Search and online marketing to drive home gun and knife crime campaign messages using the web

To help other people building knife crime-related websites and online memorials, thought I'd share a little knowledge about search and online marketing.

Now working for a search engine optimisation company called Fuse Optimisation, I've just spent a few minutes researching how UK search engine users are looking for information about knife crime.

Checking the latest statistics, I can see that the keyword string / keyphrase "knife crime" is being searched up to 10,000 times a month.

"Gun and knife crime" is next most popular - about 1300 searches a month on that term. "Teenage knife crime" is searched 110 x per month.

"Knife law" gets nearly 9000 searches monthly; "crime statistics" a whopping 33,100 searches every month(!); "knife gang" gets 390 searches; "knife victims" is typed in by 320 people; "knife crime campaigns" just 22 searches; "anti knife crime" 91 searches.

So anyone wanting their website to be found on Google and other search engines should include these key phrases in their content. There's much more to online marketing than just this but this will help you get started.

Online can be quite a maze; I've been working in this field since it started in the early 1990s so if you need guidance or information to best focus on your knife crime campaigning or memorial work - or other search engine marketing activities - feel free to contact me at FUSE (click here). Glad to help.

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Twitter is an interesting online marketing, social media tool. I'd liken it a little to tv, where you can broadcast messages (and a profile picture) to people if you'd like.

To find out more about Twitter, visit the link below:
http://twitter.com/i/971cc357322416ab0037d2da010c5f95d77131df

Twitter is a unique approach to communication and networking based on the simple concept of: 'what are you doing?' What are your friends doing—right now? With Twitter, you may answer this question over SMS, IM, or the Web and the responses are shared between contacts.

Knife crime battle - never give in (Winston Churchill)

From the legendary Prime Minister Winston Churchill, thought I'd add a few words of inspiration in the battle against knife crime - and, if it helps, maybe this is useful for other life battles...

"... surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished..."

We could do with some of this from some leaders today - Gordon Brown, David Cameron 'et al' !

Churchill went on:

"Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer."

You can see the Winston Churchill speech here - Never Give In, Never, Never, Never.

McDonalds stabbing; London police finally to act tough

I was staring at the BBC News channel tonight as the shock of a stabbing at a London McDonalds restaurant (in Oxford Street) started to permeate through the country and powers-that-be.

When the scrolling news ticker declares police are stepping up stop and search powers, that they want to work to end the knife-carrying culture among young people on London streets, it is shockingly apparent that this problem is looking to go out of control, if not already.

While many law-abiding people, including victims' families, have been trying to appeal to some kind of sense of moral conscience from those carrying knives, a crystal clarity descends that these people can't listen, apparently.

Why is that? Maybe it's down to some real sense of danger - but it's also down to an unwillingness to lose ownership of a weapon that can harm, can express false bravado, some kind of control over the other guy...

Powerless in a virtually corporate-run, bureaucratic society that can rob lives of meaning perhaps? These killers-in-waiting can afford a few pounds for a weapon to strike out - because, like most of us, they can't afford (or don't want) a better life promised by the desirous, covetous, myriad of societal marketing we endure every day.

It reminds me of Northern Ireland terrorist times - these 'urban thugs' are evoking real terror. When New York suffered violent crime years back, tourism suffered severely - after all, who wants to die while out shopping or eating a snack?

Don't know if I'm tapping quite the right vein of truth, but it's not hard to imagine I'm on the right lines. Whatever, it's point blank wrong that we must face fear on streets from those carrying blades.

At the same time, we use guns, missiles - and knives - in the Middle East to snuff out our enemies too. Not much of a better example for the disillusioned and angry young folk to try to emulate maybe (I reckon the argument about valid self-defence is lost on this video game generation).

As I said, I don't know all the answers - but killing or injuring people sure isn't one. Maybe the police 'stop and search' action in London will help - an active campaign of disarmament appeals, some firm education - but really, it must be wishful thinking. Knives are simply too freely available, and the mindset that needs changing too inextricably bound into a complex societal situation and disenfranchised generations - perhaps.