the newspaper industry’s worst black eyes. After building up mounds of debt — in part by paying $415 million for publications in, of all places, Michigan, in 2004 — the sprawling chain of small to mid-sized newspapers, shoppers and magazines was careering toward a crash. The New York Stock Exchange delisted its stock in 2008. Bankruptcy followed in February 2009.

Today, the company looks more like the shiny poster child for change, with industry onlookers hoping at least some of its many experiments succeed.

Earlier this year, Editor Publisher listed three Journal Register newspapers on its annual “10 Newspapers That Do It Right” list. The young publisher of one, Matt DeRienzo, was named to EP’s “25 Under 35” list.

JRC has opened its newsroom and editorial meetings to the public at The Register Citizen in Torrington, Conn., reached out to citizen journalists and bloggers at its Community Media Labs, and used its Ben Franklin Project to show that newspapers can grab free technology off the Web to publish online for less.

In March, the company’s new CEO, John Paton, crowed to rank and file employees that JRC had beat its goal of $40 million in 2010 profits and bonus checks were on the way.

It’s worth noting that that profit was just EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — and not the real bottom line. As executives at companies that borrowed to buy newspapers before the market plummet of recent years can attest, interest expenses do matter. But JRC emerged from bankruptcy a private company owned by former creditors, with less debt and less need to share financial details

Through all this, Paton has emerged an industry star. EP had already named him Publisher of the Year in 2009 for his work as co-founder, chairman and CEO of impreMedia LLC, the nationwide Hispanic publishing company. After joining JRC in January 2010, he added Newspaper Association of America board member to his resume.

Paton has become a sought-after speaker at conferences anywhere the future of newspapers is discussed, regaling audiences with his message, “Digital First.”

Paton has called on legacy media execs to put the tech-savvy in charge, stop investing in print, slash or outsource any effort not tied to gathering the news or generating ad sales, and aggressively chase “digital dimes.”

NetNewsCheck recently caught up with this high-energy CEO.

An edited version:

You’ve said the newspaper model is broken and must become digital first and print last. Can you elaborate, and describe what that means in terms of what you’re doing at your own company?

In essence, the ‘digital first’ strategy is about allocating resources appropriately to how news is now created and consumed. It means that news breaks on CMS, the Web. That process continues ’til the very last thing we do is print.

So the business model actually allocates to that new news ecology as opposed to the other way. Most newspapers are still allocating all of their resources to how the paper’s actually printed. That doesn’t make any sense anymore.

We actually have a bigger digital audience than print audience. We’re trying to allocate resources to what people want, and that’s digital. We have currently 19.6 million Americans access our product: 11 million of them are online customers — [monthly] unique visitors — and 8.6 million of them are readers of our print product [dailies and non-dailies].

[Online was] 5.5 million a year ago. Print has stayed the same and digital has doubled.

We’re outsourcing everything. If it doesn’t have anything to do with the creation of content, marketing and research … then we’re either outsourcing it, reducing it, stopping it or selling it.

So, yes, we’ve been getting out of printing. We’re getting out of distribution — the physical distribution of the newspaper.

Tell me about what your company has been doing with crowdsourcing.

On a daily basis, we now crowdsource news in all of our newsrooms. We have community media labs where people can come into the newsroom and work alongside the journalists. We do that in 20 of our locations.

That’s different from our open-to-the-public newsroom in Torrington, where the public can come and sit in on news meetings and participate. Basically it’s become a community center. That newspaper — which wasn’t making any money two years ago — is now in its second year of profitability. Its digital audience is almost 6 times its print audience on a monthly basis. We know that from a bottom line perspective it has been very good for the newspaper itself. This will be the model for all of our daily newspapers going forward.

We have gone from 5.5 million uniques to 11.7, and we’ve gone from nearly zero bloggers to more than 1,500 in the same time frame (bloggers that reside on our site or their content does). Clearly they’ve played a role in expanding our content offerings and expanding our audience. As has our partnering with companies like SeeClickFix, which is a phenomenal success for us. SeeClickFix lets us do old-fashioned journalism about fixing a pothole here or raising an alarm about a dangerous intersection there.

