This is a long standing scam, but nevertheless we were shocked by the response to our blog, which has received over 7,000 views and more than 100 comments from distressed victims from across the country. This weekend, national newspaper The Sunday Express picked up the story, estimating the cost of the attacks to its victims had reached £50 million.

Scams like this prey on the vulnerability of small businesses. Of the scam, Susan Hallam, CEO of Hallam Internet and the author of the original blog post, said - ”I have been shocked by the widespread effects of this scam. Small business owners have been targeted by this group who terrify them with threats of County Court Judgements (CCJs) and bailiffs. But the reality is that they are nothing but scammers and it is only by raising awareness of the issue and working together than we stand any chance of stopping them.

I have yet to see any official groups set up or investigations put into motion to end these attacks but I hope that our coverage will bring the issue to the attention of those who can help us.”

At the very least, by sharing our experiences, we can protect other business owners from succumbing to the attacks. In a case study mentioned in our blog, a victim said - ”I was under extreme pressure and I was in a terrible mental state. I felt physically sick and was in fear that my business would be ruined.” The victim, who asked to remain anonymous, paid £5,000 to the group.

For more details of the scam and advice on what to do if you’re targeted, take a look at our blog UK Business Directory Scam.

The summer school is free to attend and provides students with skills and knowledge to give them a head start in their marketing careers. The residential course is due to take place at the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing in Teddington, South London, from the 24th to 28th June and is also sponsored by globally recognised advertising agency Ogilvy.

Susan Hallam, CEO of Hallam Internet, will teach the search engine optimisation (SEO) element of the course.

Of the initiative, Susan said – “I’m a firm believer in the value of students and am delighted to be part of this fantastic educational opportunity. Too often these days, we hear negativity toward university courses which teach the arts, including marketing. But it is often the students of these courses that display the kind of smart, critical thinking you need to succeed in today’s job market. I’m proud to show my support of students by delivering the SEO course and by sponsoring the event itself.”

Hallam Internet’s involvement in the IDM Summer School coincides with the appointment of a Nottinghamshire graduate to their growing team. Jannike Ohsten, who recently achieved a BA in English at the University of Nottingham, is one of a group of local graduates employed by the company over the years including Sarah Dawes, Ben Wood and Sean Burton who graduated from Nottingham Trent in 2006/2010, Laura Hampton who graduated from Loughborough University in 2008 and Abra Millar who graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2012.

Commercial Director of Hallam Internet Mike Hallam commented – “We know the value a university education brings and we continue to find great success in the employment of team members who graduated in Nottingham and the local area, either as recent graduates or coming to us from other roles. There’s a real range in the courses they studied too, from Politics to Philosophy and Social Psychology, and that’s because it’s those graduates, in our experience, that bring the smart approach and diverse capabilities we need in such a fast paced industry.”

ENDS

About Hallam Internet

Since 1999, digital marketing agency Hallam Internet has been working with its clients to deliver successful search engine optimisation, pay per click, email marketing, and social media marketing campaigns. Hallam Internet is committed to delivering ethical search marketing to assist its clients in reaching their business goals. Call +44 (115) 948 0123 or visit http://www.hallaminternet.com for more information how Hallam Internet’s experts can help your business to get smarter using the Internet.

Assuming your website is still working as it should be, your data is correct and your website hasn’t received a penalty I’d suggest that you should first look to find out where you have lost traffic from. Here I’ll show you a couple of quick checks you can make to try and make a start on finding out why traffic has dropped to your website (this is by no means meant to be an exhaustive check list of everything you should look at!)

Find Out What Traffic You Are Missing

If you don’t know what used to drive traffic to your website you will be unable to identify why traffic has dropped to your website. Your Google Analytics data may hold the answer so lets start there. First lets check if you are still receiving referral traffic. Referral traffic could be from a website you advertise on, a directory or perhaps just another site that links to content on your website.

Referral Traffic

Log into your Analytics and choose your date range. Depending on how long ago you started seeing a drop in traffic to your website you might want to do this comparison for the previous month or even compare the same month in the previous year, as in this example.

Then on the left side, choose Traffic Sources > Sources > Referrals

In this example you can see that this website has seen a considerable drop in referral traffic year on year.

If you see something similar in your analytics you’ll be able to identify in the table below the graph if there is a specific source that used to send much more traffic to your website. If it was a website that you used to advertise on, perhaps you should consider having that advert again if you think the traffic it sent to your website was valuable. Whatever the results, if you see a drop in referral traffic you’ll be able to make an educated decision about what to do about it.

