Playing with Social Media
July 16th, 2010 // 12:30 pm @ admin
Social media is the new way to communicate, there is no doubt about that. But just how effectively can it be used for business?
The answer to that is very simple ! VERY!
Just before I went on holiday to Spain I set up a number of accounts on some social networks, just the mainstream ones such as twitter and face book and followed some people who where pretty relevant in those particular industries. I tweeted for the company about some hot topics in their niche and was surprised when I came back from holiday to find their inbox flooded with responses.
I’m not a great believer that mediums such as twitter should be used to say really unimportant things like ” just watching paint dry on my garage door” but that the real power lies with capturing real-time life events and of course business events.
There are a number of tools out there to schedule your tweets and facebook comments but I still think real time interaction with each community is key.
Also, I’m going to own up to simply following too many people, I can’t keep up with the feed! And just how advisable is it sticking to your own industry when it comes to following?
Category : Blog &Social Media &featured
Long Tail / Short Tail Traffic Boost ?
July 16th, 2010 // 12:03 pm @ admin
I have been working on numerous online marketing campaigns in the last few months and have noticed that the long tail search terms are definitely generating more traffic as are so it seems very localised results. Many industries are obviously still in the midst of recession and suffering the consequences.
It seems now more than ever effective online marketing needs to come into play.
For keyword research I’m using wordtracker and Google at the moment. Google seems to be giving some over optimistic results for local search volumes.
Anyone else experienced this? Just how accurate are predicted search volumes?
Category : Blog &Internet marketing &featured
Get Google’s High Speed Broadband in Your Area
March 22nd, 2010 // 3:09 pm @ Dan Horton SEO
It’s here at last Google’s offer of an ultra-high speed broadband network is certainly most welcome. Speeds will be in excess of one hundred times faster than many fast connections currently available. In the current economic climate the upgrade to ultra-high speed broadband would be an offering that many Cities would be pleased to be able to offer.
The competition is already on to see which City can gain Google’s attention and secure the ultra-high speed broadband. I wonder if the other search engines will come up with other offerings in the technology sector?
Category : Blog &Google High Speed Broadband &featured
Google Ventures Investments
March 31st, 2009 // 6:59 am @ Dan Horton SEO
Its interesting that just as Google announce many job losses a new venture fund is about to start. “Google Ventures” is likely to invest up to $100 million in a 12 month period.
Don’t get me wrong I personally think from a development stance its good news, investing in potential start up businesses in all areas connected to the Net, technology and living itself breathes fire into innovation, but does Google have its fingers in too many pies?
There’s no doubt that Google will extend way beyond Corporate development in the future, securing utilities such as power are safe and long term investments. Google isn’t here for the short haul.
10 SEO Recession Beaters
October 21st, 2008 // 7:34 am @ Dan Horton SEO
Recession/depression? Well either way many companies are upping their online marketing and advertising ammunition on the grounds they simply need to attract more customers to keep ahead in what is bound to be lean times.
Recession in my mind is cyclic and happens every 5-9 years with an end in sight within a twelve month period.
Here are my 10 SEO Recession beaters that you can use to counteract the recession and ride the inevitable storm:
1) Buy some “property”. Get yourself some good domain names preferably with page rank and maybe some back links too. Whatever the state of the economy having your own domain portfolio can be priceless.
2) Don’t let everyone else’s doom and gloom cloud your creative marketing ideas. Just because money maybe tight it need not limit your online creativity.
3) Metrics is key in hard times. You need to track like you have never tracked before. We aren’t talking obsessive stat watching here, but maybe some of those low traffic keywords you didn’t think would convert should be given a chance after all.
4) Put in the extra work. Those title tags and Meta descriptions you were going to sort the other day and left them. Well put in the work now. Make a promise to yourself to write at least one page of content per day on something that interests you.
5) Networking is key in lean times. Make an effort to hear the voices of the SEO industry. Don’t be afraid to make comments on the SEO blogs of the people you respect, you will find most are approachable and freely offer advice. Update those social networking profiles. Twitter and Facebook are your friends.
6) Diversification is key to success. Experimentation with different income streams never hurt anyone. If you have just one affiliate, why not try half a dozen?
7) Don’t be afraid to ask clients for more money to expand their marketing campaigns. Many are just waiting for you to act more and action often needs money. Just because an SEO budget was setup 10 months ago, perhaps it’s time for a review?
8.) Save. Are you really getting the best value for money from your outsourced suppliers? Spending wisely in an economic recession is key.
9) Avoid wastage. Automate with SEO Software. (No not SEO report generation) Time spent looking up the IP address of a website or domain age, page rank and index information and DO-Follow blogs could well be saved by you using a simple Firefox plug-in.
10) A rather strange one. But take time out of SEO. Those topics that are discussed socially offline often become the online hits of tomorrow. Spending all of your time online will turn you into a marketing geek. Simple as.
Do you have more SEO Tips to avoid the stress of the recession?