Key Take Aways

• Pinterest drives more offline (16%) than online (12%) sales
• 26% of pre-2012 users buy the pinned item offline (compared to 10% users who joined in 2012)
• Pinterest isn’t a fad – 75% of users expect to use it for the foreseeable future
• 50% of users will research more on Pinterest
• 70% get their friends to sign up
• Top 5 terms used to describe Pinterest; friendly, community, genuine, smart & mind expanding

Infographic from visioncritical.com

What this means for business

Pinterest is a fantastic medium to share & increase awareness of visual products.  The keyword is visual, use images that engage as much, if not more, than the written content.  The Harvard Business Review has a great piece on moving from Pinterest to Purchase.

Have you pinned then purchased?

Related Posts

• User Activity on Social Networks [Infographic]
• Social Networks // Pinterest
• What Social Signals Count Most for Search Ranking?
• Pinterest // For business
• Social Networks // The Guide for 2012

Key Take Aways

• 26 – 44 year olds make up 50%+ of Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn & Pinterest users
• Facebook is the most popular social network for 13 – 25 year olds
• Google+ has the least stickiness; users are spending an average of 3 minutes per month
• Facebook users are worth the most (makes sense as Facebook has a more complete personal profile, recording 47+ categories of data per user)
• The gender balance is fairly equitable across the social networks, except Google+ (male dominant) & Pinterest (female dominant)

 

by gogulf. Browse more infographics.

Note : The gender graph for Pinterest looks incorrect as it shows a dominant number of male users, but the percentages show female users as the most dominant. With the exception of the UK, most Pinterest users are female.

Related Posts:

• What Social Signals Count Most for Search Ranking?
• Social Media // The Guide
• Is Pinterest Driving Sales? [Infographic]
• Social Networks // Pinterest
• Marketing // Sign Out

What did I use?

• Ceiling speakers
  For the speakers I used JBL ceiling speakers. I hadn’t listened to them before, but knew they were very easy to install, and JBL have such a good reputation.
• Amplifier
  For the amplifier, I used the Sony STRDH100 AV Receiver 2 Channel. In the future I plan to make use of the second channel to power a pair of speakers in the bathroom!
• PC
  For the PC I just used a basic desktop PC similar to this Acer Aspire AX3990 Desktop PC (Intel Core i3 2120 3.3GHz, 6GB RAM, 500GB HDD, DVD-RW, Keyboard, Mouse, Windows 7 Home Premium). Just as long as it is powerful enough to run Windows 7 Media Centre, Apple iTunes, and the Logitech SqueezeBox software. 

  To turn the desktop PC into a PVR I used the ClimaxDigital DTV300 TV DVB-T USB 2.0 Tuner/Receiver/ Adapter/Dongle/Stick Freeview. It has surprisingly good reception considering the price!

• Monitor
  For the kitchen TV / monitor, I used a Samsung B2330HD 23 inch Widescreen Monitor. But now I’m thinking it would be better to use a touchscreen monitor, such as the Acer T231H 23 inch Touchscreen TFT Monitor.

How did I do it?

Computer

Hiding the desktop PC. The first thing I did was to hide the desktop PC in the loft. I then ran a Cat5 cable down to a push button switch, and a couple of LEDs, so that I could turn the computer on – and see that it was on, from the kitchen.

The power button, and LEDs showing power and HDD activity

Cat5 cables before connecting

Amplifier

Next step, and probably the hardest step was to hide the Sony amplifier. To do this I had to separate the front panel from the rest of the unit. The bulky bit of the amp could then sit in the loft next to the computer.

The main body of the amplifier

The front panel controls were connected to the amplifier via a 15 core ribbon cable, so I had to cut into this cable and extend it using two Cat5 cables (not easy soldering each Cat5 cable to the ribbon cable). There may be someone who sells longer ribbon cables, or even adapters to extend it to a couple of meters, but I couldn’t find them!

Cat 5 to Ribbon Cable

To wall mount the front panel, I had to dig a hole about a centimeter deep in the wall, so that the panel would be flush. The photo below shows the result. The two Cat5 cables run up into the loft.

Amplifier front panel flush mounted in kitchen

The amplifier panel in-situ.

Speakers

Mounting the JBL speakers was easy – simply cut a hole in the ceiling and the speakers clip themselves in. I had some good quality speaker cable across the loft from the speakers to the Sony amp.

JBL ceiling speaker in kitchen

Monitor

To wall mount the Samsung monitor I used a Cantilever LCD Monitor TV Arm Bracket Wall Mount with Swivel and Tilt. But any type of wall mount would work.

To connect the monitor to the computer in the loft, I used a Belkin Pro Series High Integrity VGA/SVGA Monitor Replacement Cable 5m. It’s important to use one long cable and not extensions – the joints in the cable cause ghosting.

Samsung TV

Now you have a fully featured home entertainment system. You can watch TV in the kitchen, or you can search the Internet for recipes whilst listening to music.

