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DAC Blog Authors Grant Whiteside

Grant Whiteside

Read more from Grant Whiteside

Google’s “Arty” Experiments with Keyword Rankings

Grant Whiteside | July 12, 2017

Keyword rankings change all the time. It makes sense most of the time. Consistently producing engaging, relevant content? Your keyword rankings should exceed your competitors’. A competitor finally sorted out their categories? Their keyword rankings…

Google Penguin updated to part of core algorithm

Grant Whiteside | September 28, 2016

There’s a new penguin in town. Since its debut in 2012, Google Penguin updates have wreaked havoc for webmasters who relied on spammy links to gain visibility. On 23 September 2016, however, Google announced that…

Google Mobile Update: Turning Surprises into Success

Grant Whiteside | May 25, 2016

Google mobile results have been updated, providing some game-changing results. This greatly contrasts with last year’s “Mobile-geddon” update, which in reality was nothing more than a small taste of what was to come. I recently…

Keyword Research: The Building Blocks of Business

Grant Whiteside | April 27, 2016

Too many keywords, not enough action. It’s such a shame seeing a company lost inside an Excel spreadsheet and not making the most of their keyword research. Keyword analysis, search demand analysis, SEO sorcery – call…

Digital Agency of the Year!

Grant Whiteside | April 21, 2016

If you don’t follow our social media accounts you may not have heard, but Ambergreen won Digital Agency of the Year at last night’s ScotlandIS awards ceremony! Digital marketing agency of the year #DigitalTech2016@ScotlandIS@ambergreen_says thanks…

8 Brilliant Uses for Facebook Live

Grant Whiteside | April 14, 2016

Facebook Live is the latest livestreaming service that is being rolled out all Facebook users. The 1.6 billion users of Facebook will be able to access live stream information and viewers will have the ability…

Is Digital Marketing Dead or are publishers desperate to make the headlines

Grant Whiteside | January 29, 2016

’Digital marketing is dead’ – that’s the headline I read this morning. Apparently what the world needs now are traditional marketers, an area where businesses face a major skills gap. The headline did what it…

Change in Travel Sector Social Media Infographic

Grant Whiteside | October 14, 2015

The travel sector is used to change – it’s the only thing that’s stayed constant since the dawn of the digital age. From the evolution of search engines to data-driven social engagement, customers expect to be…

When is a mobile friendly website not mobile friendly?

Grant Whiteside | October 9, 2015

When is a mobile friendly website not mobile friendly? When Google says it’s not. As of November 1st 2015, mobile websites that actively promote an interstitial advert asking the user to download the app version…

Twitter advertising reach set to more than double

Grant Whiteside | September 14, 2015

In 2013 Twitter made one of the shrewdest investments of the year by purchasing mobile ad exchange company MoPub. The company specialised in providing in-app advertising across a wide range of network apps, offering promoted…

Our Latest Recruit: Mark Proctor – Head of SEO

Grant Whiteside | September 1, 2015

Today we are introducing our latest recruit to the team; Mark Proctor, who is joining us as Head of SEO GW: How are you? Welcome on-board to Ambergreen. You’ve been brought on board as Head of…

Enterprise Digital Marketing for the Travel Sector

Grant Whiteside | August 21, 2015

We have watched a lot of travel brands change hands over the years as companies have been bought over and brand names have sometimes changed as a result of this. The larger enterprise players in…

The Visibility Gap in Travel Marketing

Grant Whiteside | July 8, 2015

Today’s traveller uses more touch points than ever before they rush off and make the final decision on what company or companies they use to book their online travel. In marketing terms this means the…

Digital Dog Days of Summer: Getting Burned by Useless Content

Grant Whiteside | July 6, 2015

It must be silly season again. Every summer we seem to get an influx of pointless ‘marketing’ stories that are neither interesting nor particularly relevant, but someone publishes them and we still often read them…

Search positions and click throughs for the UK and US

Grant Whiteside | July 1, 2015

Search marketing professionals get to see the real search terms that people use to reach your website on a daily basis; the days of stumbling about in the dark, trying to work out what search…

The App, the Browser and the Mobile Ad Blocker

Grant Whiteside | June 3, 2015

Browsers were once the battlefields where advertising revenue wars were won and lost. Now, that battle is evolving and we have a new contender on our hands; the mobile ad blocker. There’s nothing new about…

What are gTLDs & Brand TLDs?

Grant Whiteside | May 20, 2015

Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) are an alternative to standard domain name extensions. Existing domains such as .com, .net and country specific domains such as .co.uk and .fr are now supplemented by word-based domains such…

What comes 1st, the marketing budget or the strategy?

