You may be aware that EU regulations governing the use of cookies on websites are changing. As of 26th May 2012 you’ll need to have given some thought to how you’re going to change your approach to using cookies on your site. The new regulations were laid out on 26th May 2011 and the one year ‘grace period’ is about to expire. It’s now time to implement your new cookie policy.

Whether you are up-to-date with the ICO’s (Information Commissioner’s Office) new guidelines or don’t know your cookies from your shortbreads, you can find out all you need to know here to help you plan for your future.

So what are cookies?

Let’s start from scratch. Cookies are small text files which are sent from your web server to your visitors’ web browsers. These files are then used to collect information from your visitors and store it so it can be used later.

What’s the problem?

The key problem is that very few users understand what cookies are or what they do. This means that the vast majority of websites are essentially ‘taking’ information from visitors without their knowledge or permission. The percieved morality of this depends on whether or not the information taken is being used for the visitors’ benefit or for the benefit of the website’s owners. 

For instance, some cookies are used to help guard against forgery. They can help users assemble and save a shopping basket or remember settings that users have chosen. These types of cookies are clearly in the user’s interests.

Whilst many cookies are helpful to users, others are very helpful to advertisers and website owners. Cookies can be used to show users targeted adverts that follow surfers across the net based on their previous browsing, leaving some to feel like their privacy has been invaded. These are the main types of cookies the new regulations are legislating against.

Google Analytics and cookies

Whilst some cookies are clearly helpful to either visitor or website, others fall into a grey area. One of the biggest problems with the changing regulations is just how helpful cookies can be for both parties. They make it possible for websites to assess performance, improve usability and boost business too. With Google Analytics on your side you can keep track of:

• Where people view your site from
• What technology people use to browse your site
• How often visitors return
• Areas of most interest on your website
• Along with so much more

Over 60% of the top 10,000 websites make use of Google Analytics, and it has been suggested that in excess of 15 million other sites make use of the tool. As Google Analytics relies on cookies to gather information about website usage, the change in EU regulations is a big worry for a vast number of sites. SEO and Pay Per Click teams are especially reliant upon good analytics to create effective online marketing campaigns for your website.

Are my cookies ‘good’ or ‘bad’?

The type of information cookies collect and how this information is used varies and will affect how you need to roll with the changes. Below you’ll find the different categories that cookies broadly fall into. Some of these are integral to the running of your website and these will not be regulated. Some cookies, however, are not essential and the new regulations will affect how you use them.

• Category 1: Strictly Necessary

These are cookies used for vital parts of websites. This includes information like anti-forgery tokens, shopping basket references and user account sessions. The new regulations will not affect the way that these are used and you will not need to have the consent of visitors to use them.

• Category 2: Performance

These cookies are used to assist performance. They help with tasks like showing a particular version of a site to the relevant visitor. Although you’re unlikely to need consent, these cookies need to be mentioned in the terms and conditions of your site.

• Category 3: Functionality

Analytics is the big one here. These category 3 cookies store information from visitors to your website which can be analysed to gauge usage and develop your website accordingly. This is the category you should be most concerned with when it comes to SEO and Pay Per Click advertising. These cookies will also remember customisable user settings like font and colour preferences. 

ICO states that you should have the consent of users before these cookies are downloaded to their browsers.

• Category 4: Targeting/Advertising

These cookies are one of the main reasons people are nervous about cookie usage. They track visitors from site to site, collecting information which makes it possible for websites to display specific, personally tailored adverts – this is known as targeted advertising and many people are uncomfortable with it. You must notify visitors if you want to use category 4 cookies. You must also obtain each user’s consent before downloading them to any browser.

What’s changing?

Awareness and consent are at the centre of the new EU e-Privacy Directive’s regulations. Extensive research has revealed that very few people actually understand how cookies work, what they’re for, what they do or how to opt out of using them. For instance, one study commissioned by The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, revealed that 37% of respondents had heard of cookies but had little or no understanding of how they work or what they do.