I received two thoughtful responses to Friday’s article titled “Pricing Radio Industry Per Inquiry Rates.” Both came through LinkedIn; my interpretation of them is that selling PI advertising in radio is an act of desperation, something that lowers the bar for the radio industry.

What I saw in both responses represents what has become a typical radio reaction to new ideas. Considering that the essence of what was written here on Friday was, if you are going to offer Per Inquiry, here is a spreadsheet that will give you the means to place a pricing on PI which gives radio more control.

What I did not go into deeeply was how Per Inquiry pricing is already well established in the online world. The radio industry needs to – at least – consider that it as an option their clients are already being offered today.

Here are two abbreviated comments from the individuals who responded to the article. I’ll answer with short response now, then leave you to read their full response below, and decide if Per Inquiry pricing should be considered as one way of pricing over-the-air ad campaigns.

From Dave Warawa: “The key for media outlets is to create enough demand on their avails to ensure that they dont have to consider PI deals.”
Easy to do if you’re content on selling only drive time spots, but what about those mid-day, evening and overnight avails that go unsold? Is it better to be getting something, or let them evaporate?

From Scott Vandivier: “PI deals are desperate and show that a station may have too much inventory (yeah right) or the sales staff is weak.”
It sounds like Scott has solved the problem of selling out inventory, but isn’t considering that there are alternative forms of paying for advertising being offered to his clients by online media in his community.

Here’s another quote, from 1911 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, Maurice Maeterlinck: “At every crossroad on the road that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past.”

Dave goes on to mention “Kleenex, Bobcat, Skidoo would never have established brand equity with a PI deal because they would have been utilizing fringe advertising on less popular media outlets.” Each of these are multinational brands with deep pockets, and I’m not referring to this size company when saying the local radio industy needs to offer PI as one – of many – pricing models.

Scott says: “People buy radio or TV to increase sales, market share, and to brand their business. Our success is gauged on those results. Those results are measured by increased store traffic sales, along with WEB SITE traffic / volume (including Facebook).” That last part is a main reason why PI pricing should be considered, again, as just one arrow in the pricing quiver for radio.

What is not done in the radio industry is creating a broadcast campaign that statistically shows it is driving results. I’m not even hearing it being discussed, even though it is possible.

I am not someone who pushed Per Inquiry or pay-per-action. It came about because internet companies have the power to change how a client views purchasing an advertising campaign.

These words of mine appeared in 2001: “If you visit this site regularly you know I’m on a one-man crusade to stamp out cost-per-action ad pricing.” Only, since then I’ve supervised the purchase of over $1.5 million in online advertising and now believe that a carefully guided Per Inquiry buy will deliver far more results than the shotgun approach offered on broadcast.

The radio industry can deliver Per Inquiry in a way that guarantees radio receives an equitable return, close to its CPM pricing. “How” is something that nobody seems to be exploring, and no one has asked me about it. It seems that all I hear are defensive statements about radio not needing to explore new advertising options.

The article that Scott and Dave commented on was a first step in my saying here is an answer that broadcasters can give clients who are starting to look at cost-per-action pricing. I’m not advocating that the radio industry swing its pricing model to PI, only that it needs to be ready because Per Inquiry is spreading rapidly online – and online is becoming more local each day.

PI is not the only answer. But it also should not be ignored.

My experience tells me that Dave and Scott speak for a majority of radio managers today. That’s a frightening thought nearly fifteen years after the internet was introduced as a new ad platform.

Radio needs to catch up with what’s being offered to advertisers. Denying there are options with a new pricing approach is no way to start.

Here are Dave and Scott’s full comments.

Dave Warawa:
As a radio sales manager, I am not a fan of PI deals. To me, they stand for poor investment.

I agree that accountability is a necessity in advertising. Consider that part of advertising is built on branding in an effort to have long term goals in establishing share of mind.

Kleenex, Bobcat, Skidoo would never have established brand equity with a PI deal because they would have been utilizing fringe advertising on less popular media outlets.

