Internet/Online Marketing 2

Twitter Suggestion Tool Helps You Find Suitable Tweeters and Avoid Online Marketing Services

The developers over at the Tweet Camp have responded to the historical difficulty of securing a good network of industry suited or personality matched followers. Many people end up quitting Twitter after just a few weeks or even days because they can’t find enough interesting people or Tweets to hold their attention. Initially one follows people back out of courtesy, only to be followed by more and more affiliate marketers and Online marketing services with nothing inspirational to say except “get rich, leave your day job and retire 2m”. If only…

Twitter is all about networking but many find themselves retreating back to Facebook, tail between legs for some familiar friendship bonding that does more for the soul than sell or quote Einstein, Gandhi or Socrates all day.

Enter the Twitter suggestion tool. This neat little function will soon be appearing on your “find people” toolbar and will suggest users you may be interested in. Amongst other things, suggestions will be made on who you currently follow and who follows them, quick! I hear you gasp as you rush to clear out all those annoying persistent marketers plaguing your tweetdeck every day. But it works both ways. The new suggestion tool will come as a pleasant addition for Online marketing services who will be able to carry out more targeted marketing with suggestions rather than having to trawl the Twitter database for victims. The image below shows how the tool will; there will also be a mini suggestion version in the top right hand side of your home page.

20/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing

Facebook Questions Looks to Topple Yahoo Answers

A couple of weeks ago I spoke about the benefits of the new Yahoo Answers search facility as an internet marketing solution. YA search allows you to search via keywords related to your industry and get a daily notification email so you can be reactive. Yahoo Answers announced it had reached 200m users in 2009, and they probably thought they had the whole Q&A thing locked down, that was until Facebook unravelled their latest plans.

With 500m people already using Facebook, the new Facebook Questions facility could make Yahoo Answers look a little shy on followers. Then again, as internet marketing companies know all too well, quality beats quantity every time. It’s all good having 500m potential users, but just how many of those users will ditch a game of Poker or Farmville or even an IM to ask a question on Facebook?

When Facebook Questions is rolled out to users the question facility will be on the wall page as follows:

As you can see, “your question will be visible to everyone”. This is a smart tactic to ensure people know the facility is there and that others are using it. Facebook automatically tags the question using words from your post. Your question is then freely available for the community to answer

Once the question has been posted you have three options that only show up after the initial question has been posted:

Add description
Add photo
Add poll options

This adds another internet marketing solution to the armoury of SEO soldiers. This facility will work nicely as a freebie alongside Facebook PPC. No doubt internet marketing companies will be focussing heavily on this feature over the coming months to monitor its performance against Yahoo Answers.

Obviously the social aspect of Facebook is where it has a distinct advantage over rivals. Okay, Yahoo does have a friends’ network but the familiar “x has just answered a question”, or, “x has just asked a question”, will promote interaction amongst friends and drive the popularity of the Facebook Questions facility.

The question herein lies, do we as the consumer want a one size fits all website, or do we like having different pockets for different activities. Personally I feel the latter suits my personality. Facebook for global friendship updates, questions at Yahoo, analytics at Google and videos at YouTube. What do you think?

20/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing, News & Updates, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

3 Reasons You Might Have Been Affected By Google Panda

Yesterday I posted about the negative impact the Google Panda changes are having on all sorts of websites, and with each day that passes, more webmasters are realizing they have been affected by the black and white bear of search. I thought it might be useful to offer a few tips on how to fight back for those sites that have been affected. Please bear in mind (no pun intended), that these tips are based on general research and my experience of the changes.