With this in mind, the EU has stated that websites must make all visitors aware of any cookies used and obtain user consent for any cookies of category 3 or above. If websites fail to do this, they risk being lumped with a civil penalty of a maximum £500,000 per cookie. Ideally the ICO would like to see an ‘opt-in’ policy, where users must actively choose to use cookies instead of an ‘opt-out’ policy, where users must actively disable cookies themselves.

What does this mean for my website?

If you’re using anything higher than Category 1 cookies on your website then it is time to rethink how you use them. To be compliant with ICO guidelines you will need to do some of the following:

• Inform visitors immediately that cookies are in use on your website
• Give visitors the option to opt out of using cookies before proceeding
• Provide visitors with thorough information about which cookies are in use, what they do and how they are used

Although these steps will ensure that users are fully aware of and complicit in your use of cookies, there may well be some negative effects. For example, it is likely that many users will not opt-in and choose to use cookies when presented with the choice, particularly if they are unsure about a cookie’s purpose. If many people fail to accept your cookies, you could start to see flawed Google Analytics statistics and may find you are forced to work in an entirely new way.

Many experts advocate split testing a few pop-up options in order to design an informative, cookie opt-in service with a high opt-in rate which causes the fewest bounces from your site.

What should I do?

Here at Liberty we aren’t legal experts; if you want to be absolutely positive you are sticking to the letter of the law, get your solicitor to look over the ICO guidelines. That being said, the ICO regulations document has the following to say about Analytics cookies:

“The Regulations do not distinguish between cookies used for analytical activities and those used for other purposes. We do not consider analytical cookies to fall within the ‘strictly necessary’ exception criteria. This means that in theory websites need to tell people about analytical cookies and gain their consent.

In practice we would expect you to provide clear information to users about analytical cookies and take what steps you can to seek their agreement. This is likely to involve making the argument to show users why these cookies are useful. Although the Information Commissioner cannot completely exclude the possibility of formal action in any area, it is highly unlikely that priority for any formal action would be given to focusing on uses of cookies where there is a low level of intrusiveness and risk of harm to individuals. Provided clear information is given about their activities we are highly unlikely to prioritise first party cookies used only for analytical purposes in any consideration of regulatory action.”

As you can see, this is a very flexible statement which appears to state that those using cookies for purely analytical purposes are very unlikely to face any type of formal action, provided they supply clear information on their site about which cookies are being used and why.

If you are using cookies which are more intrusive, it would probably be wise to ensure you are completely compliant with the regulations. However, if you are using analytics cookies, you are very likely to be safe as long as you update your terms and conditions to ensure:

• Your users have easy access to information about which cookies you are using
• Your users understand which cookies are at work on your site and why
• Your users know they have the option to turn cookies on and off
• Your users know how to turn cookies off if they so choose

This is the way Liberty intends to progress; how you decide to work with the guidelines is entirely your call. 

Another consideration is the fact that many experts are of the opinion that it is only big names and persistent, aggressive ‘regulation-flouters’ who are likely to face heat from the ICO. Many people from within the web industry believe the ICO is likely to make an example of a handful of large internet presences that make no effort to comply as well as those that repeatedly and unconscionably flout regulations and use invasive, aggressive cookies without warning visitors. 

These regulations are going to be extremely difficult to enforce across the internet so, unless a direct complaint is made against you, a good, honest information policy regarding cookies is likely to stand small-to-medium enterprises in good stead.

What’s everyone else doing?

There have been a range of different responses to the changing cookie law across the internet. Some sites have done nothing at all, whilst others have expanded their terms and conditions to include an explanation of the cookies used on-site. Meanwhile, some sites have taken a more direct approach to ensure they are fully compliant with the new regulations. By and large it is the big brands and big names who have taken compliance most seriously.

