For those of us involved in business in China, news is out that Baidu, the Chinese search giant with 80% traffic share have partnered with Bing to provide the results for English language searches.

“Baidu has about 80 percent of the search market in China — a nation with almost half a billion Internet users and still only about 30 percent penetration — after Google left mainland China in a high-profile fallout with Beijing over censorship.” Jason Subler and Georgina Prodhan / HUFF POST TECH

Up until now most brands with an interest in SEO in China have been able to rely on the presence of Google.co.hk to provide English results. However, with a big name alternative like Bing attached to Baidu and the obvious dislike of Google by the government that could well be set to change.

Most of my efforts in China have been focused on providing good, Chinese language websites. The common mistake people seem to make is to forget about pages addresses and meta data and end up with sites that look Chinese to the user but English to the search engines. To be honest, displaying page addresses in Chinese was a major CMS victory for the development team and is something none of our direct competitors have managed to pull off yet. That said, it is just the beginning of a long journey.

Rightly or wrongly I have largely ignored Bing until now, but I guess this is the excuse I have been waiting for. On a positive note that means with the work on Yahoo for Japan, Bing for China, and the Google preference around the rest of the world I will at least have a broad knowledge base on all the key search engines.

Being the guy responsible for the digital marketing strategy I will be looking to leverage whatever competitive advantage I can from this knowledge. Next stop, social media.

Also Read:

For Digital Marketers, strategists, engagement supremo’s and anyone else vaguely interested:  here’s a post on web 2.0 in China with an overview of the key Chinese social media channels.

User experience in Content management systems is just as critical as any other peace of software. In his blog post on the 2011 Content Strategy forum Martin Belam’s discusses Karen McGranes talk on CMS as “The enterprise software that UX forgot”

The crux of the post focuses on the multitude of formats we are now outputting our content to and the failure of many CMS to address this issue. The author goes on to quote Karen’s suggestions that we are stuck in antiquated practises where we focus on documents that will “live on the web” rather than investing in the CMS tools that will allow content to be reused across a number of channels.

“Without aligning your software to the real needs of the content production folk in your business, you will never make a brilliant product on the front-end.” - Martin Belam

Whilst I agree that user experience is poor across many CMS I feel many of the issues we are currently facing are far deeper rooted. Consider the cost, pain and suffering your likely to incur in rolling out an enterprise level CMS. Most organisations are going to sweat these assets over many years and shy away from updates to meet the latest demands of the digital world. When big business are still asking questions like “Should we do social media” or “Do we need a mobile version of this” it is hardly a surprise to see a lack of investment in new, content-centric CMS.

You could argue that it is the vendor’s responsibility to roll out updates to meet these new challenges. In most cases that hasn’t happened, or it has happened too late,  leaving businesses stuck with a multitude of content deployment systems.

The argument to write once and publish across multiple channels makes sense, but from a user experience and cost perspective. Yet it is common to see businesses running conventional web CMS systems alongside mobile CMS, email marketing, social and print platforms. These deployment models usual have accompanying individuals or even departments dedicated to each of the channels, pushing out identical, or at least very similar content. I believe the best, integrated marketing campaigns should send the same message across all channels, and unless the content of that message comes from one single platform there will be significant cost overheads and a loss of impact and message.

The simplest solution would probably be to throw everything out and start again. But unless you have just discovered the ability to print money, that’s unlikely to be the easiest to implement.  You certainly need a strategy that’s going to be far-reaching and pervasive. Think about where you need the business to be in 5 years time and work back from there. Look for opportunities to consolidate existing content repositories, take advantage of the fact that you can often write assets off over three years and plan a future where content really is king.

To put this into perspective I am nearing the end of a two-year project to bring all content creation for a global business onto a single platform. This includes multiple PC & Mobile websites in diverse languages, iOS & Android apps, and email marketing. There have been many major issues to overcome, but the journey so far has benefitted from a significant strategy and planning phase and a major review of CMS vendors.  Two years is an incredibly tight timeframe. Three would have been far less stressful. However, the key to success (so far) was starting with the belief that content was the critical factor.

You may not be able to start with a clean sheet of paper, but that should not stop you doing the right thing: Focusing on a world where content is the driver, not the systems that enable you to publish it.

Yes, it will be hard work. Yes, it could will be expensive and Yes, it will be worth while.

“We’ve done a poor job of convincing people of the real benefits of structured content over bespoke digital layout” - Karen McGranes

Link building is one of the corner stones of good SEO as well as being a key battlefield for those gaming Google. By crafting strategic, quality content for your website, and seeding it though appropriate channels,  it will become a successful, and important part of your digital strategy. It will both improve the authority of your domain and increase the level of traffic whilst encouraging your visitors to share content socially.

