A majority of UK consumers (55%) would prefer to see more relevant ads served to them online, while 52% are happy to see ads as they appreciate that it allows them to access free content.

However, though 48% presumably aren’t happy to see ads, just one in ten would pay for ad-free content. 

A study published by the IAB based on 2,000 interviews (conducted online and offline) looks at consumer attitdudes to online ads, privacy and, of course, cookies.

Here are a few of the stats from the study…

Cookie confusion

There is much discussion of cookies thanks to the e-Privacy Directive, and one thing that comes from the various surveys is the lack of understanding of what cookies do. 

In our recent cookie law survey, 40% said they believed cookies were bad for the web, while a recent IMRG study found that 33% thought they could be used for viruses and trojans. 

This IAB study reveals a similar level of misunderstanding. Though half of the respondents said they had deleted cookies in the past six months, a lot of them didn’t know what they were. 

Of the 64% of people who said they knew what a cookie is, only 57% actually chose the correct definition from the options shown to them (in our recent survey, 69% said they knew what a cookie is). 

This means that 39% of people who deleted cookies in the last six months did so without correctly knowing what cookies are and what they’re used for.

Do you know what an online cookie is and why websites use them?

This further underlines the issues facing websites looking to comply with the e-Privacy Directive and persuade customers to give their consent.

If most don’t even know what they are, how can they make an informed decision, and will they trust the explanations provided by online retailers? 

Attitudes to online advertising

52% of consumers are happy to see online advertising because it allows them to view content or use services online at no cost. 61% expect that a large portion of the web would disappear without the advertising revenue that is needed to support it. 

It’s good that a majority appreciate the importance of advertising though it seems the other 39% expect free content while failing to appreciate how it is provided to them. 

Customers also want control, 45% want to control the ads they see online, while 40% want ‘easy access’ to the information that is being stored about them. 

Relevant advertising

This is a point on which marketers and consumers agree. Web users don’t want to see irrelevant ads, and advertisers want to deliver their content to a receptive audience. 

55% said they would rather see online advertising relevant to their interests and 59% would prefer a lower number of relevant ads than a higher volume of irrelevant ones. 

This is where cookies are vital, and the e-Privacy Directive will actually work against consumer wishes in this case. 

This is because, according to our recent survey, the very cookies that store information which is used to improve the relevance of ads are those that consumers are least likely to consent to. 

Just 21% are happy to consent to cookies which are used to improve ad relevance, and 17% for those used to target them on third party sites. 

What kinds of cookies would you be happy to consent to?

If consumers want more relevant ads, and free content on the web, the price is to provide enough information to allow this to happen. People are happy enough to share plenty of details and photos of their personal lives on Facebook. The information stored on most cookies is nowhere near as personal. 

Image credit: mollybob via Flickr

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Last November, Google tested a new “Sources” section in its search results, in the third column where ads normally appear. It seems the testing is underway again, showing extended information about actors, films, musicians, people and more. It also seems likely everyone may see this…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

Bad SEO’s? What About Bad SEO Clients?

You hear all the time about bad SEOs. Bad SEOs are offering worthless services, failing to deliver on their internet marketing promises, polluting the search engine results–well, a lot of bad things. But how much ever gets said about bad SEOs’ spiritual counterparts: bad SEO clients?

As an SEO, I can see things from the other side of the table. You see, despite trying hard to make it clear I’m a good, ethical, results-oriented, smarter marketing, white-hat SEO, I have gotten no end of inquiries from bad prospective SEO clients. Sure, no one who gets cheated is ever entirely to blame, and some cheated businesses are entirely blameless. But the bad SEOs would have too small a market to stay in business if it weren’t for almost-as-bad clients.

Shades of Bad SEO Clients

First, let me make clear what I mean by “bad” SEOs. Bad SEOs are bad because they either do unethical things to get e-marketing results, or because they consistently fail to deliver results. A good SEO delivers results and does it without trampling over other people’s rights (like submitting automated comments to their websites or trying to get good sites de-indexed).

A bad SEO client, in turn, is someone who will only be satisfied (albeit temporarily) with a bad SEO. Because they refuse to consider ethical web consultants or smarter marketing strategies, they are creating markets for the e-marketing charlatans and black-hats. There are two basic types of bad SEO clients: crooks and fool–oops, I mean, ethically challenged and judgmentally-challenged.

Ethically-Challenged SEO Clients

I haven’t gotten so many inquiries asking for out-and-out unethical services. Still, I’ve been asked about blog-sp@mming software and other shady internet marketing tactics a couple times. A colleague shared this gem with me: “Have you thought about just scanning a book from the library and using it for web content? Or is that too high-risk?” (Seriously, someone asked him this.)

Of course, judging from the amount of comment sp@m and SEO-motivated hacking on the web, there is plenty of demand for this stuff.

Judgmentally-Challenged SEO Clients

A much larger group of bad SEO clients are simply those who insist on putting themselves in the way of fraud. Yes, that’s right: I’m blaming the victim. Someone who goes looking for a $ 5 gold watch can’t cry too long if the watch turns out to be fake or hot. With SEO, there are a few more nuances, but it’s the same essential idea.

