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All The Best of 2020 Reviews For Content & Marketing

December 5, 2020 By Dan Thornton

As each year comes to an end, it’s traditional for most big technology and content services to publish a look back at what’s been successful or interesting over the past 12 months. And as content creators and marketers, they can be really useful, which is why I’m collecting the best of 2020 reviews, right here.

There’s not always a correlation between popularity and quality, or in providing business or personal value. An extremely niche article on a specific part of a product may result in more sales than a viral video of someone dancing, or pranking a member of the public. But at the same time, maybe you’ll be inspired to look differently at content which might seem a bit dull in hindsight, or which has been underperforming.

At the same time, it’s also hopefully a useful resource for numbers and statistics if you still need to convince clients or senior management to let you spend some spare time playing around with a new social platform, create some short video content, or invest in better editing software.

Obviously 2020 has been a tough year for so many, but it’s also likely that trends and habits which have emerged during the last 12 months will define the future for the next few years at least.

I’ll be updating this article over the coming months as more platforms share their reviews of 2020.

All of the reviews will be listed in alphabetical order below as they become available:

Google
Pocket
Spotify
TikTok
Youtube

Google

One useful resource Google offers to marketing professionals is the Think With Google website, which includes reports, interviews and trends on various topics. So the 10 most read articles are useful, including some guides to lockdown and Christmas advertising, plus some of the free online courses currently offered by Google.

Plus it’s handy to see what was of interest to other people working in marketing!

Think with Google UK: Most Read Articles

Pocket: Best of 2020

If you’re not familiar with Pocket, it’s one of the remaining survivors from the bookmarking tools which article lovers and curators find invaluable. Acquired by Mozilla Corporation in 2017 (who also run the Firefox web browser), seeing what users have saved to read later is incredibly interesting whether you’re looking for writing inspiration, or just want some interesting things to read over Christmas downtime.

Pocket has shared the top 3 Most Read articles, along with the most popular trio for “Life in 2020”, Tech, Culture, Racial Justice, Making History, Science and Long Reads, so you’re bound to find something intriguing which you might not have already seen.

Pocket: Best of 2020

Spotify: 2020 Wrapped

I’ve always been a music nerd, even before it was possible to track all of my digital listening. So the personal side of the annual Spotify run down is always interesting, although also predictable, considering more of my work is powered by a couple of playlists (ambient classical music for calmer work, and a loud punky playlist for hammering out tasks closer to deadlines).

But it’s also interesting to discover something different, and see what’s proved popular for different genres, and in the world of podcasts. Especially when our teenage tastes tend to shape our listing as we get older, and it can be tempting and reassuring to replay the same classics over and over again. Creativity is shown to come from changing routines, and when you’re not able to travel to work a different way or meet new people as easily, choosing to dive into an entirely different genre of music can help.

Spotify: 2020 Wrapped

The Year on TikTok

The video sharing network may still be relatively new, and somewhat incomprehensible to many businesses. But it’s continued to grow in importance and utility despite controversy, a nationwide ban in India, and other issues over content and privacy.

So it’s worth being familiar with the type of videos which are popular, even if you haven’t already experimented with TikTok or jumped all the way into using it as another marketing channel.

The Year on TikTok: Top 100

Youtube

Youtube has listed the top trending videos and creators for 2020 in the U.S, along with breakout creators and top music videos. But you can find other data on the specific Youtube Culture and Trends website.

Hopefully by collecting the Best of 2020 reviews in tech and digital, I’ve helped you discover something interesting or new. Because that’s something I love doing, whether that’s from working with clients to provide articles, SEO and more. Or via the blog, and The Cipher email newsletter, which are going to be big priorities for 2021, as TheWayoftheWeb evolves after celebrating 10 years of business in 2020.

(image credit: Fredrik Öhlander on Unsplash)

How To Redirect a Blogspot Blog To Another Site

July 30, 2018 By Dan Thornton

If you’ve been using blogger as your website, you might have decided it’s time to change your CMS. And that might also mean switching from the standard .blogspot.com address to a custom domain. But how do you ensure that the search authority and visitors from your current site are transferred to your new one as effectively as possible? Well, here’s how to redirect a Blogspot blog to another site.

Before we get into the exact instructions, it’s worth explaining a little about Blogger and how redirects work between different urls. Or if you want to remove pages from your current website, including after a redesign. One of our main services is assisting with this process for business clients ranging from small websites to massive enterprise solutions. We’ve migrated a large number of websites over the years, and ensured traffic and search rankings are kept as high as possible during the transition.