Software

Earlier on I mentioned Logitech Squeeze Centre. This is a very powerful system for streaming your music collection around the house without requiring any specialist hardware. Simply install the Squeeze Centre Server Software on the PC that contains your music collection. Then you can install the client software to any other PC around the house.

If you don’t have a computer in every room, there are plenty of Logitech devices such as the Logitech Squeezebox Touch that can be corrected to your usual sound system and speakers to stream music through. Or these two devices have built in speakers if you want an all-in-one music box: Logitech Squeezebox Radio and Logitech Squeezebox Boom.

Keyword Usage

It’s not just a matter of keyword density – keyword placement impacts your search ranking.  For better on page SEO, keywords should appear in the URL, meta & body copy.

Keywords in URL

Primarily, you want to have the keyword as part of your domain (either root or subdomain).  As a secondary presence, use keywords in the URL string.  With Google’s emphasis on local search results, it’s also a great idea to include your location in the URL string where sensible.

• awesome.com
• awesome.domain.com
• domain.com/awesome
• domain.com/location/awesome.html

Keywords in meta title & description

It’s more important to optimise your meta title & description tags for keywords than your meta keywords.   Meta descriptions usually show in search results below the page title so you should make these a concise summary of the page (not the website) & include a call to action.

• (meta title) Awesome lorem ipsum….
• (meta description) Awesome lorem ipsum… call to action…

Keywords on page

It’s not a matter of having the keyword on the page, but a matter of having the keyword in the best context.  On page keywords should enhance usability, not clutter the page with keywords to improve density.  Keywords in heading tags (i.e. H1 or H2) boost your page rank more than having the keyword within paragraph copy.   For internal links, use the keyword as anchor text/in the title (spring clean your website & replace ‘click here’ anchor text for internal links with keywords).  Likewise with images, use keywords as part of the alt tag.

• <h1>Awesome lorem ipsum</h1>
• <h2>Lorem ipsum awesome</h2>
• <a href=”" title=”Awesome”>Awesome</a>
• <img src=”" alt=”Awesome lorem ipsum”>
• <p>Lorem ipsum…awesome…</p>

Content Counts

It’s no longer enough to have a website – you now need to actively maintain your website content for it to be relevant to your audience.  Google’s Panda update emphasises the importance of unique, fresh content.    Think of it like a newspaper – you don’t usually return to the same edition of the newspaper because you’ve read that content already, so why would you return to the same website that hasn’t changed it’s content?

It’s not necessarily about content marketing, but it does show that websites should be dynamic & part of this is providing content that visitors want to share with their social networks.

Social Sharing

If you don’t have social sharing tools on your website, you’re not optimising your website.  Social signals, particularly Twitter, are becoming increasingly important to search ranking because it increases the authority of links.  If a visitor wants to share your content, make it easy for them by having social sharing buttons (at least to the major social networks; Facebook, Twitter, Google, Pinterest) on the page – don’t make them work to share it.  An additional benefit of including social sharing tools is that the share count can add a layer of social proofing – 54 people have tweeted this page?  Excellent, it’s probably worth my time to read it.

SEO Futures

SEO Moz’s graph (below) shows that the relevance of a page is going to become increasingly important, & it’s the use of social signals (tweets/shares/+1s) that will enable search engines to evaluate page relevance.

Graph from SEO Moz

P.S. Design Matters

Aside from the 3 SEO factors mentioned above (keyword placement, fresh content & social), the design of your website matters.  Great design = user friendly.  You should have a typographic stylesheet that provides clear visual distinction between heading elements, navigation areas, linked text & allows for easy on the eyes reading.  So pay attention to contrast, font-size, line-height, etc.  You also want a balance between copy & visuals (whether it’s video or imagery).

What on site SEO factors do you do?

Further reading

• SEO // Periodic Table & Tips
• What Social Signals Count Most for Search Ranking?
• Revamp // Leather Doctor Services
• Email // Signatures
• Content Marketing Strategy // Inspire, Involve, Interest, Individual

Website Design

We designed a new WordPress theme for the 2012 Festival using a dominant black/white colour scheme to showcase the imagery and make the links pop with the use of colour.   To reiterate the classical tones of the logo, we used a Google Webfont for headings.  Custom graphics, from the sheet music background in the headings, to the note bullet icon, were created to enhance the visual link to music as the focus of Chobham Festival is on celebrating fantastic musicians & music.

Given the importance of social media to search ranking, we included a social sharing toolbar across the website so visitors could easily share the content with their network.

Incorporating an event plugin enabled on page ticket information & request.  For those who prefer the paper route, we designed a PDF ticket request form.

Check Chobham Festival’s website for event dates & information &, new for 2012, request your tickets online.

You may also like:

• Social Sharing // +1 for Wordpress child themes
• Wordpress // WordAds
• Launch // Merrill Consultants Ltd
• Wordpress // Hide Category
• Launch // GAFI