National Rail Enquiries unveiled its new journey planner app this month and quickly clocked up more than 100,000 downloads.

The iOS and Android app is free to download, though there is an a-free version for £4.99.

It offers live travel information and the ability to plan journeys ahead of time.

NRE doesn’t sell tickets directly to customers, however its website does link to train operating companies and this functionality will be added to the app soon.

So how useful is the app?

Commuter focused

I’ve never been a huge fan of NRE’s website as I feel it’s difficult to use, but the app is excellent.

It is clearly aimed at commuters as the homepage gives you the option to set your home and work stations. This allows you to find out the live departure times for your next train home from work simply by tapping one button.

                           

Furthermore, if you’re not at work there is a big ‘Get Me Home’ key that uses geo-location to bring up your closest train stations.

This works for all overground stations and even London Underground stations within zone one. By clicking on the station you wish to travel from the app then brings up your travel options, including information about any planned engineering works.

The one feature currently missing is a map showing you where the nearest stations actually are.

Obviously this is easy enough to do using your phone’s map, but it would have been useful to offer the feature within the app.

Other features

For those not on the daily commute, NRE’s app offers tabs for ‘Live Trains’ and ‘Planner’, which include the features you would expect.

‘Live trains’ allows you to search for a station manually or it can find your nearest one using geo-location or previously travelled routes.

                            

You can then easily search for live train information for routes to or from your chosen destination. Once you have chosen a particular train, you can track its progress and ask to be alerted if it is going to be more than five minutes late.

Once on the train, the app also allows you to set an alarm to wake you up as you approach your destination.

The ‘Planner’ tab allows you to check the times for future journeys and includes all the same options for setting live alerts.

                            

In ‘Settings’ you can manage your favourites and alerts, as well as programming the app to only show direct or fastest travel options.

In conclusion…

This is an excellent app that I find to be much easier to use than NRE’s website. The live travel information and push notifications of delays are really useful for commuters, and could help prevent users from hanging around on platforms waiting for delayed trains.

The ‘Get Me Home’ function is also great for when you are in an unfamiliar location, as is the ‘Wake me up’ alarm.

NRE and developer Fortune Cookie clearly had a good idea of their target audience and the functions they would need on a mobile app.

I should caveat this write up by mentioning that I tested the app using Wi-fi, so the features may not be as slick using 3G.

Similarly, knowing National Rail, there are bound to be occasions when it says your train is at the platform when in fact it’s delayed by another 20 minutes.

But from a design point of view the NRE app is an excellent journey planner.

Posts from the Econsultancy blog

Posted by robkerry

SEOmoz and I don't always see eye to eye on industry issues, but I still have a lot of respect for the company. In fact SEOmoz is still the website that I send people to, when they want to learn about SEO or get into our industry. Rand kindly invited me to the SEOmoz office when I was in Seattle this week, for a chat and the opportunity to present a Whiteboard Friday.

This week's Whiteboard Friday covers the recent Penguin Update, including what to do and what not to do. I certainly wouldn't say that it's a comprehensive guide, but it does discuss the issues and causes that I have witnessed. Fortunately Ayima's campaigns have been unaffected (other than increases) by the update, but we do monitor our client's competitors and their agencies to a very granular level using in-house technology. Off-Page SEO has been changing dramatically for a while now, and it's important that agencies and in-house teams don't get left behind. Always ask questions and never just assume that Google whacked you by mistake, even if you are "White Hat".

Video Transcription

Hello, and welcome to another Whiteboard Friday. My name is Rob Kerry. I'm co-founder of an SEO agency called Ayima. Today we're going to be talking about the Penguin Update. There's been a lot of talk in a lot of communities out there, a lot of SEO communities, about the Penguin Update. A lot of false information being chucked around out there as well. Hopefully, this video clears up quite a few things.

The first issue is that a lot of people still use the term white hat, grey hat, black hat. Now, this terminology was taken from the hacking world and adopted for SEO reasons. It's actually in Google's best interest for us to use this terminology because it makes SEO sound like a risky, dangerous, almost illegal thing to be doing. Whereas if you actually use the hacking terminology and adapt it to SEO, the only thing that is black hat SEO is hacking someone's website and embedding links into there for SEO reasons. Everything else is basically white hat, because you're either getting permission from another webmaster to have a link on their site, or you're making adaptations to your own website, all of which would be classed as white hat.

Rather than looking at whether you use a white hat SEO provider or a black hat SEO provider, actually have a look to see what techniques are being used. Even if you're not buying links, you can still get affected by the Penguin Update. This isn't an update about whether you are buying links or not buying links. This an update about how you're trying to manipulate Google.