If you’re in a hurry, already know about website redirects, or find it boring, you can skip the next bit!

Blogger and Redirects:

Blogger was originally launched in 1999 as a blog-publishing service by Pyra Labs. The company was founded by Meg Hourihan and Evan Williams, who also went on to co-found Twitter and Medium. Blogger itself was acquired by Google back in 2003. And although new features have regularly been added, the service itself hasn’t radically changed for a long time now. So although it’s still a very popular way to start blogging and publishing content online, many people find they want to switch to an alternative like WordPress after a while.

By default, your Blogger site will have an address ending in blogspot.com. If you’ve bought a custom domain for your site, e.g. www.thewayoftheweb.net, then everything will work on your new site as long as the urls of your posts stay the same. But your old site will revert back to blogspot.com and display your old duplicate content unless you either delete or redirect it.

However, when urls are being changed or posts are being removed, that’s when redirects are useful. For any permanent changes or deletions, you would want to use what is called a ‘301 Redirect’. This indicates to search engines that the content has been permently moved to a new address. And redirects your users to the new page automatically. So unless you want to completely ditch your old content and let users see a 404 error page, you’d typically put a 301 Redirect into your .htaccess file for PHP websites and web.config for IIS sites.

But editing .htaccess and web.config require server access. And Blogger doesn’t allow that.

Meanwhile adding redirection plugins and services to your new website and domain won’t have any effect on your old blogspot.com address.

But there is a solution. It uses what’s called a Meta Refresh to perform a client-side redirect (rather than the server-side options described above).

How To Redirect a Blogspot Blog To Another Site – Detailed Steps:

Rather than putting an instruction directly onto your server, we’re going to add a Meta Refresh tag to the header of your old blogspot site. This will refresh the page content, and in the process, send visitors to your new website. It does have some downsides, which we’ll outline later. But the advantages will generally outweight the negatives.

And don’t be scared of the code in the steps below. It really is very simple.

Step 1:

Go to Blogger and log into your website. When you’re viewing the main dashboard, click on ‘Theme’ in the left hand menu. You’ll see a preview of your theme with the option to ‘Edit HTML’ under the ‘Live on Blog’ window.

Click Edit HTML and you’ll see the code for your site:

This can look intimidating, but adding the Meta Refresh code is very simple. You need to locate the <head> tag in the code, and then add the following code straight after it:

Obviously you’ll replace yournewwebsite.com with your new url!

I’ve highlighted the relevant code in the example below with a couple of red stars.

Now click on Save Theme, and you’re done!

Visit your blogspot.com address and check the redirect works.

Meta Fresh: Options and Downsides?

There’s not a huge amount of options available when you have a client-side redirect with a Meta Refresh Tag. The main one is how long it takes for your redirect to work. If you’ve put a message on your site explaining what’s happening, you may want to give your visitors time to see it before they’re sent to your new website.

Luckily, that’s simple. If you take another look at the code:

You can see there’s a 0 value after content. Simple adjust that for the number of seconds you want to allow visitors to stay on your old site and see whatever is left there to explain the redirect.

See, easy!

Now for the Meta Refresh downsides.

Unfortunately, being an easy way to redirect visitors without accessing a server means Meta Refresh Tags have often been used by spammers and other people who might be less than honest.

So many SEO specialists will recommend that your refresh time is set to at least 5 seconds to avoid being seen as dubious and incurring a potential problem.

Also due to the spam problem, search engines will generally not pass all of the SEO value of the original site. You’ll still get some benefit, and obviously it’s better than nothing. But using a server-side redirect should generally be seamless for traffic and SEO authority.

The Best Solution for Redirecting Blogspot Sites?

Although using a Meta Refresh Tag won’t pass all of the SEO equity of your original blogspot site, it’s still going to pass more than if you didn’t put in any redirect at all. And as long as you keep an eye on your site to ensure you’re not accidentally seen as trying to trick users, then it has the major benefit of ensuring your existing traffic is carried across to your new website.

Inspirational Business Lessons From Historic Japan

July 21, 2018 By Dan Thornton

Normally business stories are shared for one of two reasons. Either it’s a new company showing fast growth, or an establish company dominating the market place. But when expansion is unsustainable it can lead to problems or even bankruptcy. And there can only be a small number of massively dominant companies in a single niche. Which is why I think there are some inspirational business lessons from historic Japan. Because they’re about different ambitions entirely.

Of the oldest companies in the world still operating, the majority are all from Japan. And the oldest trio that have not been absorbed into another country re the Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, Koman and Hoshi Ryokan hotels. The first was founded in 705AD, with the others in 717AD and 718AD respectively.

