Welcome back to a refreshed and revitalised What’s Next newsletter. It’s been a long winter, but it finally feels as though Spring is on the way, so what better time to make a fresh start?
Last week saw an International Women’s Day marked by a variety of interpretations, from the bland to the political. The somewhat meaningless pledges and love heart hand poses led me to do a bit of digging and discover that there were two competing themes for the day, read more in my little rant here. On the positive side, I also attended a brilliant Women In Tech event at BBC Newcastle, which allowed me to reconnect with an old colleague (hi Nayeema!) and learn about the work that BBC tech teams right here in the North East are doing. More of this, please!
Remember when you used to move for fun?
I love the idea behind the Asics ‘Little Reminders’ campaign, but it lost me a little with the schmaltzy Dove Real Beauty approach. I would have loved to have seen them go for the humour rather than the tug on the heartstrings. Imagine the fun you could have riffing on the kids teaching the adults how to move. That’s probably why the exercise plan is probably my favourite part, only who decided to upload it asfile.pdf?
The big traffic referrers in 2024
There are no prizes for guessing Google would be the top player in sending traffic across the web, but this research from SparkToro does make interesting reading. It illustrates just how small the web has become when we look at the dominance of the main players.
The algorithm is always changing
If you’re familiar with the world of marketing, you’ll be no stranger to a Google update and the panic it brings to businesses across the land. Google continuously makes changes to how it ranks websites in its search results pages (known as SERPs in SEO land), and this latest update is a significant one aimed at guarding against dramatic increases in low-quality content largely directed at those using AI. Expect to see further clampdowns and even labelling of AI content in future. But if you’re creating original, helpful content for humans rather than search engines, you needn’t worry. And, if you’re not that’s where we can help.
And finally…
I haven’t actually been on an extended jolly, there has been work going on behind the scenes! One part of this is working on a little L&D of my own, including becoming fully LinkedIn certified. More on this to come…