Eliminate Spammy On-site Links

If you have spammed your footer or sidebar with longtail keywords in an attempt to gain extra “Google points” then you may well have felt the force of the panda. Unless these links are linking to relevant and visible pages in your sitemap, then this could be a reason for Read more

18/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Neglect Title Tags at Your Own Peril & dash; You Have Been Warned

Ask any search engine optimization expert and they will tell you that without a doubt one of the big 3 SEO must do’s is the title tag. Title tags are weighted as part of your overall SEO score and they provide a chance to plug particular keywords and your company name. A title tag is an HTML tag with text describing a specific web page but is not displayed on the actual webpage. If you are using internet explorer you can see the title tag in the blue bar across the top of the screen, please see the example below. Read more

07/10/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM), Social Media Optimisation (SMO)

So You Want to Become a Search Engine Marketing Specialist

Lately we have been focussing on a myriad of topics pertaining to SEO. These have included, how to choose an SEO company, how to utilise Facebook and Twitter and SEO mistakes to avoid. So today I thought I should say a few words for those wanting to be on the other side of the fence, those wanting to start a search engine optimisation firm of their own.

Becoming a search engine marketing specialist is no mean feat, there is an ocean of knowledge to attain and the learning curve is endless. But for the purpose of this post let’s just presume you have the credentials in the bag already Read more

08/06/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing, Pay Per Click (PPC) Management, Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Google Ad Remarketing – Stalking Your Customers Around The Web

Have you ever wondered why, sometimes when you browse a product on a website, the very site you abandoned suddenly starts targeting you with adverts via YouTube, Facebook and other platforms you visit?

This is called “remarketing” and, if you own an online business, could be the answer to reducing cart abandonment and infiltrating the minds of potential customers.

How Does Google Remarketing Work?

Google Display Network’s “remarketing” program lets you create ad campaigns based on Read more

30/03/2011/by Ash Mehta

e-Commerce & Shopping Carts, Internet/Online Marketing, News & Updates, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Google’s Farmer Algorithm – What It Means For SEO and Ecommerce

A while ago I told you the Google Farmer change was coming, but just how big an impact it was going to have I couldn’t have told you back then. Well, since this baby has been in operation for a good couple of weeks now, I can tell you a lot more about how it is affecting search and ecommerce in general.

Massive Changes In Search Results

We knew this massive change to Google’s ranking algorithm would improve query results and wean out websites who reuse content and try to beat the system, what we couldn’t of known is that this change would affect 11.8% of Google queries in the United States.

Google makes about 500 changes to its algorithm per year, some miniscule and others with greater importance, but most with the aim of Read more

16/03/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

11 Online Tools To Help Optimise Your Website

For all you DIY SEO’s out there, I have put together a list of 11 useful online tools to help analyse, optimise and compare your website. Why 11 and not 10? Well it was 10 but then I wanted to throw in another. I make no promises, you might not get top ten rankings using only these bits and bobs alone, but used properly, these are some awesome weapons for your SEO armoury. Have fun!

1. LinkExaminer

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Network/lnkexam/Freeware.htm

Emulates indexing by the search engines.
Identifies broken links and redirects

2. Yahoo Site Explorer

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

Analyses inbound links and reviews cached pages Read more

07/03/2011/by Ash Mehta

Blogging, Internet/Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM), Social Media Optimisation (SMO), Uncategorized

SEO Your Personal Profile – 5 Tips For Optimisation

Your personal profile may end up appearing in a number of places, such as your personal website, trade show/conference info sites, sites where you contribute articles and social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Quite often people miss a great opportunity to optimise their profile and achieve some extra curricular SEO. Most see the personal profile as a mere source of information rather than Read more

24/02/2011/by Ash Mehta

Internet/Online Marketing

5 Ways To Avoid Internet Gurus That Talk BuSt

There are a million and one gurus on the Internet all with their own take on what will make you successful, and when it comes to business we all want to make sure we are following the right advice. What tends to happen is, over the years we accumulate subscriptions to numerous newsletters and e-lists, either through sites we signed up to or products we bought, we then get lost in a maze of spam and fail to be able to recognise the fluff from the gold dust. If you are getting spammed with junk, confused by all the conflicting e-advice and don’t have a clue what system to believe, follow these 5 rules to avoid the bu**S**t.

Rule 1: Organise and Expel The Riff-Raff

Redirect all your newsletters and e-blasts to an entirely new email account and Read more

22/02/2011/by Ash Mehta