If your white hat SEO provider is currently just putting links into your site for commercial terms or even only putting 50% of the links in using commercial terms, let's say we're trying to rank for the term "penguin," if half your links or more are saying penguin in them, then you're going to get tripped up in this kind of filter because you're seen as manipulating Google, even if those links were acquired through directories or through asking for links or through viral campaigns.

So, rather than looking at that, we need to look at the footprints that are going into your site. Quite a good case study for that is we have a client who works with a lot of seasonal campaigns. We were about to run one at the beginning of this year for an event, which they sell products for. A competitor SEO agency in the UK works with one of their big competitors, one of the big competitors of our client. We were basically monitoring to see what that other SEO agency was doing. Three months before the seasonal campaign needed to launch, they started building links into their client's website using the commercial anchor text, so people putting links in saying penguin, penguin, penguin, going into those client pages. Whereas, we went with a different tactic.

We actually changed the way that we do SEO in terms of off-page SEO about a year ago, predicting that this kind of update would get rolled out. With our clients now, as long as the on-page is optimized properly and there are a few links going in using commercial terms, then we basically just build up the authority and the trust of our client website.

It sounds like kind of a lame idea, and it goes against traditional ideas of SEO, but it does actually work ever since this update rolled out. So, whilst we were starting to go up and up and up in the rankings, eventually hitting number one place for the biggest term for this seasonal campaign, we noticed our competitor going down and down and down.

There are even complaining on Twitter that Google might be broken, there's an algorithm issue, just because they didn't understand why putting loads of anchor text with commercial terms going into the client's site wasn't working. It's basically because Google has been working towards this kind of thing for quite a long time.

So, have a look at your anchor text ratios. Go to Open Site Explorer, type in your website, click on the anchor text link, and that will order it by, I think, group linking domains. You can actually see what links are most used on each URL of your website. If your commercial terms are quite near the top, let's say in the top 10, then you need to really work at getting better links going into your site and maybe even taking down some of the links, which are overly optimized. This is basically their step towards an over-optimization penalty.

There's another thing, which is content providers, who as soon as the Penguin Update rolled out, we got a barrage of emails from all of these people saying, "We can fix Penguin by building lots and lots of more pages of content for your site." These would actually negatively affect you, because one of the things that Penguin's trying to do is further penalize the production of crap content.

Rather than paying thousands and thousands a month to have 200-words news articles put onto your website, get rid of those if they're not actually bringing any traffic in. Look at actually creating a good quality resource of information on your website to become the authority in your industry. A few pages of great content is a lot better than just hammering Google with loads of news articles.

The big thing is there's no quick fix. If you get an email from a company saying that, "We can fix all your Penguin issues," it's likely not to be the case, especially if it's like a $ 35 fix. You just basically need to build a better campaign for your website. Look at taking down content which might not be unique or useful information. Get rid of some of that from your website if it's not driving any traffic directly to it.

Also, look at just making your website look as natural as possible. Build authority into the pages that you want to rank, but don't start over- optimizing on the anchor text. If you start doing that, not only will it fix Penguin issues, but it will also help you to rise up in the rankings. Thank you very much, and that's about it.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for Businesses on the Internet

Getting your website found online is more important than ever!

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is the technique of making a website achieve higher positioning on a Search Engine’s organic listings, when a user searches on terms related to the site’s content. SEO provides improved marketing ROI (Return On Investment) due to its cost-effective nature and should not be considered an expense. It is a necessity for every business online today.

Why Do I Need Search Engine Optimisation?

In these modern times of digital communications, most people now use the convenient solution of the Internet to seek their consumer needs, before even thinking about looking through the Yellow ‘Snail’ Pages and picking up the phone. Having websites displayed instantly in a Search Engine provides necessary information on products and services so people can assess their options and make a decision, before making contact. Given that more than three-quarters of all Internet users discover websites through Search Engines, it is paramount that your business be prominently listed within these engines and directories.

Real Example. Your customer searches for your product or service in a Search Engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing), which then delivers them a listing of websites most relevant to their Search Query. Is your website one of those results?? If you haven’t done any Search Engine Optimisation, the answer is NO. So how will anyone find you after you’ve paid all that money on a good looking website? Imagine making up some brochures for your business and then leaving them hidden in the office. How will your website of products and services reach your prospects, competing with the millions of sites on the Internet today. Is there any value in putting a billboard in the forest?!

And it’s not about reaching just a few more customers. With the connectivity of the Internet, your business can be listed in front of the whole local, national and worldwide audience of consumers seeking your products and services. Are your top competitors doing SEO? No doubt they’ll be thinking about it, if not already doing it. If you want to keep up with the competition and be at the forefront of your industry, Search Engine Optimisation on your website should be started immediately.