Grant Whiteside | May 15, 2015

What comes 1st, the marketing budget or the strategy? We have all seen the briefing that filters its way down from the board room. Next year’s marketing budget is set, yet there seems to be…

How will the growth of mobile affect the future of SEO?

Grant Whiteside | May 5, 2015

Following all the excitement of ‘Mobilegeddon’ – a Google update that favours mobile friendly sites and punishes those that remain stubbornly biased towards the desktop – it seems everyone in digital marketing, indeed, people across…

The Value of Keyword Analysis

Grant Whiteside | May 1, 2015

Keyword research can play an integral part in updating a brand’s message, product and performance. It can help you to create a content strategy, a user journey for your new website, a paid media campaign,…

UK Mobile Digital Ad Spend figures for 2014

Grant Whiteside | April 14, 2015

As the latest UK Digital Ad Spend figures are published for 2014 (courtesy of the IAB / PWC), it comes as no surprise to see that the mobile advertising space continued to grow at an alarming…

Google update on using doorway pages

Grant Whiteside | March 25, 2015

Google has recently stated that websites that use doorway pages as a method of increasing their “search footprint” without adding clear, unique value” may soon be penalised. We’ve all seen them; these are the pages…

April 21st is Mobilegeddon, the day mobile search changes

Grant Whiteside | March 12, 2015

There’s nothing like a good sensationalist headline to get people listening. On April 21st Google will rank its results differently and websites that are not mobile friendly will be penalised. So if you’ve been sticking…

5 Tips to Help Your TV Advertising Campaign Using Paid Media

Grant Whiteside | March 2, 2015

In a recent E-Consultancy survey, only one in 5 respondents thought that mass TV advertising would be an effective advertising tactic within 5 years. In contrast, nearly 50% thought that it wouldn’t be an effective…

Digital PR 7 years later.. #TBT

Grant Whiteside | February 19, 2015

There’s nothing like looking back looking at the archives at what we were having discussions about in 2008. The sentiment of what we were talking about hasn’t really changed. I wrote this original blog post…

Google indexes Twitter again – Handles to Hash Tags are back in the SERP’s

Grant Whiteside | February 11, 2015

The news came out this week that Twitter pages will be indexed on Google in an attempt to reach out to the audience that currently are not signed up to Twitter or to those that…

An update on dot Brands and New generic Top Level Domains

Grant Whiteside | February 4, 2015

With so much chat going on about domain name management and the new opportunities to use new dot brand and generic top level domains, this month we caught up with Penny Hearn a director of Demys Ltd.…

EU E-Commerce VAT law changes for 2015

Grant Whiteside | February 3, 2015

On January 1st 2015, whilst we nursed our hangovers, a new EU Ecommerce VAT law change came into play. There had been some fierce lobbying and clarification points addressed in December before the final paper…

B2B marketers choose content optimisation as a top priority for 2015

Grant Whiteside | January 30, 2015

Econsultancy have just released their first Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing of 2015. Wading through the ton of data they give you in these reports, we were never far away from the ‘content’ word. Content Optimisation…

Laurence O Toole, CEO of Analytics SEO

Grant Whiteside | December 18, 2014

“Analytics SEO are an SEO vending suite providing a tool to monitor and record workflow on most elements of organic search, what will be the biggest challenges and opportunities for agencies and brands that use your…

Gareth Hoyle, Sales and Marketing at LinkRisk

Grant Whiteside | December 18, 2014

“Link Risk provide a range of services that monitor and maintain backlink profiles for thousands of websites and brands, what will be the biggest challenges and opportunities for agencies and brands that use your services in…

Dixon Jones – Majestic

Grant Whiteside | December 18, 2014

“Majestic provide a range of opportunities for brands and agencies in the world of SEO, Internet PR and Marketing from crawling the web to monitor and maintain backlink and social profiles; what will be the biggest challenges…

2015 Digital Marketing Data and Comms Predictions

Grant Whiteside | December 18, 2014

Ho Ho Ho As we get into Christmas spirit and everyone digs out their crystal balls and begins to make their predictions for the year ahead, it also gives us time to think about the…

PRCA Digital PR Report Event – Glasgow 11/12/2014

Grant Whiteside | December 16, 2014

The PRCA (Public Relations Consultants Association) have just finished a tour around the country discussing the findings of their latest report into how the PR industry is evolving in the digital age. We caught up…

