Panda … holding your nerve

I have now got over the shock of the October 13th hit … in fact I have spent a lot of time on Webmaster Forum and decided that the hit to me was no worse than to many people … I’m still cross that I was hit, but probably more cross at myself than at anyone else .. well, expect for one website which got a Panda boost and yet I know it has not been updated in two years and currently claims that there is only 1 show on in London which it also claims, incorrectly, ends this month …. useful? I think not

So, what have I been doing about it?

Well, I decided that we were potentially approaching the end game so there was no point in holding back. This time I have gone for a wholesale 301 redirection of UKTW what’s on listings to SeatChoice. Some may think this foolish as UKTW had seen a slow decline where SeatChoice had hit a brick wall, perhaps I should have made the call to move everything the other way? We shall see. I needed to remove the last vestiges of duplication within my own stable so that’s the call I made … from now, UKTW is responsible for the archive and for theatre users (notices, links, etc) and SeatChoice is the What’s On and ticketing service.

The move didn’t go as we ll as I expected in some ways. I was always told that 301 carried all the “link juice” with it so I expected a decline in UKTW to be matched by a growth in SeatChoice .. I got the decline but precious little of the growth. So back to the forum with one further plea for help .. this time I was picked up by someone really helpful, someone who, it would seem, is fairly local and actually cared whether I got it right or not … very, very helpful in that he undid a few misconceptions for me and pointed to some reasonably obvious issues that I couldn’t spot … when you work 8 hours a day on the same site you sometimes fail to see the obvious!

Basically though, I am coming to see that there’s a toolkit that you can use to get just some of the basics right, or at least help you to understand things that might be getting in the way. For me this has come down to

• http://gtmetrix.com .. make sure that your website delivers quickly as its an important part of user satisfaction
• http://www.copyscape.com .. are you copying someone else? is someone copying you? Do you simply have the same content as other people? Well worth checking …
• http://validator.w3.org … can Google make sense of your html
• Zenu – a link checking tool – no point in sending Google broken links
• Webmaster tools … check and recheck the error reports in here and make sure you fix them .. if google is reporting errors then its not getting the information you think it is!
• Google Analytics … make sure a drop in traffic is not caused by keyword shifts .. for us it can be, an important show ends and so does searching for it … check also where your traffic comes from but very importantly, how long it stays, whether it returns and how much it looks at!
• Webmaster Forum .. read, read and read some more, compare the advice to your own situation and see if it applies (be honest!), ask direct, simple questions yourself and take note of the replies
• AdSense .. if you use it check that it really is earning you, remove any Adsense blocks that are not worth it and remember, as AdSense gets better at delivering targetted customers you will lose more and more traffic
• Google .. sounds daft but search for your site and see how it looks on the result page … is it a “more desirable click” than any other result? Does your title and description draw the user in and encourage them to click? If you appear in the results and no one clicks on you Google will mark you down, if you appear in the results and people love to click on you then Google will mark you up … user behaviour is a part of the Google Machinery

Finally, make some changes, fix what’s wrong BUT don’t tinker for the sake of it … Google takes time to notice changes and also only runs the Panda every now and then (4-6 week cycle?) so don’t expect a change to work overnight – the only thing that will work overnight is a sudden influx of traffic because you got such a great piece of content that people started linking to you … the first article I put up about The River Line (with Charlie and Lydia Rose Bewley) got picked up by the Bewley fans – traffic went through the roof in a couple of hours and stayed high for days … it fell off, of course, and few (if any) of the fans bought tickets, but the links and retweets will be good for me longer term.

And rest …. be patient, if you perpetually tinker you will have no idea what it was that fixed your problem .. and if you do have a clue what worked you can then make it part of ongoing site philosophy … but remember, the days of stability are probably gone, you will need to keep an eye on this in the future

Panda Pain and Anguish

Ahh well, looks like I spoke too soon.

October 14th saw another run of Panda, as far as anyone can tell, and there’s a lot of screaming and running around like headless chickens happening of the Webmaster Forum … seems like it hit a number of people hard

Like us

Yep, after a few months of slow growth we were kicked in the teeth … dropped 35% on one site overnight, dropped probably 50% across all sites … not sure how much longer I can keep this up

The Greatest Stage Actors of All Time?