Organic Traffic

Another area for you to check is if you’ve seen a drop in organic traffic from search engines like Google. To find this information, on the left side choose Traffic Sources > Sources > All Traffic

In this example we’ll just look at organic traffic from Google so in the table, find “google / organic” and click on it.

Google Analytics will show you the percentage change in traffic you have seen from Google search results. If you see a drop in traffic from this source the next thing you’ll want to do is find out if there are any keywords in particular that you’ve stopped receiving traffic for in such numbers. To do this, in the able click on Secondary Dimension >Traffic Sources > Keyword

This will show you the keywords that your website receives traffic for and if there has been any change in that amount. Again in this example you can see that a number of keywords have seen a drop.

If you see the same in your analytics you’ll want to do some further investigation. Perhaps you have dropped in rankings for these keywords and need to do some on-page optimisation and deep link building. You might also want to look at the landing pages for the keywords you’ve seen a drop in traffic for. Does the landing page still exist on your website? Have you made big changes that undid the optimisation of the page? As before, at least you might now have a better idea of where you’re seeing a drop in website traffic from and are better armed to do something about it.

If you’ve seen a drop in website traffic then the Hallam Internet team is here to help! Get in touch and we can talk about steps we’d take to help you recover!

Laura has worked in digital marketing for a number of years, having come into the profession as a budding journalist before finding her niche in copywriting and PR for the web. She progressed her career to become content engagement lead at a specialist user experience agency, working for a variety of clients in improving digital reach through high quality content. Most recently, Laura has worked for FTSE 250 company TUI Travel PLC, delivering strategy and results across several of their brands in the UK, America and Canada.

She brings a great deal of passion to her role and is a self-proclaimed ‘geek’ of all things digital. She is also an avid skydiver and has competed in and won medals at national skydive competitions.

Of her new role, Laura said, “Having attended talks and seminars given by Susan and her team over the years, I consider them all to be experts and leaders in their field and am delighted to be joining them at Hallam Internet. Digital engagement is so, so important to businesses and I’m thrilled to be in a role where I can deliver this for our clients.”

Susan Hallam, Managing Director of Hallam Internet commented,  “It’s a pleasure to welcome Laura. Her content skills and passion for all things digital make her a valuable addition to our team.”

Taking the plunge and changing an existing setup can be a daunting task, and the thought of potential complications and drawn out project work can often put people off.

However, if you are thinking of making some serious changes to the most important part of your online marketing strategy, there is probably a good reason for it.

This post covers some of the reasons why someone may be considering making wholesale changes to a website or the team responsible for it, and hopefully helps to reassure people that they are making the correct decision.

Is your website outdated in terms of style and functionality?

All aspects of digital seem to progress at incredible pace, and web design and development is no exception. Smarter techniques are constantly pioneered, enabling sites to function and look more stylish. If you find yourself in a position of being left behind by the competition, then it could be time for your website to undergo a face lift?

Is there evidence of a lack of interaction on your site?

This ties in closely with the style and functionality section, however you may find that people just aren’t visiting the pages you would like them to, or taking the actions your require.  Examining your analytic’s data in line with your goals will give you a better picture of whether or not something is working as you require.

Is your website difficult and inefficient to update?

If you find that changing basic elements of your on-page content or uploading and managing files on your site a pain staking process, then your content management system (CMS) is probably poorly constructed. The purpose of a CMS is to make your life easier and allow for modifications to the most important aspects of you site to be as simple as possible, which essentially saves time. It could also be the case that your site doesn’t even use a CMS, which could be another good reason why you are considering a change of direction.

Are you experiencing poor rankings as a result of your design and development?

Google considers over 200 factors when deciding where pages rank in its search engine, however one of the most important factors is the structural soundness of your website from a development perspective. Although search engine bots are becoming smarter with regards to the content they can understand, there are still limitations. A site that has validated HTML, CSS, and a ‘clean’ HTML navigational structure alongside well optimised content is likely perform better in the search engines.

Are you paying too much money for simple changes to be made?

If you find that your developer is charging you every time you want to change something ‘simple’, then you should probably push back and ask the question of what the work involves, and try to understand what is stopping you from make these changes yourself? You may want to consider changing you current developer for someone more flexible if you find that maintaining the sites content is becoming increasingly more expensive.

Is your current web team slow to respond to your needs?

If you are happy with your current website in terms of how it looks, but you wish to expand on the existing structure, then you will need your developer to undertake some further project work. Project work relies on constant communication and feedback, both via email and over the phone. If your developer is slow to respond to your requests, then ultimately the progress of your site will suffer.

Are you considering changing your website? Maybe there are reasons other than the ones I’ve highlighted above? If so, then id like to hear your feedback, so please feel free to leave a comment below.