In March Google launched “Panda” immediately affecting some 11% of search results. The purpose?  To address complaints that lower quality farms were getting higher results than websites featuring quality content. In summary, what this means for your online marketing campaign is that content is king, and that quality is more important than ever before.

“Our site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find “high-quality” sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content”

google webmaster blog

I have always believed that a good, engaging, content rich website, properly marketed, will get visitors. You should be thinking about what those visitors want to read, how to encourage more page views and how to bring them back to your website again and again.

Research your market and look at the websites that are currently getting the hits. You may need to think laterally on this. For example, if you’re selling widgets look at the widget news sites, widget associations and professional bodies. What are consumers of your widgets interested in?

When you establish this, it’s not good enough to throw a load of keywords into an article and hope for the best. That kind of strategy is unlikely to fool Google let alone real, discerning people. Consider adding on-page video and infographics to improve dwell time and engagement. People are more likely to share content if it is relevant to their peer group and looks good.

Look at the layout of some of the good news sites. They know how to promote content and take the reader on a journey. Think about the way you link articles together and the flow of the website to improve engagement. You should also think about drafting in a professional to help. Content strategists are as important as SEO’s now, if not more so. This is difficult stuff to get right, and your going to need all the help you can get.

Once the content is sound and regularly updated you can begin to focus on reaching out to others to build links. Once again, it pays to do research to ensure you are approaching relevant websites, bloggers and social channels. I don’t think you can expect someone to link to you without something in return – engaging, high quality content that can be used on their website or blog for example. Consider offering your content in different formats as some will prefer to write articles themselves based on well-researched raw data, whereas others are happy to lift your content wholesale. Be flexible and you will be rewarded.

It is worth remembering that link builders approach popular channels every day. Be prepared to build a relationship and prove your in it for the long haul. A good professional PR will spend significant time and energy building relationships with journalists, and link building shouldn’t be any different.

In summary, I feel we are moving to an online world where quality finally outweighs quantity. In the future, the highest-ranking websites are likely to be the best websites, not the ones with the sneakiest SEO’s (no offence SEO’s). Well seeded, engaging content will generate good incoming links and build the authority and position of your website. Content strategy must now become a key focus of your digital marketing strategy.

“If you’re going to say something, say it well”

Caroline Watkin – Content Strategist

Sundays major achievement was finally getting around to updating my blogs theme.

I was halfway through 30 posts in 30 days when I began to take the blog more seriously. Some of the pages were getting high traffic volumes, others almost zero. I wanted to improve the layout, make it easier to browse posts and turbo charge my SEO. I installed MAMP (Macintosh, Apache, MySQL &  PHP) on my mac to run a local server, and spent a weeks worth of commuting time playing with some ideas. I did a lot or work on the new default Word Press theme Twenty Eleven, and really enjoyed it’s simplicity. I got a long way just playing with the CSS, but eventually decided I needed something more. I had seen some impressive sites built using Thesis as a framework and decided to invest $87 to see it in action for myself.

The colour palette came straight from my Colour Lovers post last week, check it out for some bright inspiration.

I am going to see how this design beds in before making any changes, but please share your thoughts via the form below.

Thanks to the nice guys at Site Visibility for send me a copy of Seth Godin’s Poke the box. I am going to take it as a gesture of kindness rather than a desire to motivate me to bigger and better digital creativity.

They are also running a free search marketing conference at Brighton on April 1st. Hope to see you there.

The value of a strong personal brand just cannot be underestimated these days. It is an accepted fact that employers often turn to the internet when recruiting, either to source staff or research applicants. Regardless of wether you are just starting to build your profile, or have already invested some time and effort online, Linkedin is a solid place to start.

This isn’t a “how to” guide to Linkedin, rather 10 things you really need to do to build a solid profile.

 1. Add job details to your profile.

 Just listing out your job titles won’t to you any justice. Descriptions of your responsibilities and achievements will create a far more complete Profile and improve the way you look in search results.

2. Get a vanity URL

 If you are lucky you may still be able to get a url featuring your name. Whatever you chose it should reflect you and the impression you want to make on others – humour is great, but not here.

3. Promote your website

You can add unto three url’s of your choice here. Ensure the sites you link to are reflective of your business aspirations, blogs, showcases or other examples of your limitless talent all work well here. 

4. Enable your public profile

This places your linked in Profile in search engine results and allows more people to find you.

5. Give people a reason to connect

There is nothing that annoys me more in Linkedin that the standard connect with me text  Linkedin is about building relationships that are mutually beneficial in business so state why you think connecting is a good idea.

6. Share your connections

 In the spirit of the community keep your connections open for others to see and increase networking opportunities for everyone.

7. Just say no

 Although there is an admirable movement of users who will accept connections from anyone I believe you should be more selective. Only connect with users you feel you share common ground with, ultimately it will enhance you profile.

