Fossils, HTTPS, Millenials, League Tables and Matt

In which I muse about fossils, HTTPS, Millenials, League Tables and Matt.

Last week our little number was swelled by the arrival of Minty, a second year archaeology student lured to Harrogate in search of interesting fossils and magnetically drawn to the world of digital marketing. At our offices she luckily found both, although I’d struggle to say that I could be described as all that interesting.

In the Search World it’s been a strange week with SEO folk buzzing about some seismic Algorithmic shifts within Google which occurred midweek. Not many people were ever so sure exactly what was causing the shifts, although strong speculation was that it was related to HTTPS, a conjecture swiftly denied by Google.

On a related note, Bing, the search engine everybody likes and nobody uses, announced that, as part of its move to HTTPS, it would no longer pass the user’s search query for analytics purposes, which means that search engine marketers and analysts will have even less keyword data to play with. In reality the numbers we are talking about are very small but as we have no data from Google and, now, no data from Bing, we will need to do even more detective work to work out the keywords that people use to find websites.

Talking about HTTPS, we have also been very busy switching clients to HTTPS over the past few weeks, with 5 clients now moved across and a number in the process of moving. The moves have varied from very simple to quite complex, as it is not a straightforward process and there are a lot of factors to consider. That said, I am sure it is the right thing to do and, as well as the promised improvements within Google rankings, it should make users feel more comfortable and assured and improve their overall experience.

One interesting stat I came across this last week is that people who shop via mobile spend 66% more than those who buy in-store only. This really useful infographic, from the ecommerce software company Elasticpath, is full of such facts, like 41% of people actively use mobile apps while in-store and 68% of millennials want a seamless integrated experience regardless of channel. A millennial, in case you were wondering (AKA Generation Y), is, apparently, the demographic cohort following Generation X, whose birth years fall between the early eighties and the early noughties, the 16-34 age group in other words, don’t ask me what a seamless integrated experience regardless of channel is, though.

On the subject of fascinating stats (who said I wasn’t very interesting), the UK Online Retail Association IMRG produced a table of the UK’s top 50 retailers, which made very interesting reading. I was surprised at the growth of B&Q, to become the UK’s sixth biggest e-tailer and also the relative decline of ASOS. Well over two thirds of e-retailers are multichannel which is also quite telling.

Elsewhere, away from the heady world of Digital Marketing, Matt continues his search for a new home. Flame haired Matt, who loves all things red, including the Red Devils football team, the Red Devils Parachute display team, the Red Arrows Aerobatic Display Team and Reddit, is anxious to find a new home for his enormous collection of Red Kites, which he flies on the stray virtually every weekend (subject to wind conditions). If you know anywhere suitable please get in touch.

So until the next time…..