Jannike is a brand new graduate of the University of Nottingham with a BA in English.  She brings a range of skills, including copywriting, creative thinking, analytical abilities, and problem solving. She also has previously worked with a digital marketing agency in Norwich, and has also worked for the local newspaper, Diss Express.

Jannike grew up in rural Norfolk, but having discovered the delights Nottingham has to offer she has decided to live and work in our lively city.

She says, “It’s exciting to be part of a busy team in a vibrant area, and learn about the world of digital marketing from experienced professionals.”

Managing Director Susan Hallam comments, “Jannike is our second recent recruit from the University of Nottingham.  From experience, I know that arts graduates bring the right mix of analytical, interpersonal, and creative skills that are essential for a career in digital marketing.”

in addition to generating content for our clients, Jannike will be studying for her Google Analtyics accreditation, and will be appearing as an author on our blog in the near future.

LinkedIn has recently changed its navigation, and you can make these tweaks to your Settings by clicking on your face on the top right hand corner of your LinkedIn page, and selecting Privacy and Settings

Turn Off Your “Viewers of this profile also viewed”

LinkedIn automatically displays people who are similar to you on LinkedIn, and who else people looked at if they have looked at your profile.

In my experience this list of people tends to be a well crafted list of your competitors.

As an example, if we take a look at Nick Clegg, we can see people also looked at David Cameron, Tony Blair… and a whole bunch of footballers…

Do you want to display this list? No, so click here to turn it off!

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Turn Off Your Activity Broadcasts

There may be certain types of activities that you do not want automatically broadcasting to your network. For example, you may not want to announce to everyone when you choose to follow your competitors’ company pages in order to watch for their updates or announcements. The default setting on LinkedIn is to post an update onto your activity feed for each company you follow.

Likewise, it will broadcast changes that are either trivial, or inappropriate to your network:

• who you have just recommended
• every new connection you have made
• amendments you have made to your profile such as adding a new school, new job, or new website like

You can click here to turn your activity broadcasts off in the Settings

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Choose Which Group Memberships to Display

Membership of groups is a great feature of LinkedIn, and lets you join the social community where you meet up with customers, prospective customers, and partners.

Indeed, membership in key groups can play an important part in your marketing strategy and for lead generation.

However, in some instances, you may not want to display on your profile what groups you belong to.  Why would you want to let your competitors know where you are finding a good source of leads? Why would you want your customers to know which partnership groups you belong to?

You can choose which Group logos to display on your Group, Companies & Applications | Select Your Group Display Order | Member Settings

And whilst you are at it, you can set the frequency with which you will receive emails from the group.  I find I drown in LinkedIn emails, so in this example I have unticked the email alert boxes, and choose to look at the group as and when I have a moment.

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Do you have other settings that you have tweaked?  Be sure to share them with me as a comment on this blog post…

Google+’s Impact on Rankings

However much you may have tried to ignore it, Google+ is seemingly here to stay. Google+ activity and +1′s, as a whole, have been seen to result in improved rankings on Google.  Indeed, the impact of Google+ is even more apparent when it comes to local SEO.

Specifically, Google will take into account the number of shares, the authority of people sharing your content, and the location of the individual interacting with your content. Therefore, it’s imperative that you make your content shareable and clearly signpost a link to your company Google+ page on your website.

Personalised search results

By default, Google returns search results that are the most relevant to you personally, assuming you are logged in to a Google account.  Personalised search results will obviously include content that correlates with your search, but will also show “pages, photos, and Google+ posts from your friends”.  Google personalises search results in order “to deliver you the most useful, relevant content for your search.”

Therefore, if a number of individuals in your Google+ circles have +1’d a certain shoe store and you’re signed in to your Google account, this store should appear higher in the search results than it otherwise may have done whenever you carry out a related search query.

Like it or lump it, personalised search results are decreasing the influence of SEO in a number of areas. Instead, personalised factors are having an ever-increasing impact on which sites feature for certain search queries.

Google Authorship

Google+ is literally changing the face of SEO.  I’ve just discussed how personalised search results are determined based on the information Google has gathered from your Google+ circles, but the influence of Google+ in the search engine’s results pages has had even greater visibility since the introduction of Google Authorship.

Many Google search results pages now show the picture of the author next to the content that he/she has produced.  You’ve probably already encountered search results that look like this:

The example above shows author images appearing next to the content they’re attributed to, and if you haven’t already done so then I’d encourage you to link your Google+ profile to any blog content you’re currently producing.  Articles with Google+ author images by the side of them are proven to increase click-through rates by 150% compared to those articles without Google authorship.  Not only this, but those articles with Google authorship are also given a line of extra space in the search results, so it doesn’t take a genius to work out that it’s worth spending time linking your posts up to your Google+ profile!  As the saying goes – it pays to be seen. In other words, it pays to be active on social media networks like Google+, which is where these author images originate.