BT, for example, have taken it to the extreme. If you look in their footer menu, you will see they have provided a clear, thoroughly informative pop-up and toolbar which gives each visitor all the facts they need as well as the opportunity to opt in or opt out of using cookies. They even allow visitors to decide whether they want to turn specific cookie types on or off. This gives users the choice to use any combination (or no combination) of:

• Strictly necessary and performance cookies
• Functional cookies
• Targeting cookies

Meanwhile, websites like the BBC and John Lewis have opted to meet the ICO halfway by providing very thorough help sections on the cookies used on their website. This at least shows willing, which is much more than many sites are doing. 

Should I panic?

We wish we could give you a definitive answer here, but unfortunately all we can say is ‘probably not’. If you’d like to make sure you’re on the safe side, an informative and helpful guide to your site’s cookies is a very good move. Taking this step will not harm your website and also shows your visitors you are responsible and honest. If you do want to be as compliant as you can be, you may like to look into implementing a pop-up system to give users up-front, immediate information and options, yet compared to the majority of small to medium businesses online, this would be a fairly extreme response.

So how does the cookie crumble?

In summary, before the 26th May you should perform a thorough audit of the cookies you are using on your site. 

• If you decide they are intrusive, either stop using them or (if you just can’t keep your hand out of the cookie jar) implement instant pop-ups which warn and inform users, then give them the option to turn cookies on or off.
• If your cookies are analytical, you might like to implement an instant pop-up strategy, although you are likely to remain compliant without it so long you provide all the requisite information somewhere on the site. 
• If your cookies are for functional, user-centred purposes only, you are fine and can sit back and relax!

Best of luck with your new cookie policy!

Even with the best online marketing services to hand, rankings do have a horrible habit of fluctuating. You can spend huge amounts of money on strategy, but - if your online marketing agency isn't prepared for Google updates - it could all go out of the window very quickly indeed.

So what are Google updates and why do they cause such havoc with your place on the search engines? Above all, how can you make sure that you're investing in online marketing services that are future-proof and will withstand even the more radical change in Google's algorithm?

What are Google Updates?

In basic terms, a Google update occurs when the techie team at the search engine giant make changes to the way websites are viewed and ranked. Google uses an algorithm to work out where your website belongs in the rankings. There are hundreds of different factors, which Google's algorithm takes into consideration, some of the most crucial factors are:

• Internal links
• External links
• Anchor text
• Web copy (originality)
• Keywords
• Social metrics
• Site architecture

Agencies providing on-the-ball online marketing services will make sure that your site ticks all of the right boxes with regards to these factors. This will get your website ranking highly. Yet it isn't quite so simple because Google are constantly changing the goal posts. To paraphrase one person's remark at the recent Brighton SEO conference: "Google are the opposing team as well as the referee, plus they own the ball, the pitch and the goal posts!"

Every time Google updates their algorithm, the way they rank websites shifts. There are hundreds of updates every year and usually they are very subtle, but sometimes these updates are big news and can make a big impact. For example...

Google Panda

Many online marketing service providers will shudder at the mention of Google Panda. It was a huge update to the algorithm, which was designed to eliminate the use of unhelpful, duplicate and plagairised content and give priority to highly original, high quality websites. It hit the UK in April 2011 and dramatically impacted 11.8% of all search queries.

Many high profile websites took a real beating and many online marking agencies were left blinking in horror at the un-doing of all their hard work.

How to Get Google Update-proof

Google keep all their updates thoroughly under wraps, which means that online marketing agencies can't really do much except wait and then work with what they're given once changes hit. Even if they do hint at what changes have been made, they usually don't give too much away...

Although it's impossible to know which changes are going to happen, there are ways to help protect your website against any negative impact that updates might have. As the motivation of Google updates is to weed out low-quality, spammy webpages, an ethical online marketing strategy which places quality at the forefront of its approach is vital. If your online marketing agency or in-house team implement this sort of plan, Google is unlikely to make changes that majorly (and negatively) affect your site rankings. By creating the kind of content and links that Google likes, you're less likely to be penalised by an update.

