How Google Rich Snippets can enhance your business

March 19th, 2012

What is structured data and why is it increasingly important?

As has been widely reported in the media, Google is planning the biggest shakeup in it’s search algorithm in over a decade, increasing it’s focus on “semantic” search. In practice it is likely that Google will continue to increase the emphasis on facts and answers (relating to people, places and things) at the top of their search engine results pages (SERPs). With the increasing prominence of structured data on SERPs it is crucial that your website is optimised to make data about your company, and it’s services, available to all major search engines in a structured format.

The easiest way to demonstrate how structured data can affect your business right now is to look at how Google uses this data to present “Rich Snippets” in results pages. Take a look at the example below for a search for a “tikka masala recipe”:

The first result contains no structured data, while the second result does (an image and number of reviews), resulting in much higher levels of user engagement. Since they first launched in 2009 the range of Rich Snippets available has grown to include Reviews, People, Products, Businesses and organisations, Recipes, Events, Music and Video.

Results for our clients 

Dock9 has been using structured data formats on our client’s websites to increase user engagement with their sites on SERPs. An excellent example of this is our client, DoubleGlazingCompanies.com, which is a company comparison and review site for the double glazing industry.

By structuring the review data in the source code of the website in a certain format, the search engine result displays with a visual star rating, the name of the reviewer and the date of the review. Our client’s result on the page is visually more prominent than their competitors.

Similarly, for our client Largemortgageloans.com, structuring the format of a video on their page means that a preview is shown directly in the SERP. Again, our client’s result is more visually engaging than their competitors.

How  can structured data help my business?

As shown above, by incorporating structured data into your website we can already increase user engagement with your company in search engine results. And with Google reportedly planning a major update which would increase the prominence of such data it is important that your business is prepared.

For a free appraisal of how structured data could enhance your website please complete a Project Planner or get in touch.

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Dock9 is hiring! ASP.NET Developer in London

August 3rd, 2011

We're Hiring!

We are looking for a highly motivated ASP.NET Developer with at least 2 years commercial experience to join our small but growing team based in London Docklands. We work with a number of large clients in the financial services sector, building complex web applications. Click here for more information on the role.

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Dock9 launches new comparison web site DoubleGlazingCompanies.com

February 11th, 2011

Dock9 is pleased to announce the launch of DoubleGlazingCompanies.com, a sophisticated new company comparison engine offering a transparent way for consumers to find and compare double glazing installers and manufacturers.

Dock9 was responsible for many aspects of the project, from the user interface design and technical development right through to user testing and launch.

DoubleGlazingCompanies.com

DoubleGlazingCompanies.com Home Page

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Tradex Insurance chooses Dock9 for its multi-stage website development project

December 10th, 2010

Tradex Insurance is one of the most successful motor trade insurers in the UK, writing over £100 million worth of business per annum. Its website deals with thousands of customers every day.  Tradex’s primary market is insurance brokers, who have their own specialist website where they can login to process their business online.

Earlier this year Tradex chose Dock9 for a major, multi-stage project to create new retail and broker websites. This includes a completely new ‘look and feel’, new insurance rating engines, improved back office processes and back-end system integration.

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How to maximise the returns from a financial services email marketing campaign

November 24th, 2010

We work with a number of clients in the financial services sector, helping them to plan, implement and evaluate successful email marketing campaigns. We have drawn on that experience to create a simple, effective guide aimed at financial services organisations that are looking to build a new campaign, or improve an existing one.

1) Understand your goals and document your strategy

It should go without saying that it is important to have clearly defined goals before undertaking any marketing campaign. But how many people actually spend time discussing and agreeing objectives and then put them into writing? You’ll be surpised how much this helps clarify your thinking and improves your implementation.

Make your goals measurable. With marketing budgets being squeezed, it is important that there is enough evidence that the campaign delivers an acceptable return on investment. If your company is spending £25 per lead with a lead broker, but your email marketing is generating leads at half the price you need to be able to demonstrate this with clear, reliable metrics.