The world of theatre has produced some of the finest performers in history and many acting geniuses have graced the stage. This list consists of some the greatest actors who have lived and some who are still giving outstanding performances to this day.
Laurence Olivier
Regarded by many as the greatest actor of his time, Olivier was the ultimate master of his craft. Renowned for his superb ability to play a range of Shakespearian roles he was a star of both stage and screen. The Theatre industry’s prestigious Laurence Olivier awards are named in his honour as a testament to his great contribution to the art of acting.

Michael Gambon
The RADA trained Irish actor was dubbed “the great Gambon” by fellow actor Ralph Richardson at an early stage of his career. Known to millions today for his role as professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter saga (a role in which he replaced the late Richard Harris), Gambon has been one of the consistently outstanding stars of the stage from the 1970’s onwards.

Judi Dench
One of the greatest if not the greatest female star of the stage ever Dame Judi Dench has been acting since 1957 and is still going strong today. She became a household name to millions throughout the UK for her long running role in the television sitcom As Time Goes By and her performances as M in recent James Bond films. Despite her work outside the theatre, Dench has maintained a rich career within the theatre with roles ranging from Shakespeare to cutting edge contemporary thrillers.

John Gielgud
One of a very few actors in history to have won an Oscar, Olivier, Emmy, Tony and BAFTA awards, Gielgud was a true acting genius. His career spanned for the majority of the 20th century and he has had an extremely important influence on the world of acting. Famed for his beautiful speaking voice and outstanding performances from a young age, Gielgud was one of a kind.

Alec Guinness
Known to many modern film fans as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars trilogy, Alec Guinness was already one of the greatest living actors by that stage of his career. He is very affectionately remembered by millions for both his film and stage roles as he brought a touch of sophistication and class to every role he played.

Marlon Brando
Brando exploded into the public consciousness with his animalistic portrayal as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. His use of “method acting” in this role revolutionised the world of acting both within the theatre and film. He is famed for his role as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather for which he won an Oscar but his outstanding contribution to the theatre will never be forgotten.

Kenneth Branagh
The Northern Irish born actor has had an outstanding career within the theatre and he is still only in his early 50s. He achieved huge acclaim as a young star of the stage and became a protégé in Shakespearean performances throughout the 1980’s and 90s. He continues to perform on stage and screen today and his performances are continuing to get better with age.

Daniel Day-Lewis
One of the most intense actors of all time, Daniel Day-Lewis widely regarded as one of the greatest actors alive today. He is infamous for the extreme lengths he goes to in preparation for his roles and his determination to stay in character even off the stage or set. When playing the role of Hamlet he had an emotional breakdown live on stage as he had a vision that he was talking to the ghost of his father and he has not appeared on stage since.

Despite huge competition from Hollywood and the world of the cinema the theatre is still going strong today and there is an abundance of great shows and premier actors for audiences to enjoy. You can find discount theatre tickets easily online and theatre tickets in London which will allow you to be entertained by one of the world’s truly great art forms.

What’s your list?

STAR kitemark for safer ticket purchasing

It is estimated that 10% of people in the UK have been affected by Ticket Fraud, a black industry which, online alone, is estimated to amount to around £168million per year!

With the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, the Metropolitan Police are concentrating on ticket fraud, both on-line and through more traditional routes (the street tout) but more needs to be done to make sure that users do not fall foul of the sophisticated scams out there.

To this end, STAR, the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers, has launched a new kitemark to replace their old logo (see our previous BLOG entry to compare old and new) in order to give users confidence that they are buying from a safe supplier and will actually get the tickets that they pay for!

“It is the show of strength that the entertainment ticketing industry has been waiting for,” said Jonathan Brown, Secretary of STAR. “Ticket fraud is an industry-wide problem and we needed an industry-wide solution to tackle it head on.”  The kitemark is supported by major entertainment organisations such as the Concert Promoters Association, the National Arenas Association and The Society of London Theatre.

SeatChoice is operated by Dynamic Listing Ltd, an Affiliate member of STAR and we have always made it clear on our site when we are using STAR or non-STAR suppliers, including giving advice on safe use of the ticket reseller market – buy tickets safely through SteaChoice.

Google Swings and Roundabouts

Well, as suspected, its a bit of swings and roundabouts when it comes to search engine traffic and changes recently.

In fairness, I’d say that Panda is not currently an issue for us, but in making the Panda smile we have (a) lost our position for certain keywords and (b) made our site convert fewer visitors!

