Social networking sites and in particular Facebook has become a part of our society that we struggle to live without, it gives you the ability to find out the very basic information about someone’s life and sometimes even the most complex issues that they are thinking about. With likes, comments and statuses, Facebook represents the very opinion of the public and with over 800 million users worldwide it gives one of the most reliable sources of public attitudes and behaviours and their opinions on, well … just about anything, it gives an accurate measure of the most popular topics, subjects, products and services voted by the public and especially internet users.

This week Facebook have announced the use of ‘Memology 2011’ showing the most popular “memes” which includes behaviours, styles and trends of Facebook users over the last year. As well as being important for businesses and understanding search engine behaviour it also plays an imperative part in SEO. With the increasing amount of users signing up to social media sites and with it becoming one of the most used sites on the internet, SEO needs to fully engage with social media.

Memology allows you to see 2011 through the eyes of status updates. You can view the ten most popular global topics for 2011 based on what people were writing about in their status updates, which are:
1. Death of Osama bin Laden
2. Packers win the Super Bowl
3. Casey Anthony found not guilty
4. Charlie Sheen
5. Death of Steve Jobs
6. The Royal Wedding
7. Death of Amy Winehouse
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
9. Military Operations Begin in Libya
10. Hurricane Irene

When Hurricane Irene hit many turned to Facebook for the most recent updates and to check if loved ones where safe. Memology was also used to look further and discover the top trending phenomenon’s on the internet for 2011, judging by Facebook status updates the most popular terms that emerged were ‘planking’ where people are supposed to lie face down in strange locations and take photographs, hit a record high in May after Max Key, the son of New Zealand Prime Minister, posted a Facebook photo of himself planking in the family lounge with his father in the background. The second most trended status was ‘lms for a tbh’ after lms (like my status) and tbh (to be honest) both individually hit record heights.

The results have had a great use in society showing the fastest growing fan pages based on ‘likes’ across the industries of Music, Entertainment, News and Sports. The discussed topics were from all walks of life, but what remained consistent was the active participation generated from Facebook users. The site has benefited from a diverse global audience coming together in one place and starting a valuable discussion about what matters most to them, giving an accurate portrayal of the public’s views over the most important topics and keeping Facebook as one of the most dominating factors in today’s society.

Search engine optimisation has become essential for any business. Every single company out there now has a website and without improving its ranking on the major search engines it might as well not exist. Putting in keywords, linking to relevant sites and trying to be the logical option for crawlers is what everyone had to consider, again in the ever changing industry there is now another big player that demands consideration, social media. Social media networking sites have become the biggest deciders when it comes to the popularity of different brands, it needs to be a top priority that the companies keep in touch with their customer base via Facebook and Twitter and now Google+ in order to keep rapport going and as a way of feeding them information. It is a way of guaranteeing customers will see the content, unlike sending out millions of emails or flyers, it is a fact that the information is going to flash up on their news feeds or Twitter accounts and they are going to be interested because that individual has ‘liked’ or ‘followed’ that company or interest.

Search engines are indexing more and more social data every minute, they are considering all of that information while they are crawling making social media a very important factor within SEO. The search engines react to the most relevant signals and the next logical development in order to get the most accurate data to the user, and this is how they identify and rank content. Looking at social signals and the content that users discuss and share is a great way for the search engines to identify the relevance of the information. Therefore implementing social media activity in to SEO is a very valuable way of increasing the rankings. The way that social networking sites are used, with individuals tweeting, blogging and commenting all has an impact on the content that they are talking about, the sites are engaging with their customers, and potential clients and interacting with the public, social media is not just about links it is about trying to get valuable content which is appreciated by search engines.

It is important that you drive traffic to your website and get your brand image known; the more relevant links that point to your website and then interesting content, the more rankings will improve. With this valuable information potential customers then link to it and share it with friends and other internet users in order to gain those essential relevant links that help to improve rankings and that hold high value within SEO; this then means that links are created to your social networking site and therefore your original website. It is this kind of social media marketing that gets something out in to the world quickly and is now one of the main players in marketing your brand. It is important to integrate a social media campaign in to your SEO strategy and to seriously consider the importance of the social media sites.

When conducting search engine optimisation, there is something thing that needs to be remembered and noted; measurement is critical to success. The progress needs to be tracked in order to see if the hard work is paying off or if it is having a minimal effect. It is important throughout an SEO campaign that you identify trends, strengths and weaknesses to see where to go next, what to change and what is actually having the desired effect. One metric that should be tracked every month is the contribution of each traffic source, from direct navigation, referral traffic and search engines. It is important to see where most of the traffic on your site is coming from in terms of bookmarks, email links, promotion campaigns and queries that sent traffic. Measuring the contribution of search engine traffic is also important, how many visits to your site is referred by and which specific search engines?

