The Census: Insightful or Archaic?

In July this year, another wave of findings from the 2011 census was released by the government. The census, which collects data from every household in the UK once a decade, is a hotly debated piece of research. The 200-year-old survey is coming under threat, as many people believe all of this data is not needed and resent filling in the booklet

This debate has recently been taken to parliament, with the ONS suggesting replacing the traditional paper booklet with an online only survey. This would not just be sad news for lovers of the old-school pen and paper but would also alienate the people who actually aren’t online

Mobile – a stat attack!

Mobile is an oscillating, contradictory, rapidly expanding area of the media industry. Opportunities are abundant, landscapes shift on a regular basis, and opinions are modified in line with the emergence of new technologies.
We need to identify trends wherever possible. At MEC, we can help you navigate your way through this mobile minefield with a distillation of some key trends and statistics that can help to glean insights into this fluctuating environment.

Google Webmaster Tools adds manual actions

Over the past year and a half Google has been targeting webmasters that are involved in low quality or paid link building. This move from Google included updates to algorithmically detect un-natural link profiles and link networks. Google then moved a step further providing a tool that allows webmasters to disavow any low quality backlinks to their site, that they are not able to remove themselves.
However for many webmasters the issue of removing low quality links is defining what Google deems as ‘low quality’. For many people using complex SEO tools either is either very daunting or very expensive. Most webmasters rely on their SEO agencies to solve this problem; however some are left with the troublesome task of trying to resolve the problem themselves.

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Magazine ABCs Jan – June 2013

Last month saw the release of the most recent ABC figures, for the period January – June 2013. A challenging period across the board for print, with key sectors posting further circulation declines. Although boasting the three top actively purchased magazines for the period, the closure of Northern & Shell’s new title, TV Pick, after just 22 issues emphasizes the struggling state of the TV listings sector, which was down 6.3 per cent year-on-year (yoy) and 5.8 per cent point of purchase (pop) overall.

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The Adwords Paid & Organic Report

Google have recently launched a new feature in Adwords: the Paid vs. Organic report. This is a very welcome addition as it provides us with a great deal of extra insight into the relationship between paid and organic search.

The report can be found hidden away in the dimensions tab under Paid & Organic report. In this one report we can analyse paid and organic traffic, which in itself is a huge time saver. No longer will you have to switch between Analytics and Adwords to compare data as it’s now presented in one easily digestible report.

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Here at MEC we’ve had a busy summer, but when we’ve not been working hard we’ve been making the most of the sunshine in a number of different ways. Here’s a little of what some of our team have been doing in the past few months…

• Mick Style – I spent the hottest summer nights wandering around my house in the wee hours with my tiny girl, Charlotte, who was born on 26th June. Ah.
  
  
• Cherry Jackson – I made the most of my lunchtimes by sitting outside in the sunshine and went on my first cruise. I totally get it now, two weeks with no decisions to make except which pool to sit by, which restaurant to eat in and when I should next eat, definitely going to save up for the next one.
  
  
• John Morton – The highlight of the summer was my sabbatical month off in July. Actually got to play golf for the first time this year (my performance reflected my absence from the fairways!) and then took off to Canada for 2.5 weeks on a road trip that took us from Calgary to Vancouver.

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