So, now for the next round of tuning aimed at doing these two things

1) regain the ground lost for certain important key phrases

2) improve our conversion rate

Whilst not bring back the Panda frown. Tricky one, made even trickier when you consider that our updates, Google’s scan and the Panda runs all happen asynchronously … and we have monthly and annual changes in traffic anyway. This means that seeing if something has worked is a near impossible thing .. it used to be a little easier s the world stayed roughly the same for long enough to see things stabilise, now this no longer seems to be true.

The shock today was to lose our position in Google for “dirty dancing tickets” and “tickets for dirty dancing” where we have always (for a few years) been in the top half of the first page, not even the Panda upset that. Today, all of a sudden, we are not in the first 10 PAGES of results! This fact was made even more curious when I noticed that in Yahoo we went from nowhere to number 7 and in Bing we went from nowhere to number 1!

 

 

A more mellow Panda?

Looks like the Panda got a bit of a make-over, or, as Google always put it, was subject to the 500 or so algorithmic changes that they make each year. A recent post or two has made it clear that they have been monitoring the reactions on the Webmaster Forum (where I can be found lurking from time to time) and, despite the fact that most of the Bionic Posters seem to think the problem is 99% the fault of webmasters, Google has clearly made some changes. Good for them.

Of course, it is hard to know what actual effect the Panda changes had this time as my sites have undergone quite massive rebuilds, redesigns and checks since the last time the Panda strolled by but it would seem that we might be on its good side now … depends if its just run or just about to run!

Mind you, though traffic has grown very recently (fingers crossed it keep growing) its still much less than it was and, worse still, the changes in traffic and in the website content that I have had to create to keep the Panda’s interest mean  that this traffic is not anywhere near so lucrative …. Still, if I can get good traffic because its a good site I should, hopefully, be able to monetise that again … we shall see

Why is Edinburgh the Funniest Place in the UK?

Quite simply because it is home to the biggest comedy prize in the UK: The Edinburgh Comedy Awards.

This year was as ever a huge year for comedy in Edinburgh, the Festival City was in full peacock mode; flashing its multiple festivals and discount theatre tickets available for all the locals and tourists to absorb like crinkly poncho wearing rabbits in a storm of multi-coloured firework inspired headlights. It is easily the biggest and best arts festival in the world and at its heart is a rich vein of pure comedy sniggering away behind the curtains of every beer soaked venue and champagne doused stage within the city’s ancient limits.

A Foundation for Ferociously Famous Funny Folk

The Edinburgh Comedy Awards have been in existence since 1981. It has been known as the Perrier Comedy Awards, the if.comedy Awards and now the Fosters Comedy Awards, and through all these years it has gracefully maintained its prestige and talent for unearthing supremely funny people. You might recognise past prize winners and nominees such as:

• Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery – 1981
• Sean Hughes – 1990
• Frank Skinner, Jack Dee, Eddie Izzard and Lilly Savage – 1991
• Steve Coogan, Joe Brand and Harry Hill – 1992
• Lee Evans, Phil Kay – 1993
• Alan Davies – 1994
• Tim Vine – 1995
• Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey, Rich Hall and Al Murray – 1996
• Al Murray, Graham Norton and Johnny Vegas – 1997
• Ed Byrne, Peter Kay, Al Murray and The Mighty Boosh – 1998
• Al Murray and Ross Noble – 1999
• Rich Hall, Lee Mack and Dave Gorman – 2000
• Jimmy Carr – 2002
• Flight of the Conchords – 2003
• Tim Minchin – 2005
• David O’Doherty, Rhod Gilbert, Sarah Millican and Russel Kane – 2008
• Russel Kane – 2009 + 2010

As you probably recognise at least 90% you can see how the Edinburgh Comedy Awards are a funnel through which the funniest folk on the face of the planet have been directed into the global television spotlight.  Lee Evans for instance won the award in 1993 and has gone on to enjoy a global comedy career, has become a regular face in Hollywood movies and is currently selling out his tour with theatre tickets in London available if you’re quick…

So who won in 2011?

Well my money was on Nick Helm, due to the fact he had already picked up an award for the best joke of the festival…he looked like a shoe in.

But the eventual winner was Adam Riches for his show: ‘Bring me the Head of Adam Riches’. His ever bellowing style was a hit as he encouraged audience members to embarrass and injure themselves for his, his victim’s and everyone else’s amusement with enjoyable, if unsophisticated success. Here’s a video of him in action (Warning: some bad language and adult themes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcRnTzEvErY

“But what was the funniest joke of the festival?” I hear you ask…

“I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”

Edinburgh will always be every comedian’s Mecca. You should visit.