Keywords are the next thing to track, how many visits are referred by these particular searches? It is important to establish this because the popular keywords driving a lot of traffic to your site needs to be used through your content, titles and tags, their may be keywords that you are underserving. The keywords need to be used effectively as keywords stuffing can have a detrimental effect on your sites ranking. Conversation rate by search query term is another aspect that can highlight performance. These phrases send relevant visitors that convert to conversation, like filling out forms on the site. The term ‘relevant’ is the optimum word here because they need to be interested in your site to do this. This also includes relevant backlinks, your site needs to link to other sites that are relevant, you don’t want them clicking on your link then leaving your site straight away, this will then increase the bounce rate.

Watching the trends over time allow you to see a pattern emerge, using analytics software which can be paid for or that can be accessed for free, will show the progress of these points on your site. You need to be able to effectively interpret this data to apply successful changes, like fluctuations in the data. If there are significant drops in links or traffic there may be a loss of link juice, this means it will need to be checked if the important links still exist. Drops like this can also be due to penalties from search engines or blocked access. Measurement and tracking is highly important in SEO and is an ongoing process. It needs to be considered on a regular basis in order to keep your site at a high ranking or for your site to improve, if it is neglected your site will keep dropping and will become nothing but another lost site in the vast sea of the world wide web.

Super search engine Google has taken a leap forward in to the realms of social networking. Joining in with the fun of liking, digging and tweeting, Google now aims to have everyone ‘plus oneing’. The +1 button that was rolled out in March, which allowed people to like Google searches has been expanded in to more sites on the internet. The new revelation in SEO is being used on websites such as masher, Bloomberg and addthis. It hopes to expand its presence to sites like you tube and blogger in the very near future.

Google’s +1 button has been put in place to compete with the Facebook ‘like’ button. With Facebook having over 600,000,000 active users it is a force to be reckoned with, the Facebook like button has been very popular and become a global phenomenon, a second nature to most. The +1 button allows Google users to show their appreciation for a blog, a site, an object, anything on the internet that they want to share with friends. It is a quick and easy way for people to find pages that they will like, or that friends think they should ‘check out’.

Problems have already been highlighted for the new feature. Currently the webmasters like their balanced world and their social media strategy. They will need to implement the +1 button dynamically and quickly without upsetting their current social media strategies. A belief that the increasing amount of buttons with all the different uses is going to start confusing the consumer and after all, those are who we completely rely on to press the buttons and up ratings of the websites!

Clicking the +1 button publicly gives something your stamp of approval. It can help your friends, contacts and others on the web find the best stuff when they search. As the internet is now such a vast sea of information, the +1 button will refine the mass of knowledge and make searching even quicker. Social media has changed the current world, where would we be now without Facebook and Twitter? And in the grand scheme of things they have not been around for very long! So for this reason it is not a surprise that Google want to become more social.

So can Google really take on the powerful forces of Facebook? With the internet moving so quickly and the sheer impatience and thirst for current technology it is likely that they could. The majority of social networkers have now worn out the Facebook ‘like’ button so maybe they will look for something new and exciting. Google is a trusted search engine so curiosity will certainly drive people to try it out. So sit back and watch the battle of the buttons begin.

There are lots of misconceptions when it comes to SEO. Some are based on guesswork, dubious technical knowledge, hearsay or just plain ignorance of the fundamental principles of the process. Some are based on old information that was relevant once upon a time, but for all intents and purposes is defunct and useless today. One of the most enduring of these ‘legacy’ SEO concepts is that of ‘submissions’, and the idea that a website can be physically requested to rank on a search engine.

In the early days of search, around the late-1990’s, search engines did indeed have pages where webmasters could submit URLs for consideration. Although it was never a fast-track to ranking, or even guaranteed that a search engine would acknowledge it, submission was a legitimate part of SEO.

To say that the submission process is long gone would be to indulge in the most ludicrous and obvious understatement. Search engines operate by crawling the web, indexing pages on a wide range of technical and content-based parameters. This means that websites are ranked and classified on their merits, and whether they provide the information that the user is searching for… not because a webmaster has simply asked for the site to rank through a manual submission.

It’s been this way since 2001.

Search engine submissions are literally a decade out of date.