Hiring a professional SEO service is critical for achieving the best results and staying ahead of your competition, as ranking factors continue to change and are becoming increasingly difficult to understand. A good SEO should only implement ‘white-hat’ SEO methods, ensuring your site adheres to the guidelines set out by the Search Engines and doesn’t get penalised or banned from their indexes. Many Webmasters and SEO companies use ‘black-hat’ SEO methods, meaning they use short hand techniques, cut corners and try to slip past the Engines in the hope to rank quicker than normal. It can sometimes work, but not for too long. Google will quickly see this and penalise the site accordingly.

The best SEO results are derived from continual steady work, over a long period of time. It makes sense, because Google is a business too and want to give their customers (searchers) the best user experience possible so they keep using their services. Only websites that are genuine in intent and have the best quality content will enjoy a long life at the top of the internet.

Welcome to the ninja show, aka Web Analytics TV! Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your amazing questions. In this awesome episode we had questions from Dubai, India, Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, and the US.
If you’re new to this show, our process is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them.

In this episode we award the “Ninja of the Episode” and award it to Joe for a great question about the difference in data between the Visits to transactions report and the multi-channel funnels path length report. Joe, just email us and we’ll send you a signed copy of Web Analytics 2.0.

OK. Here is the list of last episodes questions.


In this action packed episode we discuss:

• (0:28) Determining what caused your visitors to become return visitors
• (2:25) Calculating click though rate on site visits
• (3:43) Best way to report on internal user traffic to your site
• (5:23) Does sampling use a random set of sessions
• (6:20) Differences in visits to transactions and path length in multi-channel funnels
• (9:20) Using events in a goal funnel
• (9:46) Best ways to debug iOS and Android apps
• (10:37) Calculating number of events happen per session
• (11:40) Best practices for tracking duration in a video
• (12:43) Differences in how JavaScript and Android libraries persist visitor info
• (13:35) Differences in unique visitors and repeat visits
• (14:43) Impact of setSessionCampaignTimeout on multi-channel funnels
• (15:45) Importing conversion goals from AdWords into Google Analytics
• (16:48) Viewing Google Analytics on an i-device
• (17:53) Using outbound link tracking to track exit links

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• YouTube video demoing how to debug Google Analytics in Android applications

In the fourth question we answer if sampled (fast access mode) data uses a random set of sessions. Just to recap, in most reports, Google Analytics pre-calculates report data and there is no sampling. But in some cases, like when you apply a secondary dimension, the report data needs to be calculated on the fly. In this case, Google Analytics might only process a subset of sessions so that it can return the report in a timely manner. Here’s how the subset of sessions is determined.

Currently fast-access model (sampling) can be controlled via a slider and the default is to process 250,000 sessions. This means that in the date range, only 250,000 sessions will be used in the report calculation. In Google Analytics, visits count sessions. So say a site received the following 3 days of visits.

Day 1 : 500,000
Day 2 : 250,000
Day 3 : 500,000

So, a total of 1,250,000 visits occurred in the date range. To determine which sessions are selected in the fast-access sample, Google Analytics first calculates a multiplier by dividing the total visits in the date range with the number of visits selected on the slider.

multiplier = 1,250,000 / 250,000 = 5

Then for each day, the total number of sessions is divided by the multiplier and only that number of sessions is randomly chosen from each day to be processed.

For Day 1 : 500,000 / 5 = 100,000. So 100,000 sessions are randomly chosen from day 1 to be processed to generate the report data for that day.

For Day 2: 250,000 / 5 = 50,000 sessions are used
For Day 3: 500,000 / 5 = 100,000 sessions are used

Once Google Analytics has determined which sessions to use, the sessions are all processed into a report. Then the report values are then multiplied by the multiplier to scale the final results.

Whats nice about the new fast-access mode slider feature, is that you can use the slider to change the number of sessions used in the processing. And by comparing the number of sessions used, you can see the impact of sampling on your data.

Ok great question.

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we’d love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you’re there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions.  Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics team

Google Analytics Blog

Augmented reality ads are slowly making their way into the mainstream, with more and more brands using the technology to engage consumers with hidden digital content.

We’ve reported on several major brands using AR for marketing campaigns, including Waitrose, Nestle, and Tesco.

However, while marketers are all too keen to trumpet their AR trials, stats around consumer engagement are like hens’ teeth.

But following on from our post highlighting six successful uses of QR codes, we have found one or two examples of successful AR campaigns.

Kia

This campaign dates back to last year’s Australian Open. Kia has sponsored the tournament for the past eight years and noted that 32% of the Australian TV audience used their smartphone while watching the broadcast.

During the matches viewers were encouraged to download Kia’s bespoke AR app that linked them to digital content about the Aussie Open and the Kia Optima. 

