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 Joe.
1. Make Friday Green Again
Unless you are living in a cyber cave, you will be aware that Black Friday is almost upon us. With exactly two weeks to go, online retailers are gearing up for the highlight of the bargain-hunter’s calendar.
There are, however, signs that Black Friday’s days may be numbered and it has been interesting to see the Make Friday Green Collective make a stand and encourage their customers NOT to buy anything on Black Friday. The rationale? They are calling out the environmental impact of rampant consumerism and encouraging people to look at their wardrobes on the 29th November to see what they can repair, sell or recycle rather than be tempted by low prices on new items.
It is an interesting, but excellent, move to see over 300 retailers commit what could be considered to be commercial suicide but they should be congratulated for highlighting the environment impact of buying clothes that you don’t actually need. I think that it is an important message and they should be congratulated.
2. Just Don’t Do It
Another retail story for this week with the news that Nike is pulling out of Amazon.
I think this is very interesting. Nike had resisted for a long time to jump on the Amazon train, but finally joined the party in 2017. To be leaving so soon is, perhaps, the first signs of an Amazon rebellion and it will be interesting to see if this is a trend or a one off. Amazon is so incredibly dominant in the online retail space that it hasn’t always looked after its retailers too well and I suspect that this will be a wake up call. Are brands no longer happy to allow Amazon to own all the data and customer relationship?
Although Nike’s move is claimed to be a decision based on their strategy to focus on direct-to-consumer initiatives, they have made it clear that are not turning their back on all 3rd party relationships. It is just Amazon. Ouch.
Does that mean you can no longer buy Nike products from Amazon? I suspect that there will be plenty of 3rd party retailers who will be selling Nike goods on Amazon but it will not be direct from Nike and I wonder if Nike may start to exercise more control on those 3rd party retailers if they really want to make a point.
3. Google Search Console Training
We are big fans of Google Search Console and it should be one of the first things to set up if you have a website as there is a lot of extremely valuable data on offer.
It is, however, often overlooked and Google appears to be increasing efforts to promote it with the announcement that a new video series is about to be launched on the Google Webmasters Youtube channel.
Do you want to shine in Google search results? Here is the teaser video:
We will be interested to see what the series has to offer. Watch this space.
4. SEO Myths
Anyone who has any experience of SEO will know that there are so many people offering so much advice that it can be overwhelming. For someone with little experience and confidence in SEO, it can be difficult to separate the truth from the hype. It is easy to bamboozle people with jargon and our industry is awash with myths that are normally created to sell suspect services.
Ethical SEO is important and we have always fought hard to debunk the myths and say it as it is. I was therefore please to come across a good post busting some SEO myths over at Search Engine Land this week.
Hats off to Kaspar Szymanski for a good post.
5. And Finally…
We have a tradition of dog photos on this blog. I am going to break with the canine tradition and also break the MyFive rules, as this video is an old one but it did pop up on my YouTube travels this week so I am stretching the rules as it is too good not to share again.
I hope it is a bit of light relief after a long and gloomy week. Not dogs, but extremely funny goats (crank up the volume):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpccpglnNf0
Have a great weekend.
