Five things worth sharing from the last week (or so), brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Annie.
1. Google Penguin to become ‘rolling update’?
Search Engine Roundtable have published some great Google Penguin coverage this week. They’ve been my go-to resource for all things update-related. If you missed it, here’s our guide to understandning Penguin 3.0. In short:
- 17th October, Google rolled out a refresh of the Penguin algorithm named Penguin 3.0
- 20th November, Thanksgiving day refresh saw huge recoveries
- 27th November, Thanksgiving day gains have been rolled back or reversed
- 2nd December, Google hint towards a rolling update stating in a Google+ hangout “we’re hoping that these things will keep updating.“
2. 13 compelling stats from around the digital world
There are some great statistics in this week’s stats round-up from Econsultancy. What caught my eye this week?
Talking about CRO…
- According to Econsultancy’s Conversion Rate Optimisation Report 2014 companies that test more often derive greater rewards from their activities
- Companies that saw a significant increase in their sales conducted 6.45 tests per month, compared to just 2.42 tests among organisations that saw their sales decrease
- More than half (57%) of companies cited a “lack of resources” as a barrier to improving conversion rates, by far the most common answer
Talking about Pinterest…
- For the second year running the UK fashion retailer ASOS is outstripping (yes, a pun) the competition on the visual sharing platform
- Content from ASOS generates an average 7,202 pins a week, which is nearly five times more than Amazon (1,620 pins) and almost seven times more than John Lewis (1,096 pins)
Talking about new gTLDs…
- 69% of respondents are interested in registering a .Buy domain
- The second most-anticipated domain is .VIP (67%), followed by .Store (65%)
- 84% of those polled considered registering a new domain name within the next twelve months
3. Ridiculously simple Content Marketing…
…but I quite like it. For every brilliant campaign there are a dozen car-crash campaigns which completely missed the target or just completely produced the wrong content altogether. The Guardian have produced a simple and digestible template in which you can literally “fill in the blanks” to produce a documented strategy. If you’re still not sure, we’d be happy to help. Head to our Approach page to find out more about how we can help make content your king.
4. Kim Kardashian takes the Instagram crown
Kim K has been the topic of conversation again in the office this week. The reality star’s wedding picture was the most liked Instagram image of the year. Posted back in May, the image accumulated a whopping 2.4 million likes and not only is it the most liked image of the year, but also of all time since the app launched four years ago. Whilst many liked the rather ordinary wedding picture, the top ‘liked’ UK locations were Tower Bridge and the Tower of London whilst the top global location was Disneyland in California.
5. We like beards. Beards are great.
We love (and appreciate) a good beard here at Browser Media HQ with some interesting Hulk Hogan-esque styles appearing of late. This week, my attention was drawn to bristlr.com, self described as ‘The Social Beard Network’. With the wonderful tag line ‘connecting those with beards to those who want to stroke beards’ it really hits the nail on the head as an alternative dating site. Set up earlier this year, it’s the brainchild of John Kershaw, who writes the following on the site’s About us page:
‘I have a beard and I like beards, I spotted a gap in the market, and will do pretty much anything to procrastinate from work’.
Brilliant. It’s not just a dating app though, Kershaw went on to say,
‘We shifted the focus from hook ups to a more light-hearted, warmer-in-winter kind of thing. Instead of expecting to go home with someone, we hope to have a nice chat and share a mutual admiration of a beard or two. We like beards. Beards are great.’
Check it out, especially the blog. Whether you’re in the market or not, we can all appreciate a good beard.