The AR app recorded 12,630 downloads and there was an increase in Optima searches of 58%. The largest recorded search volume for the Optima was January 22, the day app went live.

As a result, Kia said that it achieved 57% more sales than expected of the new Optima in January.

Nuts Magazine

In a January edition of the weekly lads mag Nuts, readers could scan over 20 pieces of editorial content using Blippar.

Publisher IPC Media said that more than 15,000 unique users generated more than 200,000 interactions on their smartphones.

Without anything to benchmark against it is difficult to say if this warrants a successful trial, however Blippar heralded it as an unprecedented level of interaction for a single campaign using its app.

Volvo

In order to promote its new S60 model Volvo created an AR experience that allowed users to drive a virtual car.

It was activated by scanning a YouTube video, and the user could then drive the car round a track by tilting their smartphone left and right.

Volvo said the results were “outstanding”, with a 9.6% interaction rate, 192,319 clicks on the masthead ad and a traffic increase of 293% to volvocars.com.

Top Gear Magazine

Readers could access a range of digital content in the December edition of Top Gear Magazine using Aurasma’s AR app.

It included videos of the presenters embedded in the editorial content and a highlights reel of 2011 best cars on the front cover. 

The tie in resulted in tens of thousands of video views and Top Gear Magazine has integrated AR into subsequent editions.

Lacta 

Greek chocolate brand Lacta ran this neat AR campaign in December. Following on from an existing marketing campaign that encouraged consumers to write love messages on Lacta chocolate bar wrappers, the AR app brought to life virtual love notes.

Consumers were able to write a love message on a wrapper within the app and then forward it onto a loved one who could only read it by scanning a Lacta bar. 

The campaign was a clever way to introduce a digital element to existing offline marketing and engage consumers with the brand.

It would be interesting to see Nestle to run a similar campaign with Rolos in the UK, as we have already seen them use Blippar with a number of their products.

ASOS

Clothing e-tailer ASOS used Blippar to bring its consumer magazine to life.

The AR presented readers with click-to-buy icons so they could purchase the items straight off the page through their smartphone. 

The use of AR fits perfectly with ASOS’s brand image and caters to its target demographic of 18-25 year olds.

We don’t have stats on how many people ‘blipped’ the magazine, but from a strategic point of view this would appear to be the perfect place to trial AR.

Volkswagen

VW used AR to launch the new 2012 Beetle in Canada – the idea was to make the advertising “as impressive as the car”.

By scanning posters on bus shelters and billboards users could access fun digital content of cars bursting out from the wall and doing tricks off ramps.

This is definitely an impressive use of AR, however it used a bespoke AR app called VWJuicedUp that was only available on iOS. The use of custom made AR apps is potentially the only thing preventing the technology from really catching on with consumers.

QR code scanners are universal so consumers need only download one version, however AR campaigns often require the user to download a new app every time which doesn’t offer a great user experience.

Posts from the Econsultancy blog

Adsense eBay auctions you should keep an eye on:

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Google Maps for mobile had its sixth birthday earlier this month and we’re celebrating by releasing the next generation of Google Maps for Android, which is first to get indoor Google Maps—announced moments ago on the Official Google Blog. We also have two other great additions in this release: a new way to switch between features in the toolbar and a new Places home screen.

Mapping the vast indoors

When you’re inside an airport, shopping mall, retail store, or other public space, Google Maps 6.0 for Android brings the freestanding map directory to the palm of your hands — helping you determine where you are, what floor you’re on, and where to go indoors. For example, in this busy travel season, you can use Google Maps 6.0 to help you find your way around airports.

Detailed floor plans automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed-in on a building where indoor map data is available. The familiar “blue dot” icon indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the map will automatically update to display which floor you’re on.

See the full announcement for more details or to demo indoor Google Maps, start here.

Mall of America in Minneapolis before and after, with a floor selector

San Francisco International Airport before and after, with 3D tilt
Switching between features gets easier

When you open Google Maps for Android, you can do many things: view your location on the map, discover where to go with Places, get GPS turn-by-turn directions with Navigation, check in to share your location, and more. We wanted to make it easier to hop from one feature to another; so, we’ve added a drop-down menu to the top toolbar for quick access.

New drop down menu to switch between features
We hope this menu helps you get to your favorite parts of Google Maps faster or shows you some features you haven’t tried yet.

Discovering what’s great nearby with the new Places home screen

The new Places home screen includes popular searches for your current location, so you can find the best spots in any area you travel.

Redesigned Places home screen with popular searches for your area
To start using Google Maps 6.0 for Android, download the update from Android Market. This update works for Android OS 2.1+ devices everywhere Google Maps is currently available.

Posted by Chikai Ohazama, Product Management Director

Google Mobile Blog