PRCA Digital PR Report Event – Glasgow 11/12/2014

Grant Whiteside | December 16, 2014

When is it time to use HTTPS

Grant Whiteside | December 2, 2014

It’s no secret that Google have been looking at HTTPS as a ranking signal for some time now. Like many other ‘rumours’ around organic SEO rankings, there comes a point where specific vertical sectors should…

Google Knowledge Graph Updated

Grant Whiteside | November 26, 2014

Google’s Knowledge Graph has been updated again. It’s been years since the controversial decision was taken for Google to promote its own social media network, Google+ in the search results. The Knowledge Graph has always…

The Creative Edinburgh Awards 2014

Grant Whiteside | November 17, 2014

On Thursday 13th November, five Ambergreen-ers attended the Creative-Edinburgh awards at the beautiful Assembly Roxy in our very own Auld Reekie. Head of Creative, Gillian; Content Marketing Specialist, Igor; Creative Services Trainee, Sarah; and two…

Google Penguin Update 3.0 is released

Grant Whiteside | October 30, 2014

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, Google released their latest Penguin update. This is the algorithm update that is supposed to clear out spammy web search results by…

Travel Marketing and Programmatic Advertising

Grant Whiteside | October 23, 2014

Since the late 90’s, travel marketing has been one of the most competitive sectors to reach, engage, convert and retain customers in. Holiday makers and travellers alike have actively used the web to review prices,…

UK Digital Ad Spend Skyrocketing in 2014

Grant Whiteside | October 10, 2014

The IAB have recently released their 6 monthly digital ad spend figures for the first half of 2014. Last year the industry predicted that the half-year digital paid media spend figure in 2014 would come…

How to migrate your website without killing off your traffic

Grant Whiteside | September 30, 2014

The website migration is one of the most overlooked hurdles that will leave businesses struggling to survive to reach their business goals for the year. I have never heard of a sales director ever predict…

Hotel Chocolat – Happy 10th Birthday

Grant Whiteside | September 26, 2014

Congratulations to our good friends at Hotel Chocolat as we celebrate the opening of their 1st store in Watford 10 years ago. As stores have popped up all over the UK, the product offering has also…

Google release another Panda update

Grant Whiteside | September 26, 2014

Google have released another Panda update. Panda is the search filter that identifies pages with ‘thin’ content from being ranked well in search engine results. This is the 27th Panda update; many websites have been…

31 questions you should be asked by a marketing agency

Grant Whiteside | September 24, 2014

How do businesses use digital marketing to grow their brand and service offering? Every business needs to start somewhere when it comes to reaching to out their new potential audience groups. So how do you…

How to migrate your website without killing off your traffic

Grant Whiteside | September 13, 2014

From Characters to Pixel Length, Why Google doesn’t read your entire page titles

Grant Whiteside | September 1, 2014

Have you noticed that less of your page title is showing on Google’s results pages than it used to a couple of months ago? Then let us shed some light on the situation. This news isn’t…

Top 5 Internet Marketing Myths that should be dead and buried.

Grant Whiteside | August 28, 2014

As content continues to flood into our inbox at work, the digital marketing industry continues to produce more headlines that are nothing more than mythical nonsense. Here are top 5 favourites that we’ve either read or…

How To Get The Most Of Your Digital Marketing Training. Read These 5 Tips

Grant Whiteside | August 15, 2014

This year, more companies than ever before have identified a need to train their in-house digital marketing teams. One of the most noticeable changes in the past 12 months has been the increase in the…

Our Latest Recruit: Emily Burton – Account Manger

Grant Whiteside | August 4, 2014

How are you? Welcome to Ambergreen. You’ve been brought onboard as an Account Manager. As the latest recruit, could you tell me a little about yourself and why the change to Ambergreen? I’m very well…

Infographics and insight: collecting and visualising data for inbound marketing

Grant Whiteside | July 15, 2014

When it comes to creating content for inbound marketing, there are a few trusty tools that marketers can use: whitepapers, ebooks, podcasts, webinars — a whole plethora of ways to deliver content, delight your audience…

Our Latest Recruit: Anurag Ahluwalia – Internet Marketing Consultant

Grant Whiteside | June 27, 2014

GW: How are you? Welcome back to Ambergreen – the second recruit this year who has returned to their roots in digital marketing in Edinburgh. You’ve been brought on board as an experienced Search Marketing…

Content – What is it & Why you need it

Grant Whiteside | June 4, 2014

So much has been said about the need for content in the past year as SEO practices of old have felled more high profile brands, and doubtlessly others we do not know about. In this…