Of course, not every advertiser has the ability to afford the frequency and reach attained through a large budget based on long term objectives.

On a PI deal, the media outlet is paid based on the offer the advertiser makes. The audience perception of the product and the offer totally derive what the media outlet gets paid.

The key for media outlets is to create enough demand on their avails to ensure that they dont have to consider PI deals.

Scott Vandivier:

I have been a radio NSM, LSM, and GSM. Like Dave, I am not a fan of PI deals.

Having a dedicated “station 800 number” to track calls is very antiquated and prehistoric.

People buy radio or TV to increase sales, market share, and to brand their business. Our success is gauged on those results. Those results are measured by increased store traffic sales, along with WEB SITE traffic / volume (including Facebook).

The days of an AE or sales manager asking a client “how many phone calls have you gotten?” are long gone.

80% of consumers check out a business, product, or store online first. The consumer has the the leverage due to technology and social media.

Even if the call to action is a phone number, a consumer will go to their web site, and call or email the company/business via the listed information they find – not what they saw or heard.

PI deals are desperate and show that a station may have too much inventory (yeah right) or the sales staff is weak.

Quite a day at Sonoma with Kurt Busch winning his first race of the year but the focus was as much on those who were angry with one another after the race.

Like many fans, I spent this weekend at home and watched on TV. As I’ve done in the past with ESPN and Fox, I noted the time between commercials and how long the commercial breaks were for TNT’s broadcast.

Lots to get to, so here we go …

TNT’S BROADCAST

I’ll get to the race here shortly but because more people watch a race on TV then attend it, TV coverage is important to fans.

While everyone would like to see every moment of every race that’s not feasible considering the money spent for the broadcast rights of NASCAR Sprint Cup races (the current 7-year deal that goes through the 2014 season cost ESPN/ABC, Fox, TNT and Speed about $4.8 billion combined). So, how are those networks going to get that money back? Advertising. Don’t like it? What if the races were on a pay-per-view channel, then what would you say?

Thus, you get commercials. The key is where to put them? Networks typically run commercial breaks in the range of 2 minutes, 30 seconds to about 3 minutes (TNT’s commercial beaks were in the 2:30-2:45 range much of the day).

TNT ran more commercial breaks early in the race to give fans the opportunity to watch as much of the end of the race as possible. Certainly, there is a risk in doing so. TNT missed the lead change in each of its first two commercial breaks. Then again, which would upset you more? Missing a lead change early or missing one late?

Up to the race’s first caution, which came on lap 34 of the 110-lap event, there had been 31:45 minutes of racing action shown by TNT and 12:53 minutes of commercials. In essence, a bit more than 25 percent of the race to that point featured commercials.

OK, now compare that to the end of the race when TNT showed 30 minutes, 8 seconds of racing action in the last 32:43 of the race. That’s over 90 percent of the final segment of the race (about the last 20 laps or so) that fans got to see of the race. TNT showed the final 19:31 of racing action without commercials.

To compare, when I did this with the ESPN race at Kansas last fall, ESPN’s numbers were similar with more commercials at the front and what ESPN did at the end of that race, showing the last 22:56 of that race.

So, you can see a pattern. Don’t like it? What’s the solution? Make it a reasonable one. Can’t think of something that would work only in Fantasyland because the fact is that with so much money behind the networks, they’ve got to show commercials. The push to show commercials and racing together is just gaining momentum, so maybe there will be changes next year.

As for all this talk about commercials and TNT, remember that Saturday night’s race at Daytona features the network’s Wide Open coverage where it shows racing and commercials together throughout the event.

Of course, you could watch the race and various camera shots via RaceBuddy at NASCAR.com throughout the whole race. Turner has the online video rights for NASCAR races. .So, all six races aired by TNT can be viewed online and that can help you through the commercials or watching on DirecTV via its HotPass, which has four channels set up to follow four different drivers.

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CAN’T WE GET ALONG?

Apparently not.

Here’s a quick scorecard about who was upset with one another.

There was Brian Vickers and Tony Stewart.