Your email marketing software should give you a break down of open rates, bounces, unsubscribes and exactly which links within the email were clicked (if not, then look for an alternative). If used in conjuction with Google Analytics, you can track which of those ‘click-throughs’ resulted in conversions. If you are seeking completed mortgage enquiry forms, for instance, you should tag all links and setup goals in Analytics so you know exactly which emails, and which links within them, have resulted in leads, completed application forms, offers and completions. Ultimately, of course, the key metric to measure for all campaigns is cost of completion versus revenue earned to get the overall return on investment.

So you also need to make sure you have back office processes in place to accurately track which of the submitted enquiries have actually resulted in income. If you don’t, you’ll never know which campaigns actually give you the best return on your investment.

Largemortgageloans.com email campaign, created and managed by Dock9

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Processing insurance policy adjustments efficiently online

October 25th, 2010

The efficient management of policy adjustments is crucial in running a profitable insurance business; and company websites are increasingly the first port of call for customers wishing to amend their policies.

For those companies that insure Motor Traders, this is especially important.

Despite the Motor Insurance Database notification period remaining at 14 days for commercial motor trade business (unlike for personal motor business, which was reduced to 7 days in January 2008) this is offset by the often high turnover of vehicles on these policies.

For clients of ours like Clegg Gifford, one of the largest Motor Trade insurance brokers in the UK, this raised a number of questions:

  • How could they use the web to improve the data captured from the customer compared to telephone calls?
  • Once captured, could the system automatically flag up risky amendments to underwriters?
  • How could an online system work with their existing back office systems?

We worked with Clegg Gifford to build a solution that delivered to their customers the advantages of an automated process, while also working around the particular back office processes and systems that Clegg Gifford have in place.

The solution that we delivered both improved the customer experience when submitting updates and helped back-office staff deal with adjustments more efficiently.

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Dock9 launches new website for Clegg Gifford

July 9th, 2010

Clegg Gifford is one of only 163 Lloyd’s brokers in the UK, with offices in London, Essex, Peterborough, Edinburgh, Southampton, Guernsey and Jersey. Their existing website failed to deliver where it counts, generating small volumes of business and offering a poor user experience.

We launched a new website for the company in July 2010 featuring a clean, usable design built upon a tightly integrated front-end/back-office system. The front-end features twenty search-engine optimised product sections, each with a user-friendly quotation process and callback facilities.

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Mortgage Toolkit app featured in the App Store

June 14th, 2010

Our recently launched iPhone App, Mortgage Toolkit, has been featured by Apple as New and Noteworthy in the Finance section. Find out more about our work on this project or download it for free on the App Store.

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Largemortgageloans.com and Dock9 launch Mortgage Toolkit iPhone App

June 1st, 2010

Largemortgageloans.com, the specialist large loans broker, and its digital partner Dock9 have developed an iPhone app called ‘Mortgage Toolkit’, bringing calculators, best buy tables and mortgage guides to the palm of a borrower’s hand.

In addition to a simple mortgage calculator, customers can check the current best buy rates for residential and buy to let loans. Each week, Largemortgageloans.com’s mortgage experts select the most competitive fixed and variable rates, including exclusive and bespoke rates available only through the broker.

Customers can also apply for a specific ‘best buys’ rate at a touch of a button: after entering their name and telephone number into the app they will be called back by a fully-qualified professional mortgage adviser. Customers can also call the main Largemortgageloans.com enquiry line or request a generic call back if they are not sure which rate is right for them.

To help busy borrowers on the move, there are also 12 guides to mortgages and to buying and selling property. These are stored within the app so if the customer has no internet connection they can still access the content.

Paul Welch, Managing Director of Largemortgageloans.com, comments “The Mortgage Toolkit iPhone app is more than just a mortgage calculator. We believe that it’s a big step forward and just what the busy borrower needs to do their mortgage research whilst on the move. They can even access the mortgage and property guides on the tube.”

Download the app for free from the App Store or find out more at Largemortgageloans.com.

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