Amazingly (or should that be disgracefully?), some SEO companies are still offering submissions as part of their paid-for service. This should be considered one of the calling-cards of someone who, a) doesn’t really know what they’re doing, b) is trying to pad out their proposal, c) is trying to bamboozle their client, or d) is operating a service from 1998. None of which would make for a successful business relationship.

Search engines are trusted resources in the online world today and with 3 billion searches typed into Google each day, ranking high amongst their page results should be a major concern for any marketing campaign.  Are you a business which neglects your website and its content? Focusing on the glitz and glamour of the marketing world with magazine adverts and slots on TV and radio?  SEO provides the foundations for your media strategy, giving your campaign the authority on the internet to successfully back up your advertising message.

The internet has grown substantially in recent years rising from 801.4 million users in 2004 to 1.96 billion this year.  Creating a loud enough noise in this environment without an SEO-friendly site is difficult, which is why copywriting, back-linking and SEO techniques are important to practice on your site.  A content-rich website is not built or recognised instantly and it takes patience to build a catalogue of high quality back-links and blog entries full of relevant content.  Once you’re established at the top of Google searches for your targeted keywords your website will be able to give the message your other media vehicles are emitting authority, as internet users trust that those results at the top of their searches are the most relevant to their search term.

Websites which focus more on design are sometimes overtaken by basic content-rich sites because they concentrate more on the website layout then the use of clean coding, SEO-friendly URLs and keyword-rich copy and this is where the benefits of a digital marketing company can be seen.  Dedication to a website can be difficult with all other aspects of a business to oversee, which is why some websites are seen not as an important marketing tool, but rather an inconvenience to maintain and keep fresh.  A resourceful website employing individually designed SEO techniques which ranks highly on search engine results, creates a solid base on which all other media vehicles can go on to succeed.  Search engine optimisation is fast becoming one of the most desired services in the marketing industry as the internet is growing at a rapid rate, will your business be able to keep up?

For more information on SEO and what we have to offer call Laura on 0191 2328088 or email laura.brown@green-media.com

Google went live with its new “Instant” search last Wednesday, in a move that has been variously claimed to herald everything from the “death of SEO” to a revolutionary new way of using the web. Available to users logged into their Google Accounts, Instant works by immediately displaying the results page as you’re typing, based on what the system believes you’re searching for… essentially taking the auto-fill function to an ultimate end-point.

Google is a past-master in innovation, and hasn’t been afraid to try out new search toys on an unsuspecting public before (Wonder Wheel anyone?). However, Instant feels like a more considered and permanent addition.

I’ve been using Instant for a week now, and here’s what I’ve found.

While I didn’t get any feelings of “weightlessness or euphoria” as claimed by Google on launch day, I did get a very real sense that something wasn’t quite right with the jumpy interface. Whether this sensation was because of the move away from Google’s incredibly familiar functionality or perhaps something more terminal, it was a distinctly negative first impression.

The “2 to 5 seconds” that Google claims could be saved with each search query were completely negated by the distraction of results popping around beneath the search box. A quick example would be when searching for “Buy Tag Heuer“, you’d be suddenly and jerkily presented with the links for the BBC, Budget Car Rental, This Is Money and the DVLA before anything even close to the subject of buying a Tag Heuer watch even appeared.

On the other hand, one clear benefit of Instant comes with cutting out wasted searches. Since the results appear automatically you’re in a position to judge whether the suggested links are what you’re looking for, or whether your search term needs refining. The fact that this can be done on-the-fly without performing individual searches is a genuine time-saver in these cases.

From an SEO perspective, and thinking along the lines of how a website is optimised ongoing, Instant doesn’t change a great deal. The fundamental approach of providing highly usable content on a technically-proficient website remains the goal. Hypothetically, Instant could prioritise those sites that appear for individual keyterms rather than long-tail phrases, but this isn’t likely to happen in practice. The raft of websites that pop up in the Instant results for the opening letters of a word – as demonstrated in the “Buy Tag Heuer” example – are the big guns of the BBC and the like, traditionally indomitable websites that will likely always be search giants.

Back to the user experience viewpoint, the fact that there’s an off-switch with Instant may well prove to be its downfall long-term. When something is that jarring and doesn’t provide any real demonstrable benefit worth suffering through, the temptation to turn it off is almost irresistable. Instant will live or die depending on how many users battle through the sensation of unfamiliarity and embrace it into their daily searches.

The corporate blog is a growing phenomenon that maintains a personal connection between the user and the company, acting as a form of correspondence, just as regular letters update friends with recent and interesting news.