And Denny Hamlin and AJ Allmendinger

Juan Pablo Montoya and Brad Keselowski

Juan Pablo Montoya and Kasey Kahne

Robby Gordon and Joey Logano

OK, here’s what was said by each:

STEWART vs. VICKERS

STEWART: “I dumped him earlier for blocking and he got me back later on. If they block, they are going to get dumped. It is real simple. I mean I don’t blame him, I don’t blame him for dumping us back. But, I don’t race guys that way, I never have. If guys want to block then they are going to wrecked every time. Until NASCAR makes a rule against it, I am going to dump them every time for it. He did what he had to do, I don’t blame him, there is nothing wrong with it. … “I probably had it coming because I dumped him earlier but I dumped him because he was blocking. If anybody wants to block all year that’s what I’m going to keep doing so they can handle it however they want. It was payback, but I dumped him first and I dumped him because he was blocking. I’ve been complaining about the way guys have been racing all year. I like Brian, I’m not holding it against him at all. I don’t care if it was Ryan Newman I would have dumped him too. If they want to block that’s what is going to happen to them every time for the rest of my career.’’

VICKERS: “I guess Tony told you he dumped me on purpose. I know Tony well enough to know that he’s a smart enough driver that he didn’t accidentally drive in there that hard … and wreck me. I don’t know why he did it. (He said you were blocking too much too early). He might not have noticed that (Kyle Busch) was off the race track and was coming back across through the dirt sideways and I was trying to avoid the 18 and I was on the inside of the car in front of me, so Tony was the least of my concern. I don’t think it was an attempt to block Tony. That’s what he felt like it was. He sowed his oats and he reaped them. … (How handle it from here?) We’ll be fine. I find it ironic started in turn 11 in 2004. He wrecked me and I wrecked him back. Just every once in a while something happens. I have a lot of respect for Tony. Tony and I race probably better than just about anybody on the race track on a week-to-week basis. When I get to him, he lets me go. When he gets to me, I let him go. I’m sure we’ll be right back to that this next week. We just had a couple of things to talk about on the race track today.’’

MONTOYA vs. KAHNE

MONTOYA: “The No. 4 was the first car, I got beside him and he knocked me a couple of times and they just don’t give me any room so it was hard.’’

KAHNE: “Montoya just drove through me at the top of the hill. That was obvious. Last year, when these cars were really, really good and (Montoya’s teammate) Jamie McMurray was the man, Juan still couldn’t win a race. That shows about what he can do in NASCAR.’’

MONTOYA vs. KESELOWSKI

KESELOWSKI: “I don’t take any pride in all that stuff, but at some point you have to run your own deal. It was pretty obvious that it was eat or be eaten and I wasn’t going to be eaten.”

MONTOYA: “The No. 2, I got on his bumper moved him a little bit, got beside him and passed him and he just plain and simple wrecked us. It’s hard when people don’t know how to race on road courses and think they do. 

ROBBY GORDON vs. LOGANO

GORDON: “I just got wrecked by (Joey) Logano. It is what it is.’’

LOGANO: “That’s no big deal to me. I don’t know. He was running me all over the race track. He knocked my fender in for no reason.  We were a lot, lot faster than him. I just had enough. I wasn’t going to get pushed around. He pushed around before and I was sick of it. I think that’s a small story. That’s not a big deal. We finished sixth. I’m pretty happy about that.”

HAMLIN vs. ALLMENDINGER

Here’s what Hamlin wrote on his Twitter account after the race: “Every time we get a little momentum we have a day like today. 7th week in a row I’ve had a winning car and then Boom. We get Dinger’d.’’

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KURT WINS

Kurt Busch scored his first career road course win in dominant fashion. He led 76 of the 110 laps, using a two-stop pit strategy while others stopped more often.

Busch climbed three spots to fourth with the victory, his first of the season and 23rd of his career.