To run a good, ethical, high-quality online marketing strategy the basics need to be covered:

• Good, unique, keyword-rich content,
• A large, varied in-bound link profile, with lots of domains, a variety of anchor text and a mixture of dofollow and nofollow links,
• A blog/news section will help keep the site seen as fresh,
• Social integration and social media work will be important in the months/years to come.

If you want to succeed online, you’ll need to work with an ethical SEO agency that provides quality-driven online marketing services. As staunchly white-hat SEO and PPC experts, Liberty Marketing can help you weather Google updates and make a big splash on the web.

It might sound a bit medieval but, as official Google Local Champions, Liberty Marketing will be riding in on their noble white steed to get small-to-medium Welsh businesses online, in touch and up to date with the internet! There won’t be any swords, shields or damsels in distress, instead we’ll be offering workshops and one-to-one support as part as the Google Juice Bar and GWBO (Getting Welsh Business Online) initiatives.

These programmes were masterminded by Google after a study found that Wales is lagging far behind its British neighbours when it comes to online business. Whilst the UK as a whole has the biggest online economy in the world, Wales is not receiving a proportional amount of this benefit. Here are a few interesting facts and figures that illustrate the problem:

• The UK online economy makes up at least 7% GDP
• That’s more that the construction, utilities and transport sectors
• The internet economy contributed more than £100bn to the UK market last year
• In Wales 25% of small-to-medium businesses don’t have a website
• Of the 75% that have a website, a mere 58% have a high web presence
• Welsh businesses with successful sites grew 7x to 8x faster than those without a well-performing website.

These statistics are the result of an in-depth, Google-commissioned study which showed a surprising backwardness in the Welsh online industry. With these stats in mind Google and the Welsh Assembly Government decided it was time to act.

Starting in March 2012, a year of online awareness will see the Google Juice Bar travelling across the country. After the launch event in Cardiff on March 6th, the Google Juice Bars and workshops will travel across the country, helping small-to-medium businesses to blossom and reach their full potential on the internet.

These workshops and Juice Bar sessions are free, friendly and don’t come with any added sales pitches! Best of all, they can cover the area of your choice. Whether you’re a total novice looking to set up a free website for your company, or want to learn how to market your existing website online – the Google Juice Bar experts are here to help.

As official Google Local Champions, the Liberty Marketing team are excited to be part of such a fantastic, worthwhile initiative. As the fastest growing online marketing agency in Wales we are passionate about promoting and boosting Welsh business online. If you would like to learn more about how to boost your business online, or would like to know more about the GWBO initiative, take a look at the following link or get in touch with the Liberty team today!

When it comes to online business Wales is lagging well behind its UK neighbours. Google recently provided figures which show that only 60% of Welsh small & medium enterprises (SMEs) have their own website and, of these, a paltry 33% are set up for ecommerce. With more and more of Britain’s shopping taking place online, Welsh business could suffer if it fails to modernise.

Fortunately the Welsh government and Google have now teamed up to help Welsh SMEs get online and get profitable. The 12 month programme will organise over 1000 free e-skills seminars and free consultations across Wales, equipping local businesses with the skills they need to improve their online presence.

According to the Welsh Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science, Edwina Hart: “We want Wales to be a truly digital nation…We welcome this initiative to help companies gain maximum benefits from using and exploiting digital technologies to innovate, grow and access new markets, driving business growth.”

“Digital technologies and online services have the potential to revolutionise the competitiveness of business and I hope as many as possible take advantage of the expertise on offer from Google.”

Meanwhile, Adrian Clark, chairman of Cardiff & Co, agreed that: “Getting online is one of the most important marketing tools for businesses…You don’t need a huge investment to win a share of the online market but you do need the skills.”