8. Join Groups

 Linked in is full of groups, so excellent sources of knowledge and networking opportunities, others less so.  Find the groups that work for you and join them. Make an effort to contribute to discussions and give yourself an extra 10 points.

 9. Answer Questions

 In order to build your profile and standing in the community look for questions in your area of expertise and answer them. This will raise your profile and build your contacts.

10. Share something more

Take advantage of some of the excellent linkedin tools to add value to your profile and share your Tweets, or your Presentations.

It has been a week since the DAY Ignite conference in Berlin and I have barely had a moment to pause, let alone write a blog post or even post my notes online.  As a new customer of DAY or DAY | ADOBE in the throws of a global CQ5 CMS implementation across 21 countries,  I was keen to see what I had bought into first hand. As well as getting a chance to spend some time with other DAY customers (who incidentally, didn’t have a bad word to say about them), I wanted to see what was planned for 2011 and how the Adobe acquisition was going to affect my investment in CQ5.

I had met David Nuscheler, the DAY’s CTO once before.  I found him passionate about the product, likeable and uber geeky: great characteristics for a man in his position. Word on the street was that David’s top 10 features for the next release presentation was one not to miss. Having witnessed his enthusiasm for the product first hand in a board room,  in London with only 10 people in attendance I had no reason to doubt that the coming session would be anything other than completely engaging.

So here, in reverse order, and mostly in my words,  are David’s top 10 features for CQ5.4, scheduled for release in February 2010

10: Sporty spirit

CQ5 aims to be faster, higher and stronger in each release

The Faster: 

11s startup time (previously 22s)

Page rendering: 43ms, almost twice as fast as before

Hi res image import: now 2mins, down from 11mins to import 100 hi-res images

 The Higher:

Faster upgrade time, DN ran a sneaky upgrade on the Day website in about 4 mins.

Reach out to DAY. David offered  to help with your upgrade.  if you have a customised install of CQ and are worried the upgrade will downgrade you to ann instant fail DAY will give it a shot on your behalf and and ensure it is optimised before you begin.

The Stronger:

Introducing “tough day”

One day, clearly bored and with nothing better to do than self harm, the good people at DAY thought “What’s the worst scenario for an authoring server to run into?”

They devised the “Tough Day” test, that included some pretty insane ideas like importing the entire taxonomy of eBay, adding users and hundreds of pages over and over again, while making gazillions of updates all with one hand tied behind their CQ backs (ok, I may be adding some dramatic content here, although I get the feeling that Mr Nuscheler would be prepared to give it a go).

Then they turned the volume up to 11, as Spinal Tap would say, and ran “10x Tough Day” concurrently.

9: Share nothing

There are days when I wished I had paid a little more attention during my Computer Science degree, especially on the day we did clustering.  Now, for the faint hearted, or those of us not called Roy we have “Clustering with no pain”  CQ5.4 will allow you to join different server environments simply with nothing more than the url of the machine.

I’m not doing the beauty of this justice, so call these guys for a grown up interpretation.

8: Html refresh

Web2.0 / HTML 5 compliant

Standards support, and a vision that embraced html5 was one of many reason I bought DAY. CQ 5.4 has a big reduction in the code behind existing components, and some cool new components, like a carousel out of the box.

7: Author HTML 5

Movie tags & stuff

David shot a quick movie of the audience, uploaded it to CQ5 and viewed it on their website. Then for kicks he fired up the mobile version of the website on his iPhone and played the same movie.

Having personally suffered pain recently trying to get our movies into a format that could play on any device I thought this was just awesome. It was simple drag and drop experience that pretty much any content author could accomplish.

There must be some complex code crunching going on behind the scenes to make this happen so seamlessly.

6: Go with the flow

Workflow management

Introducing a new, more powerful inbox feature. Simpler drag and drop workflow creation, and  easy workflows extensions for developers.

5: Usable reports

Schedule reports daily, weekly and monthly snapshots

Scalable, extensible and easy to use reporting tool across all site specific data i.e. how many pages, which components are used, most active users, content, slowest page, etc

I manage almost 50 sites across 21 countries and knowing who is adding content, who is doing really dumb stuff and what’s being used is hugely important to me. This is one feature that I hope really will change my world for the better.

4: Profiles and forums

I missed most of this as I was exchanging iPad notes with my neighbors about the last point. The general idea seemed to be a very worthy extension of the  clickstream cloud and ability to simulate user experiences and  personalisations.

3: Annotate and more

Making sense of comments in workflows. Now this really is a cool feature.

If I had $1.00 for every email I have received that starts “You know the bit on the left hand side of the screen, in Japanese, that’s blue, sort of an oblong shape, maybe more square actually, about half way between the orange logo and the search box? Well can we make it red and say 専門分野で探す求人情報?” .

What I really need is a nice post-it note stuck to the screen just in the right place, the ability to send notes back to say “that idea sucks” and maybe if those notes could be attached to specific components and really allow users to interact with design elements directly.