The Growing Impact of Google+ on SEO

Google+ is the social network that’s having the biggest impact on SEO today, and it’s influence is only going to grow. Facebook may have a bigger market share, but Facebook doesn’t write the algorithms for the most widely used search engine in the world; Google does.

Indeed, there are already arguments claiming that Google+ authorship will directly impact search results in the near future.  To explain how this might work, here’s a description from Google (visible in a patent for Agent Rank):

“The name of the writer can be used to influence the ranking of web search results by indicating the writer responsible for a particular content piece … Assuming that a given writer has a high reputational score, representing an established reputation for authoring valuable content, then additional content authored and signed by that writer will be promoted relative to unsigned content or content from less reputable writers in search results.”

Conclusion

The impact of Google+ on the search engines is clear to be seen, and still evolving, which is characteristic of the SEO industry as a whole.  It’s sometimes easy to forget that anything created on the internet is in fact social.  Every article we read or website we visit is connected with an individual author or business, complete with their own Google+ profile or company page.  Therefore, the impact of social on SEO is only going to increase as the connection between websites and their human owners becomes more visible.

Susan’s favourite posts:

5 free Excel add-ins to help digital marketers decipher big data by John Gagnon: An introduction to of some amazing free Excel add-ins to really cut big data down to size, save some time and produce some great visualisations.

A guide to using Facebook’s Lookalike targeting and other new features by @Marie_Page: A useful step-by-step guide to using Facebook’s new Lookalike targeting and some other recent changes to consider.

Sarah’s favourite posts:

Complete checklist on making the right landing Page Rank by Aleh Barysevich (See what he’s up to on Google + here): A great infographic showing 8 top tips to ensure the page you want to rank does rank in Google and what to do if it doesn’t.

44 creative and innovative link building experts and their strategies by @JasonAcidre: An amazing resource for advice and useful articles from the 44 most creative link builders of today.

Sean’s favourite posts:

The future of guest blogging with PostJoint by @SaleemYaqub: Some key tips on how to improve the quality of your guest posting and how to avoid spammy behaviour in the eyes of Google.

3 strategies to succeed in today’s mobile market place by James Tipton (Check out his Google+ here): A great article giving an insight into consumer behaviour on mobile compared to other devices and how to alter your mobile strategy accordingly.

Chris’ favourite posts:

11 things I’ve learned from writing 1000 blog posts by @DavidMoth: Whether blogging makes you nervous or you’re a pro looking for some extra tips, then this post is for you – packed with practical, every-day advice.

Social Brands 100 study reveals step change in social media by Harriet Clarke (Check out more of here posts here): A useful summary and key takeaways about how to improve your social strategy from the new Social Brands 100 study.

Abra’s favourite posts:

Five ways to flip your copywriting for higher conversion rates by Brian Massey over at @bmassey: A great reminder of how important it is to always keep in mind who you are writing for including some tips on ways to think about different audiences.

The 3 essential ingredients of an enticing Facebook post by @ScottAyres: A masterclass in the perfect post and why it pays off to get these 3 essentials right.

Ben’s favourite posts:

Disavowed: Secrets of Google’s most mysterious tool by @CyrusShepard: A collection of information, experiments and tips about using Google’s Disavow Tool.

APIs for Data-Driven Marketers by @Dr_Pete: A list of some of the most useful APIs out there for all different areas of digital marketing and the data they can provide you with.

Speaking about his new role, Pete comments – “I have known Susan for a number of years, having worked together on international online marketing projects whilst at UK Trade Investment. I am delighted to be joining Hallam Internet, Susan has a real energy and passion for helping businesses to achieve their online objectives. Businesses do have a lot to consider when selecting an online marketing agency and there is a lot of misinformation and unethical companies out there. Hallam are leading the way in effective search marketing and achieve real results and I’m looking forward to helping them to continue this.”

Pete has worked in various internet marketing disciplines, starting in web development and for the last few years as an international online marketing consultant specialising in overseas search engine optimisation and Pay Per Click management.  Pete brings experience in email marketing, PPC and search engine optimisation to the team.

Susan Hallam, Managing Director of Hallam Internet commented – ‘I’m really pleased to welcome Pete to our Team. With his web and online marketing background he has a good technical understanding as well as strong analytical and problem solving skills.”