These skills do seem to be lacking in Wales but, if you know where to look, there is a whole seam of skill and knowledge to be found in the country. In fact, part of the Google initiative involves linking web novices up with top digital agencies and online marketing services across Wales.

The year-long programme will also see the popular Google Juice Bar touring the country, bringing online business experts to less web-savvy companies from Cardiff to Caernarfon. The Google Juice Bar will be offering complimentary 1-2-1 sessions that will show SMEs how to increase traffic to their websites and build a profitable business online.

This year is seen by many to be the year that Wales goes live. The project will kick off in Cardiff on March and will tour South Wales for a further 3 months before taking on online business in the rest of the country for the rest of the year. If you’re in the South this March, make sure you attend the Google Juice Bar launch event on the 6th.

In the meantime, you can improve your web presence and online skills using your own initiative. The first step is to source great advice and real expertise to help you on your way. Liberty are the largest and fastest growing online marketing agency in Wales, with a wealth of knowledge and specialist online marketing services designed to get your business booming online.

To find out more about how we can help and our online marketing services, call the Liberty team today on 029 2076 6467.

For more information on the initiative, please visit the Getting Welsh Businesses Online (GWBO) website by clicking here.

As Liberty is on the Google Engage for Agencies programme, on Wednesday, our Pay Per Click advertising manager Chris had the pleasure of attending an event at their UK HQ.

The main focus of the event was to understand how best to improve the visibility of small businesses online.

There were some very interesting topics discussed and some great insight into search trends. Here are the highlights from Chris’s notes on what Google was saying:

Changes to AdWords

There are quite a few changes in AdWords ad extensions this week. You will soon be charged for clicks on your location extensions, such as people using your advert to find directions to your premises. Google realises these are useful and lead to more interaction with your business, so want you to pay for it.

Video extensions will be the next big thing for AdWords extensions, where videos will be playable from within the sponsored ads section of the search results. This is currently a beta test and only rolled out to major film companies for the time being.

Google is removing the £5 activation fee for new AdWords accounts. This is great news for small businesses, providing less of a sticking point – it’s even better if you have an AdWords voucher, meaning you really can now try it for free!

The Google Checkout button is being removed from the ads, though it will still be seen within the Google Products shopping results.

Getting British Business Online

This is a big focus area for Google and Getting British Business Online is something they want online marketing agencies to help them push. In the UK last year, 17pence in every £1 was spent online – which highlights why a new or small business without a website needs to seriously consider an online presence. For one-man-bands or those dipping their toes into the web, the great part is that after a simple registration process, you will get the following from Google:

- Free. co.uk domain for 1 year
- Free easy-to-update website for 1 year
- Free email address @yourdomain
- Free support

If you or any small businesses you know want to take advantage of this then let us know and we will happily point you in the right direction.

How big brands are being innovative

Using Google AdWords with other Google tools - like Trends & Insights - can help you find and attract cheap traffic that your competitors aren’t targeting. See this great example from Converse.

Is YouTube the next major destination for online shopping? Check out how fashion retailer French Connection turn videos into ecommerce opportunities via links within product videos.

Other interesting facts

The number of people making decisions in stores has halved, which is mainly down to product reviews online. Your potential customers have the ability to browse the web almost everywhere – via pc, laptop, mobile and tablet. The key message on the day was make sure you and your products can be seen and make sure you manage your reputation online.

Also, 1 in every 3 Tweets now has a YouTube connection.

Social network ad spend has been rising steadily over the last few years with marketers extending their online pay per click and banner advertising beyond the seach engines to include the social networks as well. It is estimated that during 2011 marketers in the US alone will spend £3.08 billion on social network advertising. eMarketer predicts that US ad spend will be up 55% on 2010 when marketers spent $1.99 billion, and that worldwide social network spend will be up 71.6% in 2011 to $5.97billion.