Using Social Media to Keep Your Theatre Buzz Going

Social media has been highlighted in the news recently thanks to its part in being used to organise the riots in England and in particular in London. Two men have even been handed 4 year sentences just for talking about starting a riot on Facebook. This shows just how powerful a medium it has become.

What does this have to do with theatres?

Theatre for many people is seen as the grand old entertainment medium that is being left behind by cinema, but the billions of pounds spend on London theatre tickets each year would clearly show that this is not the case.

One thing theatres are starting to do better though is to interact with their audiences via social media. Many of the major theatres such as Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Apollo, National Theatre, Barbican and Royal Opera House all have some kind of social media presence.

Here’s why:

Facebook

Facebook has about 750 million users and rising. People spend more time online on Facebook than they do doing anything else. By ‘liking’ or ‘friending’ your favourite theatre or theatre company it is possible to get up to the minute information about what is going on. Theatres can use this to build an online personality and provoke conversations about their shows that keep people coming back for more. Also it is possible for people to ‘check-in’ at the venue to tell their Facebook friends that they are there. It is not uncommon for theatres to offer exclusive offers for tickets through their Facebook page too. Certainly could be worth your time.

Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging universe where people can post short comments that are sent out to everyone that has chosen to ‘follow’ them, meaning that they have decided that they want to receive these comments. Similarly to Facebook this provides an excellent way to stay in touch with what is going on at your favourite venue or even as a means to compare theatre tickets – @seatchoice

YouTube

YouTube needs no introduction. This is one of the best ways to discover new shows and acts that you may be interested in. Want to see what the 25^th Anniversary Les Miserables looks like? Just type it into YouTube and see. Many theatres are now posting footage of a recent or upcoming production to garner ever more interest through social sources.

Blogs

There are literally thousands of blogs around which offer you interesting and valuable information, along with news, reviews, recommendations and interviews with the casts and crews, as well as clips from recent performances to whet your appetite to go and buy a ticket for yourself. Check out theatre’s own blogs, or critics and review blogs for analysis and recommendations.

StumbleUpon

In a recent data release by online stats calculator ‘statcounter.com’, StumbleUpon has become the number one social source for sharing news and videos online, knocking Facebook off its top perch. It is also currently the no.1 social referrer of traffic in the US. StumbleUpon is designed to allow you to share links or videos etc. as you ‘stumble’ around the web. It is not so big in the UK yet but it may be worth checking out for receiving recommendations in the future.

Conclusion …

Modern theatre is embracing social media in a big way. How do you use social media to interact with your favourite theatres?

SeatChoice on Facebook

SeatChoice on Twitter

SeatChoice/UKTW Android Application!

Waiting for the Panda

Ok, lots of changes made and now to wait …

Changes made to the website might affect the SERPs reasonably quickly … the Googlebot spider is forever trawling across websites looking for new and changed materials so new items on the site can be indexed pretty quickly … by which I mean the pages will be shoved into the Google database

The Panda, however, does not run all the time. Every now and then (cycle to be determined, somewhere in the 6-8 week frame) Panda comes along and goes through the Google database weeding out what it sees as low quality sites … having done this, it goes to sleep again until the next time.

So in theory you could see a sawtooth waveform on your traffic, slow build up between Panda runs with large drops immediately after a Panda run – if this is the case then you have not yet solved the Panda problem because the best scenario is that you go UP after a Panda run and your competitors (or at least the spammers in your market segment) are the ones going down.

But to know this, you have to wait …..

Meanwhile, our good news is that our Reconsideration Request has been handled and no manual penalties were found on our site …

The Great Content Gathers Links Myth

I have been answering some more questions on Webmaster Forum, and asking a few … I keep seeing people say that links to your site are important (perhaps less than they were) and that if you create great content people will link to it – no, they wont!

Actually, having great content doesn’t mean you will get good links and lots of shares – I know Google thinks it does but its not universally true, it depends on the topic area – if people wont need to come back often then they’re unlikely to link and they wont share unless they want to keep up with your news and think they’re friends might want to keep in touch with you. I shall not be sharing links to recently used funeral services, great sites for those with exotic diseases or indeed a million and one other things. I search for, find and use hundreds of sites each week, the vast majority of them are informative and useful AT THE TIME … I have been doing this pretty well every working day since 1994 … I have actually created public links to, perhaps, a couple of dozen sites in that time … and compared to all the users I know, I’m prolific!