Which means the Nishiyama Onsen Kieukan has been open for 1,313 years. And has been operated by 52 generations of the founder Fujiawara Mahito. It’s not particularly expensive compared to a spa hotel in most countries around the world, costing around £300 per night. And with 37 rooms, it’s not particularly big.

There are two elements of Japanese business and tradition that stand out. Other countries have businesses running from similar dates, Sean’s Bar, the oldest pub in Ireland dating back to 900 AD, and The Bingley Arms in England (905-953AD).

The first is that the Japanese hotels are still managed by the families of the founders. Which means they’ve been sustainably owned and cared for throughout the 1,300 years. Rather than the current trend to build quickly, sell and move on.

It’s why we’re seeing more people come to respect businesses like Basecamp (formerly 37 Signals), who aimed for sustainable growth. Or why the recent decision of the founders of Wistia to take on $17 million in debt to regain control and continue building their company is so interesting.

There’s nothing wrong with aiming high, or wanting to build something and sell it. But it’s not the only way. As anyone who has run any type of business will probably share, a worthwhile aim will help you enjoy the journey, especially as it’s inevitably harder than you might have expected.

The second point is the idea of evolution and rebuilding. There’s a good chance you’ve heard of the Ise Jingu grand shrine in Mie Prefecture. Even if you don’t know it by name. Every 20 years local people will tear it down and rebuild it anew. And have done so for at least 1,300 years. The actual rebuilding takes eight years to prepare, including four years for the timber. So why do people willing go through it?

The act of taking apart the temple and rebuilding helps to preserve the original design, but also keeps the traditional skills alive. And at the same time it reinvigorates the spiritual and communal bonds.

Using This Inspiration For Yourself:

Hopefully you can take a couple of things from the oldest businesses in the world. The first thing it’s reminded me is that I can work hard to create and achieve something other than the next Google or Facebook. And that it’s not important whether I’ve achieved the fastest ever growth for 12 months or 24. Part of my inspiration for continuing to run my own business is the idea that perhaps my son, or one day, maybe his children might take it on.

Doing that necessitates strong foundations, philosophies and things other people can carry with them. Which also means I’m better prepared if exponential growth did occur.

It can also mean something that goes outside your immediate family. For example the philanthropy of people like Andrew Carnegie or Rockefeller in the past. And the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet today.

The second is a little less literal. I’m not proposing every business tears down their shop or factory every 20 years. I suspect most business leases actively discourage it! But what you can do is regularly tear down your strategy, plans and business philosophy, and then rebuild it to ensure you’re working in the right way, and still pursuing the right goals.

It’s easy to stick to an aging plan, or drift from your original strategy, and not even realise in the daily grind. Then it stretches to weeks, months and years. And you don’t take a step back and see that you’re potentially doing the wrong things to achieve your ambition.

The value of doing that can be seen in a number of companies. For instance, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard explains eloquently in his book ‘Let My People Go Surfing‘ how at times the company slipped and had to refocus. It’s a great book, by the way, and is one of a number that are helping me refocus what I’m working on.

We’ve seen a lot of upheaval in the UK, and in the U.S in recent months and years. And I definitely wonder how differently in might have been if politics, business and personal ambitions were more about how decisions would matter for the next 500 or 1,000 years.

Search Traffic Refers More Visitors Than Social Media in 2017

February 26, 2018 By Dan Thornton

Reports of the demise of search engine optimisation, and the dominance of social media, will need to be updated as search traffic sent more visitors to websites than social in 2017.

The figures come from a variety of sources. Shareaholic put Search at 34.8% of site visits compared to social at 25.6% in 2017, which puts Search as the biggest source of traffic for the first time since 2014. Meanwhile Chartbeat has consistently had Search ahead, but referrals grew since August 2017. Parse.ly also confirmed the rise for search and drop for social media.

Search Traffic Refers More Visitors Than Social Media in 2017

What is changing to search and social traffic?

Social Media platforms have come under criticism for their handling of fake news, spam content and clickbait. And as the largest of the networks, Facebook has come under particular scrutiny. So as a result, the most recent changes to the Facebook newsfeed have attempted to boost trusted sources and demote the rest.

At the same time, the efforts by Google to improve mobile search access, particularly around Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), have been driving a growth in search volume and traffic, while desktop activity remains largely the same.

What to do for your business?

The ‘battle’ between Search and Social for biggest source of website traffic is largely a pointless one. Regardless of which is marginally bigger, you really want to be using both to the best of your ability.