Here’s what Kurt said about the win:

“Our fuel strategy from practice gave us the calculations we needed.  It showed that we could make it on two stops.  A lot of guys said that they couldn’t make it on two stops.  So we knew that there was going to be teams pitting around lap 10, lap 15 to get those fresher tires. So my thought was inside the car, Well, I need to continue to push this car hard and run a lap time that won’t allow those guys with fresh tires to chop off and be able to catch us. It was just one of those feelings where the crew was helping me, I was helping them, and the race played out perfectly for us.

“We’ve been on a great run these last few weeks.  To bring it on home and get a W, yeah, there’s that insurance with the win.  We bumped up in points.  It’s a matter of just continuing each week to get better.  This is a stretch of our season where we hit a road course, a superspeedway, a mile

• A third of mobile users receive the nuisance texts
• Companies sell details for £5 if you reply – and £500 if you provide details of an accident
• ‘Untraceable’ texts sent via eastern Europe or India

By
Rob Cooper

Last updated at 11:31 AM on 26th June 2011

Esther Rantzen has been involved in a high-profile advertising campaign for the Accident Advice Line. This weekend they insisted that did everything to comply with the law

Companies sending out ‘illegal’ nuisance texts telling mobile users they could be entitled to thousands of pounds compensation for their ‘accident’ are raking in £175million a year, it emerged today.

‘Claim farmers’ bombarded phone users with an estimated 12.75million spam messages last month alone.

The shady companies are raking in up to £500 every time they refer a case to a ‘no win, no fee’ law firm – and £5 if the phone user replies saying ‘stop’ to end the unwanted texts.

Other users have had messages about
debt management schemes and claiming compensation for the mis-selling of
payment protection insurance.

Once a response has been received the operators know the number is genuine and in use so can sell the details on.

When sent without the phone user’s consent, the spam mail is classed as a ‘cold call’ – which is illegal.

Firms
sending out unwanted mail can be prosecuted and fined up to £500,000.
But as messages are often sent out by eastern European or Indian
companies from pay as you go mobile numbers they are very difficult to
trace.

Text messages are often sent out in bulk from Indian call centres or from eastern Europe

High profile campaign: Esther Rantzen in the Accident Advice Helpline Advert

The firms claim that people receiving spam mail will have opted in to have their details passed on to third party companies.

When someone responds with details of an accident their contact information is passed on to solicitors to assess whether the individual is eligible for compensation.

Law firms often pay little attention to how the client details were obtained, the Sunday Telegraph revealed.

The texts are sent out via computers to thousands of people urging them to make a compensation claim for their ‘accident’.

They
typically cost around 2p a time to send out – but the expenditure is
swiftly recovered by the vast fees that can be obtained.

When a mobile user replies with details of an incident they are passed on to claim firms who in turn give the details to solicitors.

Once a reporter provided details of an invented ‘accident’ they were given to leading claims firm the Accident Advice Helpline which has used television star Esther Rantzen in its adverts.

The firm, which has a turnover of £12million a year, admitted last night they face difficulties working out how client details have been obtained.

A spokesman representing the firm said that the Accident Advice Helpline were ‘aware of their obligations’ and said it was unlawful to send unsolicited text messages unless they opt in.

He added that the firm carried out ‘due diligence’ and always got written confirmation from suppliers that the law had been complied with.

But he added: ‘The difficulty faced
by companies in this field is that whilst due diligence is possible on
the companies from whom information is purchased, those companies will
in turn purchase information from third parties.’

Spam messages are raking in an estimated £175m a year

There is no suggestion that Esther Rantzen has done anything wrong.

Regulators have called for referral fees to be banned to put an end to the shady practice.

Although
the mobile number the nuisance message sent from can be blocked or
deactivated there is nothing preventing the firm from simply using
another phone number.

Mike Lordan, chief of operations for the Direct Marketing Association, who are calling for a clampdown on unsolicited texts, said around three per cent of people reply to the unwanted messages.

‘Our research shows that a large percentage of people are receiving spam and are unsure how to stop it and don’t know who to make a complaint to,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph.

‘Mobile spam is causing distress to many people and seriously damaging the legitimate multi-million pound mobile marketing industry.

‘Regulators have been unwilling or unable to take ownership and tackle this growing problem.’

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