A whole range of businesses dedicate a section of their site to a daily or weekly blog. An infinite number of topics exist, each having their own set of subjects that constantly diverge and feed the vast depth of information available on the web. Online posts can include specialised markets, such as wedding, garden and car blogs, as well as sobering topics, brought to attention through military and political sites. A blog about blogging is testament to this limitless medium.

The origin of the term blog is extracted from the words web log; its unique name brings a sense of contemporary cool. The term blogger therefore evokes kudos, as an individual actively airs their opinions and thoughts to an audience, balancing sentence structures to create imagery or even humour that presents itself in an inviting format of a diary or log. The idea of following the development of thoughts is both innately appealing and inspiring. Twitter is an example of a micro blogging service which is available to anyone, including businesses and celebrities. Followers are exposed to ‘trending topics’ which show how quickly information filtrates across the web. Taking the idea of word-of-mouth in a local context and reapplying it to a global network.

Knowing that information can be accessed by anyone is an incentive to promote a topic. Blog layouts can include an assortment of mediums, most commonly seen as a combination of text and images that represent a virtual scrapbook of sorts and provide an insight into a company’s impassioned perspective. Blogs are a way of representing a company’s congeniality that gives a company a relatable facet, in which to appeal to the user, rather than an impenetrable and uniformed veneer of convention. Blogging also acts as a form of site maintenance, as attention is concentrated into the blog page’s renewed content, which gives the impression that the company cares and wants to impress, as opposed to leaving it untouched and in a derelict condition. Blogs also act as an advert for your business, as the addition of links means that your visibility across the web is increased

At Green Media we provide blog writing services themed around a website’s products and services, which are charged by new content, generated by writers eager to explore the avenues that each project presents. Blogs can enhance SEO rankings, as keywords adorn the blog, which is crucial to getting Google’s attention which will respond by rewarding you with high rankings. Blog posts can also be timed, so that information can appear in conjunction with the launch of a new product or as a set of ordered information, so that the flow of content can be manipulated. It takes time to blog and even more time to craft a blog that provokes thought. By bringing in professionals who have the skill and motivation to produce quality; a website’s profile is instantly raised and made more memorable. Every second a new blog appears online; don’t be left behind. Dive into the fast current, motored by blogs that keep you ahead of competition.                               

At Green Media, copywriting for Search Engine Optimisation is regarded as a lifeline for businesses. Keywords relating to areas of interest, specific to a site are raised up like stepping stones from velvety rich copy that laps up around each protruding keyword. While eye-catching headlines act as bridges that invite the user to cross and explore the new territory of a website.

Glistening keywords entwined with the main copy will elevate your website up search engine rankings, from the depths of underwater anonymity, to appear as a dominant feature amongst other results that vie for competition. The surfer will be able to ride the waves that will reach desirable heights of targeted information. Keywords will not litter the copy but will be placed in considered areas that will allow text to flow, rather than be blockaded by repetition, which seems to be a transparent tactic aimed to increase the volume of visitors but does not serve to anchor the user to a site with engaging copy. Instead, keywords are peppered throughout the site in order for the user to easily navigate their way and reaffirm the relevance of their search, as they delve further into the website’s offerings.

SEO is both an art form and a science, crafting and engineering in a continuing process, as a formula of refreshed content keeps information relevant, while the copy’s creativity prevents users from becoming disenchanted with a site, giving them a reason to return with anticipation, as updates renew enthusiasm. By keeping track of trends and behaviours, together with a discerning ability; the copywriter is able to draw upon considered language, structured in an appropriate format that convinces the user of the site’s integral worth.  The copywriter is also fuelled by the deceptively powerful tool of imagery, relayed in words that transport the user into a world by a particular product or service, as they visualise varied possibilities.

Undoubtedly SEO, together with the back-up of quality copy is the most effective way to communicate your website’s professionalism, dynamism and enthusiasm. Without it your website may be drowned under other sites that provide similar products and services and who have taken advantage of SEO’s buoyant ability to keep them ahead of competition.

We were pleased to find out that a key part of the recent Google update – codenamed Caffeine – centred around the value of good quality copy, regularly updated. Essentially, search has come around to being about what it always should have been about – good quality content.

No technical manipulation of the system.

No tricks.

No smoke.

No mirrors.

…and it’s about time.

We’ve been eulogising the value of good web copy for years, on the basis that if you’re providing what people want – in the form of useful, usable information – then the search engines will wake up to that and start directing people your way. It comes down to the basic principles of search engines – to create a positive user experience by giving people what they’re looking for.

If your website is still relying on short-term techie tweaks to stay on SERPs then you’re on borrowed time. Your site is sitting on digital quicksand. It’s time to get your thinking cap on and get writing.