Search remains not only a large source of traffic, but one which converts to action well. Because if you’re optimising for the right searches and content, you’ll attract people actively in the market for your products and services. And it will deliver you a good source of new customers who don’t already know about your company.

Meanwhile Social remains a great way to increase engagement and repeat purchases. You can use it to reach targetted new customers, and to promote sales to existing fans. And to also improve your customer service and engagement. But it’s not really at its best as a pure sales channel generally. There are exceptions, and some small companies do a lot of social media-based sales through Facebook, Instagram etc. But although all companies can change how they rank, promote and share content via their platform, having a business based on social media sales through 1-2 channels will always seem a little riskier than also having search, email and other sales mechanisms in place.

If you’d like to know how we’ve increased sales through search, social media, content marketing and other methods, get in touch…

Photo by Edho Pratama on Unsplash

Clever Marketing From Marlboro

February 3, 2017 By Dan Thornton

Smoking is bad. Even most smokers will agree that it’s expensive and has a range of negatives even aside from the massive increases in health risks. That includes everything from nicotine stained skin to the potentially risk of setting your own hair alight during a student event at a nightclub in Hull. While the last example may have just applied to me in the 1990s, generally most people have been in favour of increased restrictions on cigarette sales, advertising and marketing.

But the flip side is that it has forced cigarette promotions to become more interesting and innovative. The strong, iconic branding allowed variations on brand names to get around new rules on sports sponsorship. For instance, the Jordan F1 team was sponsored by Benson & Hedges for around 10 years, but switched to variations including Bitten & Hisses, Buzzin Hornets and Be On Edge where cigarette sponsorship was banned.

There are also plenty of examples of product placement, including paying stars like Silvester Stallone directly to use particular products in films. And books like Buyology by Martin Lindstrom suggested how brand associations like cowboys, camels and less obvious examples including colours etc can trigger us into craving a cigarette as much, if not more, than a direct advert would have done.

Which is why I admire the skill of those promoting smoking, and look to learn from them to better promote less harmful products (We work with a wide range of brands, but have turned down offers from companies we believe offer products or services which aren’t beneficial to customers).

Clever Marketing From Marlboro

A new law was passed in the UK in 2016. From May 2016, all cigarette packets will be a standard green colour, logos will be prohibited, menthols are being banned, and 10-packs of cigarettes have also been withdrawn. But there has been a year’s grace period for companies to adjust and sell old stock.

So in reality it means we’re going to see branding and packets of 10 cigarettes disappear from shelves by May 2017. And that’s why I have to admit some admiration for what Marlboro has done when I visited the shops…

It looks like a normal packet of 10 Marlboro Lights and costs the same as it did last week. But rather than being the standard cardboard packaging, it’s a durable tin packet.

And I suspect many of the marketers reading this will have already guessed why.

From May, the company will lose all their iconic branding. And anyone who previously bought a pack of 10 might well give up, rather than double their daily expenditure on a packet of 20. For instance, when I’ve cut down by smoking before eventually quitting, I found buying a pack of 10 meant I definitely tried to make them last longer.

Without that option though, I might have just gone cold turkey.

So now they’ve taken a probably marginal hit in their profits in the short-term to provide smokers with a way to continue to share their branding, and to potentially still provide that 10-pack limit.

And while for many it’s an addiction with well-known health risks, most smokers will still feel slightly cooler taking out a branded Marlboro tin and refilling it from the non-branded packs than having to take out a dull green pack with a large diseased lung on it.

Marketing Under Restrictions Promotes Creativity:

Would Marlboro have done something like this to promote their brand without the upcoming regulations and bans? I highly doubt it.

I’d imagine most people reading this don’t have an unlimited budget or freedom. But if you did, the danger is that you’d simply pile much more money into doing the same things. And you’d have no incentive to optimise your Adwords spend or paid Facebook content if you could just double the budget instead.

Whereas the most creative marketing often comes from constraints. Whether that’s from laws, budgets or other restrictions, it’s something that can result in far more interest and impact. I’ve just been reading ‘Things A Little Bird Told Me‘ by Biz Stone, and in it, he talks about his time designing book covers. When a brief insisted a particular photo had to be used, other designers would avoid taking that work. Instead, Biz Stone would rush to grab that job, take the photo, and then do something like blow it up 2000 times to use the massively pixellated version.

Employees are often advised ‘Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions’.

Perhaps our marketing motto should be ‘Don’t complain about constraints, bring me creative innovations’?