All of this coming in CQ5.4 – Thanks!

2: Pushing content

Marketing campaigns management module

I really need to see more of this feature to get a better understanding of its capabilities. It looks like an opportunity to extend DAY content out into email marketing and appears to have some good email simulations and lead import functionality.

1: Embrace mobile

The web is going mobile and we need to tool up to meet the challenge.

The new mobile module can detect 17k devices and understand the capabilities of that device. It splits devices into neat groups – feature phones, smart phones (bb’s) and touch phones (iPhone’s) and can emulate the functionalities found on them.

Using this module to design mobile websites allows you to target groups based on your user profiles, inherit content, create live copies of pages from main site to mobile site, break inheritance and format data to suit, and many more things.

1++: Mobile apps

“CQ5 got, an extension chord to your inbox”

In short you can manage CQ5 workflows and basic editing from your iPad and update, maintain and launch application content though CQ5 without moving through the app store for approval (which just seems too awesome to be true)

In Summary

I feel that DAY are moving in an ever upward direction. From conversations at Ignite they are clearly listening to their customers and happy to move the product forwards in light of their feedback. 

Everyone I spoke with was upbeat about the acquisition by Adobe, and there were many conversations taking place about imbedding Adobe products, Omniture being the stand out among them.

In David’s own words “We have only just begun”.

It been a week of travel and conferences for me, and an iPad full of notes that should keep me busy for weeks, if not months to come. Geoff Reiss raised a great question during his keynote on “Web strategies for 2011 and beyond” at Day Ignite , “Why are more websites not like Amazon”

Im sure Geoff is not the first person to have that thought, but raising it in a venue containing some of the best digital experts, from some of the worlds most successful companies was sure to get people thinking. Amazon have been in e-commerce for some time and in many ways have written the book on innovation in that space. The web experience is great,  all based on some simple basic sales concepts.

I show interest in a book on, for example, gardening. I may even making a purchase. The next time I visit the store they show me, guess what? more books on gardening. They even suggests other book on Gardening they think I may like based on the purchase of other customers, they are constantly looking for opportunities to upsell, to keep me engaged, and to keep me onsite. The best part is that I actually quite like this experience. it doesn’t feel intrusive, or salesy, it feels like they are actually offering me a service. Amazon are doing me a favour.

Perhaps the worst things  that could have happened to my bank balance was the introduction of Amazon Prime and one click ordering. It is almost impossible to visit the Amazon store without making a purchase, and that extends to my wife and now my children. It’s not just me either, I have several colleagues and friends who find the experience just as compelling. So why are more businesses not following suit and building engaging, customised web experiences?

Creating and serving custom content is not difficult for a well managed site with a good CMS and decent analytics. It can create such a compelling user experience that return visits improve dramatically. Once the noise has been filtered out visitors get what they need, when they need it. There is little competition in online book stores as Amazon has it sewn up – why go anywhere else.

There is a huge amount to be gained by following the example set by Amazon, an example that can be applied to almost any website.

Im on my way to Berlin for the Day Ignite 2010 conference. Just in case you didn’t know Day produce the awesome CQ5 content management system and recently announced they were to be acquired by Adobe.

Being a new Day customer I am particular interested in the product roadmap and to find out more about the Adobe acquisition. The conference is also going to be fully. Digital with iPads for all attendees and a conference app already in the iTunes store. i presume this will mean there is going to be good wireless at the event.

I will take notes and post them as and when I have a chance, and tidy the whole thing up when I get back home. Please get in touch or comment if you have anything you would like to share on the conference, the product or CMS in general.

Last week I  blogged on the amazing diversity of social networking and web 2.0 sites in China. Most of them actually look pretty cool and have some good users interfaces. Everything was looking good until I started reviewing job boards to look at integration solutions.

Zhaopin.com is, as far as I am aware, the No.1 job board in China. Go and fetch some dark glasses and have a look at the most amazing collection of rotating banners I have ever seen in one place at one time. Looking for some safe ground and a familiar face I moved on to Monster, or more specifically China HR, a Monster owned and operated website. Hopefully you still have those dark glasses on, as it really isn’t much better than Zhaopin.

So as a web U.I. designer moving into this market what do you do? Echo the clean lines and simple navigation of sites like Monster (as seen in the U.K.) or do you follow the local trends? I spoke to several experienced Chinese recruiters trying to establish what drove these designs. Surprisingly they were equally baffled and favoured the simple design ethos we are pushing so hard in the west.

What I did learn from these meeting was that you can’t assume users are looking for the same things, or browse in the same way just as you can’t assume they will speak the same language as you. If you work with persona modelling it’s time to start some new focus groups and build some profiles for your new markets. Ensure you understand the requirements and be prepared to take some radically different strategies to meet them.

See you in Shanghai.