Social media marketing has become a part of many business’ modern marketing strategies – be it Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and soon to be Google+.
There are a number of social tools out there to help maximise the marketing potential of the various social media platforms.
Here are just a few of the best:
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Despite the massive hype surrounding Google’s new social-networking venture, Google+, web analytics company, Experian Hitwise have revealed that the platform saw a drop in US visitors for the last week, according to an article published by Bloomberg.
Hitwise also stated that their statistics showed that users were spending less time on Google+.
For the week ending July 23, the total number of US visits to Google+ fell by three per cent to 1.79 million. The figure for average time spent on the site also dropped by 10 per cent, to 5 minutes and 15 seconds.
Google+ had seen a 283 per cent rise in the web traffic for the previous week (week ending July 16).
Co-founder of Google, Larry Page was positive about the site earlier in the month – despite not having yet launched it’s Brand Pages, a much-anticipated social media marketing feature.
He stated: “We are seeing over 1 billion items shared and received in a single day, so while we still have a lot of work to do, we are really excited about our progress with Google+.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Today, Google announced a new service to help speed up the delivery speed of web pages, which as we know is one of the criteria applied in the SEO algorithm for SERPs. The Page Speed Service works by “applying web best practices” to your pages. Other services such as CloudFlare also offer similar solutions to speed up page downloads.
In order to use the Google Page Speed Service, you are required to point your DNS to Google so that they can grab your content, apply the best practice formula to your site, and serve it up more quickly.
This raises an issue, or three, about security, privacy and Google’s access to your company’s data, and that of users who visit your site. The previous mod_pagespeed which was an Apache module which could be applied to your site by you and helped to optimise code for faster speeds. It did not, however, hold on to your data or serve it from a Google server. Whilst Google servers very rarely fall over and are unlikely to, just the issue of having your data under Google’s data centre roof must be a cause for concern for businesses.
Optimising pages so that they load more quickly is important not just for search engine results, but also to avoid upsetting your site visitors whose time is precious. You have at most 7 seconds to capture their attention and if even 50% of that is wasted on page load, you are unnecessarily losing potential customers.
One simple action that can be taken with static sites (i.e. those not dynamically created from databases etc) is to strip out all of the spaces in the code before uploading the page to the server. Many years ago we created a tool to do just this and could make savings in download speed anywhere from 15-80% by doing so. Another method for optimising your pages for download is to limit javascripts, and simplify the CSS so that the code is sleek rather than bloated.
Pictures should be rendered for the web not for print, and third party scripts can slow things down if their server is slow to respond, so use these judiciously. The Google +1 button has just been speeded up for precisely this reason, because Google was having to advise putting it at the bottom of pages rather than the top to speed up page load times.
You should also check that your hosting company has the optimal set-up as far as connectivity to the internet so that their servers can respond as quickly as possible to requests for your content.
So, there are simple ways to optimise your pages for download time. Handing the keys to your website to Google? Hmmm….
An article published on entrepreneur.com has criticised the attitude taken towards social media marketing. With it, a lack of a fundamental understanding of ‘public relations, marketing, corporate communications and sales’ is also lamented.
Entrepreneur has pointed out a number of misconceptions when it comes to utilising social media marketing:
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Many small businesses are taking the steps to make their content SEO friendly to increase web traffic.
However, according to an article published by Search Engine Watch, there are ‘geo-specific optimization’ measures that can be taken – to ensure those clicking through to a site are relevant.
Here is just a small selection:
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
This story has been doing the rounds for a while but it seems that Facebook is taking on both the Apple App store and Google’s Market in the mobile and smartphone marketplace, and the launch may be imminent.
Technically, the problem for Facebook has been a lack of presence in the mobile space ie no specific app for iPhones and iPads that would then allow them to capitalise on mobile spending eg in-game and in-app purchases. All revenue went to the handset OS manufacturers – that is, Google and Apple, with Facebook missing out on its share. The big problem has been the use of Flash in games and apps on FB (which does not work on iPhones) and the lack of a mobile app to add an FB ‘skin’ to in order to suit iPhone users. This would then help them spend their money through Facebook credits.
It seems that a project at Facebook called Spartan may have been set up to resolve this issue for FB and that the end is nigh! However, FB has taken Spartan down an interesting route by basing the solution on HTML5 and hence within Apple’s very own browser – Safari, which is resident on every iPhone and iPad.
Facebook Credits – the virtual currency which FB insisted all virtual goods must be sold for earlier this year – is the key to the potential success of this strategy, and for anyone who is in the virtual goods market, FB’s entrance in to this market place gives yet another route to customers. Developing a community of apps that will operate from within Facebook could unlock revenue streams that FB has to date been unable to access and take them beyond advertising being the major source of revenue.
