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Oban delivered another International SEO training course for E-Consultancy and its clients last week (October 8th) in London. Businesses from a range of industries were in attendance: Recruitment, Finance, Technology and Online Retail. Even internet marketing author, Dave Chaffey, was present to brush up on his International SEM skills.

The variety of companies who attended the course reflects a growing trend whereby UK companies are actively seeking overseas business via the web. Though many of the companies had been using multivariate testing, albeit in English; they got insights on Cultural Multivariate testing which was highly relevant for them!

The dreaded translation debate rearing its head once again and in many of the cases there were some real doubts on how to approach International SEO. At the end of the day, I believe the message of Do Not Translate and the reasons to justify this came across loud and clear.

I’m looking forward to the next course in 2010.

Greig

Oban Multilingual, Greig Holbrook, lead a session on key tools and tactics to achieving global online success. Hosted at the Ad-Tech conference in London – 22nd September, Greig discussed how to combine Multilingual SEO/PPC with Cultural Multivariate Testing.

As an expert in providing local solutions to global online campaigns, he highlighted best practices for conducting research and adapting one’s site to respective audiences. In this session, Greig also covered the critical issues pertaining to how to design and test websites and pages for various cultures.

These critical elements, if ignored, risk leading new entrants to peril and so… Greig’s talk offered great insight to: key factors to going global online, how-to tips on converting web templates and designs per culture, and ways to generate optimum traffic and conversions to your international websites.

We delighted to announce that Oban Multilingual Strategy Ltd. have been short-listed in the Equality and Diversity in the Workplace category for the Brighton and Hove Business Awards 2009 to be held on 9th Oct 2009

Fingers and toes crossed.

Greig Holbrook, MD of Oban Multilingual, will be making a presentation to a seminar exploring the cultural diversity of web usage at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII). The seminar to be held on April 30th at Oxford University, will be attended by sponsors of the Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS) the OII’s major study of internet usage in Britain. The OII is recognized as a leading authority on Internet use in the UK, and internationally-recognised through its work on the World Internet Project.

Greig will highlight the findings from Oban’s recent multivariate testing on the Visit Jordan website. The testing software allows a website to automatically serve up variations in content, and then track user reactions to the changes, giving insight into web design elements in a live environment. The results are revealing of unique cultural responses to variations on websites, and initial results suggest the importance of designing sites for different cultures for maximum conversions and sales.

Oban Multilingual, Gomez Travel Benchmark and EyeforTravel Research have teamed up to produce an industry white paper on the online European travel industry. Entitled Maximising your online performance in the European travel market, the paper describes the growth of European online travel distribution, and provides a practical guide to maximising online performance in this market in terms of SEO and website performance.

Language is a key differentiator online and is a major consideration for companies looking to target the mix of cultures located within Europe. The paper looks at some of Europe’s leading travel websites in terms of language, and identifies a range of SEO practices to take advantage of search differences between users of different languages.

To read the full white paper, click here

Oban Multilingual, the specialist in Multilingual Search Engine Marketing, will be in attendance at the ITB in Berlin next week. (March 11th – 13th)

Are you visible online to your global audience? Do you need help with international online marketing? If so

please drop Sinead Comerford a line at the following email address sinead@obanmultilingual.com or call her on +44 7887660600.

Sinead would be delighted to meet with you to discuss all exciting opportunities further.

See you there and see you then

Oban has made it to the finals of the Gatwick Diamond Business Awards, in the International Trade category.

The awards are organised by Cadia, the Gatwick Diamond Business Association, and will be presented by BBC News front man Declan Curry.

Oban are experts in international search engine optimisation, and have offices in 26 countries.

A large percentage of Oban’s clients are multinationals (for example, Proctor & Gamble). Some are local UK companies with an international focus.

In addition, Obanners also consider themselves to be part of one of the most multicultural staff in the UK – over 80 percent of their employees are from abroad, as reported recently in Brighton’s Argus newspaper.

“We’re honoured and very excited to have made it this far in these awards,” says Greig Holbrook, Oban’s MD.

“We are trying to make the internet friendlier to the multitude of languages and cultures that are currently struggling to find online content that caters to them, and we strive to extend our reach even further across the globe in everything we do.”

The winners will be announced at a Gala dinner on March 12 at the Gatwick Hilton Hotel.

Also in the International Trade finals are Aerotron, an aviation supplier, and Genesis Forwarding Services, an independent freight forwarder.

Our FD with some insight on brand keyword bidding.

According to recent research by Forrester European online marketing is predicted to continue growing this year (albeit at a slower rate).

However as you’d expect, clients will be even more scrutinising on getting value for money (and rightly so). Further to this, I noticed that research by the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) showed the cost of bidding on major brands is getting increasingly more expensive. They tracked 90 core brand terms over a 21 month period, which showed a consistent increase in cost-per-click and declines in click-through rate. Not a good combination.

Whilst the decision by Google to allow bidding on competitor terms may be good for the search engines’ bottom line, they need to be careful that the decision doesn’t come back to bite them. Whilst its unlikely that major companies will stop using Google, they might be more inclined to look at other channels if it continues to get more and more difficult to see a payback.

The focus on return on investment for clients is nothing new for us as it has always been a priority for everyone at Oban.

Cheers! Grant.

Sinead gets chatty about Facebook and its privacy/private lives pitfalls.

Today is Facebook’s fifth birthday. With over nine million users, there is plenty to celebrate.

I have never been a fan and was interested to hear the views of Southern FM’s & Sussex radio listeners today.

One user was advising others not to add people they don’t know. He said he made this mistake and suffered written abuse and threats towards his wife.

He was absolutely shocked as he had never met this person before and was worried that the user would have access to his personal information and thus be able to see where he lives.

The man also advised not to give away too much information on your profile page in the first instance.

Another radio listener revealed that after seven months of corresponding with another user, she is now going to travel half way round the world and said that “he is the man that I am going to marry.”

A gentleman caller informed us that he accepted an invitation to his Facebook friend to join her in the US for a week, whilst her fiancée was out of town. He thanked Facebook for providing him with the best week of his life. (So is Facebook helping people cheat and commit adultery?)

I know it is supposed to be a social website but how social and familiar are we supposed to get..

Sinead and Carol attended the Cadia (Gatwick Diamond Business Networking) members meeting today in rural Surrey. Here, Sinead gives us the scoop…

We were happy to hear that the general mood with local businesses in the area is one of caution and not panic. Cadia was urging companies to try and stay upbeat and to see the glass as half full and not half empty.

We were interested to learn that when the new owner of Gatwick Airport (whoever that will be) will be planning to invest 1 billion pounds into the airport for re-development (Hooray, I yell with glee, let’s give Heathrow a run for its money)!

Cadia had a meeting with the local council and was begging them to enforce that any new development that will take place will be run by Sussex companies and not ones from Essex etc. There will be new council housing built in the Gatwick Diamond Area too and again urges were made to utilise local engineering and Construction Company (keep the money spent within Sussex).

Sinead and Carol struck up friendly relations with other Brand, PR and Marketing agencies in the Sussex region: Midnight Blue Communications, Storm Communications and Preview.