Our Latest Recruit: Sharon Smart – Account Manager

Grant Whiteside | May 20, 2014

Today we are introducing the latest member of the Ambergreen Team, Sharon Smart, who is joining us as an Account Manager GW: How are you? Welcome onboard to Ambergreen. You’ve been brought on board as…

Our Latest Recruit: Gillian Carmichael – Internet Marketing Consultant

Grant Whiteside | May 1, 2014

Today we are introducing our latest recruit to the team; Gillian Carmichael, who is joining us an Internet Marketing Consultant GW: How are you? Welcome onboard to Ambergreen. You’ve been brought on board as an…

Unlocking the Not Provided Data – An Interview with Analytics SEO

Grant Whiteside | April 24, 2014

As the latest round of ‘not provided’ changes begin to take shape, we are looking at the various ways the search marketing industry is dealing with the problem. One such company – and a vendor…

A Solution for Keywords Not Provided

Grant Whiteside | April 23, 2014

Google started to change the way we saw organic search terms being reported in Google Analytics in the autumn of 2011. As the number of ‘secured’ searches grew, the number of organic search queries recorded…

Where will your marketing budgets be spent in the year ahead?

Grant Whiteside | April 15, 2014

According to the annual EConsultancy 2014 marketing budgets report, Content Marketing will be the most invested area of growth in the coming year. Over 74% of all the survey respondents (including both client side and…

Our Latest Recruit: Emma Lauchlan – Account Director

Grant Whiteside | April 8, 2014

Today the Ambergreen Blog is talking to our latest recruit, Emma Lauchlan, who is joining us as an Account Director. It’s actually Emma’s second time working with Ambergreen, having worked with us seven years ago.…

Ambergreen BIMA Thirstday

Grant Whiteside | March 10, 2014

BIMA’s Thirsty Thursdays (or Thirstdays for you efficient types) is a monthly meet up among many of Scotland’s digital marketers and between the chat and the drinks, it’s not to be missed! When we hosted…

Our Latest Recruit; Josh Englander – Head of Strategy and Planning

Grant Whiteside | February 28, 2014

Hi Josh How are you? Welcome onboard to Ambergreen. You’ve been brought on board as Head of Strategy and Planning. As the latest recruit, could you tell me a little about yourself? JE: I was…

Latest Travel Marketing Trends

Grant Whiteside | December 23, 2013

The IAB released their latest figures on the Travel brands and how they engaged with their audiences. It came as no surprise to hear that only 48% of the top 50 brands had a mobile…

Paid Marketing Predictions for 2014

Grant Whiteside | December 11, 2013

I love these end of year posts when we get to talk about all the things we wanted brands to do this year that will be eventually rolled at some point next year, as long…

Adobe smartphone and tablet user statistics 2013

Grant Whiteside | July 30, 2013

The latest report from Adobe claims that more website visits now come from a tablet than that of a mobile or smart phone. The report comes from February 2013, a sample size of 1 billion…

Enhanced PPC campaigns or simply more profit for Google?

Grant Whiteside | June 19, 2013

Google have changed the way that advertisers can reach their audiences. No longer can you advertise to specific audience groups exclusively targeting them by the device they use. Googles latest money spinning idea is called…

The Great CEO – Marketers Disconnect

Grant Whiteside | June 19, 2013

It is the question that has been on the cards for far too long; Why can’t marketers convince CEO’s that their multi channel marketing activities actually work for them in a way that is demonstrated…

63% of tablets sold in the UK are being acquired by businesses

Grant Whiteside | March 7, 2013

Here is something to think about when you are optimising your next Business to Business paid search campaign. In a recent survey from Context, over 63% of tablets sold in the UK are being acquired…

Effective e-Commerce: Reaching new markets online

Grant Whiteside | November 1, 2012

Scottish Enterprise provides good support and advice for Scottish companies trying to grow and reach new markets using E Commerce channels. Wednesday’s event in Edinburgh’s Sheraton Hotel was well attended with some great speakers including…

UK Mobile Ad Spend Increases by 132%

Grant Whiteside | October 14, 2012

The latest UK advetising spend figures from the IAB’s survey conducted by PWC show that mobile marketing is still rising at an incredible rate. With 58% of the UK now owning smartphones, mobile advertising in…

Paid Search, Display and Video Increases in Expenditure Over 2012

Grant Whiteside | October 14, 2012

Reading through the Digital advertising formats in the latest UK advertising spend figures from the IAB’s survey conducted by PWC, its clear that paid search is still thriving regardless of the economic climate. There have…