Obviously, we do not all sell virtual goods such as items for farms, or cheese for Mousehunting, but there are major brands who have jumped on to the virtual goods bandwagon in order to create new revenue streams and markets, and it is a growing market. Offering a free game that then requires money to be spent to advance is a not so novel branding mechanism now, and it seems that brand loyal consumers are as willing to spend hard earned cash in this way as to buy an actual product.
One can see how this virtual goods element could become important to brands and businesses, especially those who have realised the income potential within the social and mobile worlds. We are already seeing mobile payments for actual goods coming into play and for those who want to make micro payments for goods in vending machines etc, having all of this accessible from within a single FB Credit account may prove attractive.
However, it goes far beyond this in that FB has a keen community of developers already, and challenging the apps market without losing the 30% share has been one of the problems facing those who are ensconced in the FB space.
HTML5 may prove to be a further death knell for Flash, which has been the bane of Apple for quite some time, although it has kept app developers on their toes working around it. The Android success may have something to do with its ability to work with Flash, but it is hard to ignore the popularity of the iPad and think that Facebook are being a tad canny in going out to the browser for the solution rather than struggling within the OS.
Companies looking to keep ahead of their competitors would do well to hold a brainstorm about virtual goods over the coming months……
For the last few days, there have been rumours that Bing has been running tests of paid PPC ads within the search results. Not placed off to the right or clearly highlighted at the top or bottom, but ‘camouflaged’ within the organic search results.
Now, this may prove to be an advertisers’ dream, but is likely to meet a backlash from consumers and some search agencies who have previously reacted badly to this type of ‘hidden advertising’ within the index. For search marketing agencies who work hard on organic results through SEO and search marketing, this testing of placement of paid ads in the middle of the SERPs will undoubtedly cause the SEO blogosphere to respond.
This is already a time of shifting sands for search marketing agencies, especially those who have been slow to realise the importance of social for both search engines and searchers, and with a growing focus on personalisation, dominating the SERPs is becoming ever harder. Losing one or two positions within the index to paid advertisers is more likely to cause bad feeling from those who believe the search engines need to operate a level playing field rather than favour those with large advertising budgets.
Those organic results are proving important to get return on investment and results for clients, and are where a good agency with experienced SEO staff can still outshine a mediocre one every time a search is returned.
Will Microsoft continue testing? And how will Google respond if its major competitor puts paid ads in the middle of the search results? Bing has been making advances on Google’s market share over the last year but still has less than half of that of Google. There is a fine line to tread in the search engine market between satisfying advertisers and investors, and
upsetting consumers, and only time will tell whether this is a canny move by Bing or a very bad idea.
Recent Google research, entitled the Search Ads Pause Study, has revealed that pay per click ads don’t ‘cannibalise’ traffic coming in from standard searches, according to an article published by the Search Engine Journal.
Those ranking in the top three of a Google search have previously questioned whether it’s worth investing in pay per click services if they’re already obtaining a high click-through rate.
Despite this, however, the study found that those utilising pay per click advertising, as well as having a high ranking, receive an 89 per cent incoming traffic boost.
This particular figure proves pay per click ads, in this instance, are very much worthwhile in boosting visibility and click-through rates; though the study also found that sites with a high ranking from a standard search were less likely to have their ad clicked.
In cases such as these, users, most commonly, chose to click the organic website link instead.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
Google has officially launched a new product which could aid those in the search engine marketing field, according to the search engine’s official blog.
Originally launched as a test product last autumn, titled Google Boost, AdWords Express has been designed for small local businesses that aren’t already utilising AdWords advertising.
With functionality and simplicity in mind, the product is described as providing “a quick and straightforward way” to connect with potential customers.
After signing up, all that is needed to initiate a campaign is some basic business details and an actual advert.
AdWords Express will work out which keyword in a search should trigger the appearance of the advert – displaying it in the top right of the page, with the location of business appearing on a Google Map just below.
Product Manager for AdWords Express, Kiley McEvoy wrote in the blog: “As with all our ad products, you only pay when a customer clicks on your ad. To make things even easier, AdWords optimizes your ads to get the most of your advertising campaign and budget.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Her Majesty the Queen Visits Lichfield
ClickThrough staff were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Queen last week, when she passed by our Lichfield office after presenting medals to soldiers from Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry at Lichfield Cathedral.
Much excitement filled the town (and our office!) when news of the Her Majesty’s arrival spread, and fellow Lichfieldians stood for hours on the roadside to see our much-loved sovereign Queen Elizabeth as she was driven past.
We’re pleased to say that the Queen was welcomed with cheers and applause from the people of Lichfield, and ClickThrough staff added to the crowds when they stepped right outside the office door into the excitement.
One ClickThrough employee, Louisa Cockayne, said; “It was a lovely atmosphere in Lichfield when everyone discovered the Queen was visiting, there was a certain buzz about the place, and catching a glimpse of Her Majesty was a real thrill.”