Facebook, by far the largest social network, is clearly having the greatest impact on this growth through a year-on-year increase in Facebook advertising. Facebook therefore contributes up to 65% of the 2011 prediciton. eMarketer predicts that advertising spend on facebook will hit $2.19 billion in the US alone in 2011 and over $4 billion worldwide. That's more than double the total spent in 2010!


So as we move further into 2011 social networks are poised to absorb an even greater percentage of all online spending making them difficult to ignore for any business serious about their online marketing. We will be watching eagerly to see what developments Facebook has planned for the forthcoming year.

In a clean-up of its services, Yahoo! is about to remove a number of “underperforming” websites, including a few very well known brands.

Those of us who have been involved in search engine marketing for years will remember when Altavista was the Google of its day. Anyone involved in social media marketing will undoubtedly have spent time on the bookmarking website, Delicious.

In addition to these two sites, AlltheWeb (another search site), Babelfish (a translation service), Buzz (a news aggregation site) and MyBlogLog (a social media network, similar to Facebook) are all also likely to be taken off the web.

For the sake of posterity, here’s a screenshot of Delicious:

 

A Yahoo! spokeswoman said “Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond...We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months...We will communicate specific plans when appropriate."

The company is also planning on cutting its workforce by 4%, which equates to about 600 jobs.

If your website receives traffic or has links pointing to it from any of the Yahoo! properties that are going to disappear then put measures in place to limit the impact. Start taking advantage of other social media, bookmarking and blog sites ASAP, to strengthen your link profile and the number of referring sites.

Whether you are a fan of Google's new Instant search or not, if you are running a PPC campaign then this post will be of interest to you.

There appears to be a glitch in Instant search that could be costing top spot advertisers dearly. Whilst Instant search is turned on, if a search returns Adwords ads above the organic SERPs and you hit enter twice in the search field you will automatically open the number 1 Adwords result. This costs whoever is in the top spot, but the user won't have made the choice to click the ad, so what will they do? Click back, because they were expecting a Google search results screen.

This will have a detrimental effect on top position bounce rates and could be wasting a great deal of advertiser's budgets.

Currently running in Beta test mode, Google are testing video extensions that will be shown with their Adwords ads.

The plan is to have an "expandable plus-box" directly beneath the normal PPC text ad in which video extensions will play. Users will be able to watch the video before deciding whether or not to click-through. This sounds interesting for users, but the current cost of this service for advertisers is less appealing.

Once viewers reach the 10 second mark the advertiser will be charged the same maximum cost per click as if their ad had been clicked, regardless of whether it is clicked. So will this lead to a flurry of 10 second ads or are the search results becoming more and more cluttered, as with Google Preview?

Google has suggested that video extensions could be of particular use for product demonstrations, previews and trailers.

At present, there are no plans to roll this service out in the UK.

Google has now launched “Instant Previews”, which provides a preview of the organic search results without a searcher having to click through to the site itself. These previews appear on the right hand side of the Google search results screen when you click the little magnifying glass icon next to the search results.

This new addition comes hot on the heels of Google's launch of Google Instant. Unlike Google Instant search, Google Instant Preview is by default turned off, the magnifying glass must be clicked to activate this new feature. The preview istself is a graphic overview of a search result that highlights those sections which are most applicable to the search term used making it easier to see whether a site is worth visiting or not.

Google Preview will start showing up from today, 9th November 2010 and should be available in 40 languages and to all users within a couple of days. Google claims that during the testing of Google Instant Preview, those using Instant Preview stated that they were about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they clicked. This new visual comparison seems set to change the way visitors evaluate websites and choose whether or not to visit them.

At this point Google Preview doesn't extend to Google Ads, even though every Google Ad ends up at a web page. Google has thought about the option, but isn’t including it in the initial launch. Although incredibly fast and powerful, Google Preview still finds including sites created in Flash difficult with the majority of flash sites not yet being turned into a preview. Unlike Google Instant, which shuts off when your web connection slows, Google Instant Previews is available even on poor internet connections.