YouTubes’ search is now ranking videos by ‘minutes watched’

Grant Whiteside | October 14, 2012

The latest YouTube search results update now takes the amount time watched into consideration more than it does the amount of views. After experimenting with suggested videos it seems viewers seem to be more engaged…

Social Signals In Search

Grant Whiteside | August 11, 2012

Google’s CEO, Larry Page was talking this week at the latest Zeigeist Americas event. When questioned about social signals and how they should affect search visibility, he said, “It’s really important to know the identity…

Digital Marketing Predictions of 2013

Grant Whiteside | March 12, 2012

Is it too early to write a blog post about the predictions of what’s going to change in the digital marketing landscape in 2013. Probably not; the writing has been on the wall for long…

Relationship Building versus Link Building

Grant Whiteside | February 11, 2012

The link building industry is crumbling as we speak, it will take time before it is banished as a total waste of time and there are still millions of dodgy blogs out there that are…

Unravelling Online Strategy

Grant Whiteside | November 24, 2011

We here at Ambergreen know that the key to succeeding in the online arena is more than just having a great website or ranking for certain key terms – search doesn’t occur in a vacuum,…

Google Changes – Part One

Grant Whiteside | November 23, 2011

Ambergreen’s Technical Director, Grant Whiteside, outlines how Google has grown in recent months and what that means for brands, in the first of a series of blog posts on Google Changes. Check back next week…

Usability, Accessibility & Analytics for Travel Websites

Grant Whiteside | September 1, 2011

Usability, Accessibility & Analytics for Travel Websites Wednesday September 14th 2011 With audience numbers plateauing at best, and the generally gloomy economic outlook, improving conversion rates is more important than ever for maintaining and increasing…

Changes afoot on Google results pages

Grant Whiteside | October 28, 2010

Online marketing is a constantly changing landscape and it seems that it is currently going through a rather turbulent period of experimenting and change, especially when concerning Google. Recently we have noticed some peculiar occurrences…

Google Tests Seller Ratings for Adwords in UK

Grant Whiteside | October 27, 2010

Earlier this week it was noticed by Patrick Altoft that Google has to be testing seller ratings on the UK AdWords results, just in time to take advantage of increased Christmas marketing budgets. The ratings…

Apple to Start Selling Newspaper Subscriptions

Grant Whiteside | September 15, 2010

There’s no point in reminding the publishing industry that if they had addressed search 13 years ago, rather than sticking their head in the sand, they wouldn’t be in this mess today. Newspapers would still…

Google adds Prices to Map Search

Grant Whiteside | March 11, 2010

Last night we noticed that Google is continuing to experiment with how it displays search results. The most recent development is clearly to be a way of encouraging the searcher to stay on Google for…

Internet Marketing Predictions 2010

Grant Whiteside | December 18, 2009

What a year 2009 was. Google and Bing started to understand the intent of a search query and started to gain a better of idea of what formats of content were most engaging in relation…

Ambergreen sponsors Edinbooks Project

Grant Whiteside | August 14, 2009

Ambergreen are pleased to be supporting the Edinbooks project, being carried out by our own, Eliza Dashwood. The project will see volunteers carpet bomb the city with books on every subject, from fiction to self…

Can Losers Come First?

Grant Whiteside | July 5, 2009

An examination of changes in Google and the significance of not ranking first. Can losers come first? Sure they can. If you look at the online marketing world in terms of pure winners and losers,…

Why monitor your Google organic search positions

Grant Whiteside | June 16, 2009

What does monitoring your Google organic search positions mean to you? The obsession of search positioning is a strange phenomenon. Each data centre produces a different set of results, yet so often people seem fixated…

Dundas Castle Internet Marketing Seminar

Grant Whiteside | April 24, 2009

You know, the problem with so many one day internet marketing seminars is a distinct lack of engagement between the audience and the speakers. All the speakers know each other and five percent of the…

Google’s new algorithm changes

Grant Whiteside | April 24, 2009

There have been some recent changes creeping into Google’s search results over the last few weeks. We should be used to algorithmic shift on Google by now. Since the Florida update in 2003 and the…

The commercial measures of social networks

Grant Whiteside | April 5, 2009

The commercial measures of social networks Social networks have been around for a while, and Facebook has been the absolute spearhead in this amazing growth over the past two years. The market, once in infancy,…

Getting your head around Facebook – where to start/should you start?

Grant Whiteside | January 10, 2009

One of the biggest criticisms of Facebook has been its inability to generate revenue and turn a profit. This is an ongoing challenge for the company as a whole, but that does not mean that…