The overwhelming majority of these judgmentally challenged souls are private individuals whose only business is the business-in-a-kit variety. Yet they are also sometimes representatives of actual successful companies. The real businesspeople tend to be quicker to let their misconceptions go (after all, they can afford the real SEO alternatives), but not always. Let’s look at some representative types of this group, straight out of my own inbox (note: these are inquiries from prospects, not actual clients).

Something-for-(Little More than)-Nothing Clients

Really, I tend to think these people should be in the ethically challenged group, but maybe that’s just the remnant of my work ethic making me be mean There are actually two kinds of these clients:

The ambitious but cheap client: “I’d like to get to the top of Google for the keyword, ‘mortgage’ so I can turn over $ 100,000/month in revenue. I can spend up to $ 1,000.”
The Adsense-is-my-business-plan client: you wouldn’t believe the numbers of inquiries I get from people who only plan to make money off Adsense or other on-site advertising–they don’t even have a plan for getting repeat traffic, nor do they have content to synergize with the SEO effort. By buying promotional services, they would essentially be buying advertising in order to make money off advertising–you see where that could be a problem?

Another way of looking at it: why wouldn’t I just create a site myself and keep all the profit from my efforts? In fact, most SEOs do have their own project sites, which are often monetized by Adsense. The money we could otherwise get from Adsense is one very low baseline for pricing our services. Legitimate SEO clients are typically selling goods or services at a profit rate that works out to ten or more times what they could get from Adsense.

In addition to the greedy, I also see a few other kinds of less common, but still problematic prospective SEO clients:

SEO-Starry-Eyed Clients: “Search engine traffic is definitely the best way for me to get pet-sitting clients in my tiny Himalayan village.”
The Little-Knowledge-Is-a-Dangerous-Thing Client: “Don’t tell me about keyword research, content, anchor text, or natural linking strategy, just get me the PageRank (or links, keyword density, or whatever the fad is).”
Gullible-and-Not-Letting-Go Client: “I know of at least two services that will submit my site to thousands of search engines for $ 29.95. If you can’t do that, I’ll take my business elsewhere.”
I-Will-Never-Trust-SEO-But-I’ll-Consider-It-Anyway Client: “No one can guarantee a good search engine ranking so this is all pointless–I’ll just go with that $ 29.95 search engine submission package someone just emailed me about. At least it’s cheap.”

In short, if you are going to find good SEO web consultants, you need: 1) realistic expectations; 2) a realistic budget; 3) solid information. Don’t expect something for nothing, do a little reading, and it’s much less likely you’ll fall victim to bad SEOs.

It’s Friday again, and it’s time for another Fab Friday post on Google Geo Developers! This week, we’ve got something for the jQuery developers out there. There’s a jQuery UI module for the Google Maps API. This enables you to quickly integrate the Maps API into your jQuery applications. They give some great examples using Street View, Geolocation, and adding data from microformats and RDFa.

In an upcoming event, I’ll be speaking at GIS in Action in Portland Oregon March 14th and 15th, anyone there please come and say hi.

Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations team

Google Geo Developers Blog

If you’re an SEO, chances are you’re familiar with SEOmoz.

The Seattle-based company is a brand name in the SEO space, and the company’s CEO, Rand Fishkin, a highly-visible figure in the industry.

For all of the company’s success, however, growing SEOmoz hasn’t always been easy. Last year, for instance, Fishkin revealed on his blog how he almost raised $ 24m in a second round of funding for his company, only to see the deal fall through.

Fishkin’s blog post attracted a lot of attention, and for good reason: it provided an uncommonly honest view of one entrepreneur’s view of the fundraising process. “I feel burned,” Fishkin wrote. “This is the second time in 3 years that I’ve gotten excited about raising a potential round of capital, and it turned out terribly both times. I’m not sure what I did wrong or what I should do differently next time.”

While SEOmoz didn’t close a funding round in 2011, the adage “good things come to those who wait” applied to Fishkin and his team and yesterday, he announced that SEOmoz has raised $ 18m from Foundry Group and Ignition Partners at a $ 75m pre-money valuation.

Once again, Fishkin took to the internet to reveal all about the deal, including the metrics that sold his investors on the company. The most notable: since 2007, when the company raised a small $ 1.1m round of funding, SEOmoz has grown its product revenue from just over $ 400,000 to nearly $ 11.5m in 2011. And the company is currently on pace to achieve $ 18m in product revenue this year.

“The [new] money is going to help us do amazing things, and it’s going to mean we can do a lot more of them faster and at greater scale than we could have on our own,” Fishkin wrote. He also revealed intimate details about his company, including the fact that he now owns 24% of equity and actually gave up some shares without compensation to keep his employees from being diluted.

Funding, obviously, is no guarantee of success, but in today’s frothy market, where twenty-something entrepreneurs raise seed rounds at multi-million dollar valuations with little more than rough prototypes and all-star founders can raise tens of millions of dollars just because, Fishkin’s refreshingly transparent chronicles of an experience that is often glamorized by the tech press is a valuable contribution to entrepreneurs everywhere.

Posts from the Econsultancy blog