Google recently announced their new Twitter timeline search feature. It is quite an exciting feature, as it helps to track hot topics being searched for, what was being discussed relating to those topics at specific times and so, provide better insight into user behaviour and interests.

Google’s initial release allows you to explore tweets going back to February 11, 2010, and soon you’ll be able to go back as far as the very first tweet on March 21, 2006.

To access this feature:

• Search off the topic of interest
• Click “Show options” on the Google search results page, then
• Select “Updates.”

The first page will show you the familiar latest and (what Google considers) best updates from a comprehensive set of sources, with the new timeline chart at the top. In that chart, you can select the year, month or day, or click any point to view the tweets from that specific time period.

So how will this benefit you? Where there is a hot topic in your industry, it gives you the opportunity to leverage off that topic, and apply it to your own business. This  will be extremely valuable if you have your own Blog, Twitter or Facebook account, and start discussing that topic. By doing so it gives you more opportunity of having one of your web marketing mediums picked up by a potential customer as they are searching off that topic.

Other ways this can be utilised is to change your Pay-Per-Click or Organic SEO campaign(s) to use these words. For example, if you are a dietician, and the hot topic is on a new diet fad sweeping Hollywood, you could use these topical keywords for your campaigns, and write your opinions on whether that diet is effective, or dangerous (if using Pay-Per-Click, don’t forget to make sure your Ad Campaign landing page is the page where you have discussed this topic). Not only are you more likely to have your website found this way, you are also building credibility, and have the opportunity to increase sales for your business or services.

The only thing I found when searching various hot topics is that these results are not very ‘localised’, and so if you are looking for topics that are within say Australia, or even your city, you may be disappointed. In the example screenshot below, I have search off ‘interest rates australia’ for April 2010, then narrowed down to the spike shown on the 6th April 2010. The top 10 results displayed did not include any Australian websites, only international ones.

In saying that, this is a newly released feature, and as Google is ever evolving, we may see localised results in the near future.

search: ‘interest rates australia’ for April 2010

search: ‘interest rates australia’ for 6th April 2010

Looking for the best results in building your business on the web? Call us today to find out how we can build your business.

Recent consumer research shows over 50% of Facebook fans and Twitter followers are more likely to buy or recommend than before they were engaged in Social Media

Recently Chadwick martin and bailey and iModerate Research Technologies did a study of social media usage, and how that translated into new business for consumers looking to buy. “Facebook fans and Twitter followers of a brand are more likely to not only recommend, but they are also more likely to buy from those brands than they were before becoming fans/followers.”

The study found that:

• 60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend those brands since becoming a fan or follower.
• 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of.  With over 400 million users Facebook, this provides a lot of opportunities for those marketing using Facebook.

More on this Social Media study can be found at: Consumers Engaged Via Social Media Are More Likely To Buy, Recommend

This simply reinforces the importance of having a social media campaign. Call us today to get started.

Source: chadwick martin bailey

The past two months have brought about some of the largest changes in a short space of time I have seen from Google. What do these changes mean to your site? Well, depending on the current level of SEO/Web Promotion being done on your site, it may mean very little. If you are on a lower budget, or not doing any SEO work at all, it could considerably impact on your business.

So here are some of the most important changes:

• Personalised search changes
• Google Local, and other Universal blended results
• Real time search
• Site speed
• Social Media/Networking

Personalised search changes

While Google Personalised search has been in place for quite some time now, previously this only worked when logged into a Google Account. On 4th December 2009, Google announced that they will be opening this up to everyone, whether you are signed into an account or not.

• http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html
• More on Local Business Search

Google Local, and other Universal blended results

In the past couple of years, Google blended the search listings from images, video, blogs, news etc… into a system called Universal Search. Which have been incorporated into the natural listings, pushing many sites off the first page. Now we have social media sites such as Twitter, and Facebook showing up in Google results, and is one of the reasons social media/networking optimisation has become an important piece of search.

Google local is the small map and related results you will very often see in Google results. More frequently you will notice that these results no longer appear just based on using a suburb within your search, and will appear in more general searches. What this really means is if you were doing well in the lower 5 results or so of Google, is that your site will now be much harder to see.

Real time search

Real time search is where information just added onto Twitter or Facebook, and other sites, will immediately appear within Google’s results. While we are seeing very little of this in Australian results as of yet, this will be a major change to come in 2010, and will potentially have a large impact on sites currently doing well at the top of the search engines.

Site Speed

Google are also now using site speed as a factor in rankings sites according to how quickly though load. This means sites that are very ‘image heavy’, and have a lot of video or Flash Animation, may find their rankings drop.

Social Media/Networking

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other Social Media/Networking have been around for a long time now, but with the changes to Google in terms of including listing these within their results, having a presence within Social sites such as these is becoming a very important part of your web marketing campaign. Not all Social Media sites are suitable for all businesses, so it is important to select the right solution to match your business.

As you will see, these are large changes that make web promotion more complex, and require changes in strategy to keep you driving effective traffic to your website.

If you’re looking to drive more business through your website, contact us today to help you determine the best web strategy for your business.

Are you going through the process of a website rebuild?

There are some very important points to take note of during this process, to make sure that your site:

• does not lose any search engine rankings, or
• have any broken links, be they within your website, or through anyone who has bookmarked your website.

So what are the things that could affect my website?

Each page in your website will very often have an associated rank, especially with Google. If your page is named www.website.com.au/page.html, and in the new site this exact page is now called www.website.com.au/new-page.html then Google will view this as a new page, and your rankings could start from scratch.

Of course wherever possible keep the old page names exactly the same as the original names.

How do you minimise the risk of a loss in rankings?

A 301 redirect in a .htaccess file on the server is the best way of doing this. The 301 redirect is a command that shows you have moved that page permanently. You may still find a temporary drop in rankings of pages within your site, but from experience, I have found that this generally ranges between no time at all, and a two to three weeks.

Please note, the above reference to a 301 redirect will not work on a windows server. Refer to your Windows hosting support for this reference.

Other important elements to think of, that can also affect your search engine rankings, as well as lost traffic/business.

• Bookmarking – When people have bookmarked your website in the Internet Browser – a 301 redirect will fix this.
• RSS feeds – Internal and External.
• Social Media/Networking/Bookmarking sites, and Directories – Try to updates your links on all of these sites.
• Internal Links – Internal links within your website carry SEO value from one page to the next.
• External Websites that link to you – These can be very important, as Google places high value in some external links that point to a website. Changing your pages, could result in a large drop in rankings. – Try to updates your links on all of these sites.
• HTML Structure – Is it the same as it was, or improved? Consult your SEO expert on this to be sure.
• Meta Tags – Are these the same as they were or improved? Consult your SEO expert on this to be sure.

Please note, that using the 301 redirect method will certainly ensure there are no broken links, however it will not pass on the same SEO value associated with each site link, so it is important to update as many of these links as possible, to ensure minimal impact to your site.

If you need help with your site move, contact us today for a quote.

There’s no way around it. If you want to effectively market yourself on Twitter then you will need followers. And not just any old Twitter follower. You want people who are interested in what you have to say and who will help you spread your message around.

Here are nine ways you can generate a targeted Twitter following who have a focused interest in your niche subject.

Write Great Content

People need a reason to follow you. Just like they will only watch the television shows that interests them, people will only follow the Twitter feeds of those who provide something of value. You provide this value to your followers by submitting good solid content. These can be links to interesting articles, quick tips and even coupon codes.

The content you provide should center on your niche subject. For example, if you want graphic designers following you, then you should only produce content that graphic designers would find interesting. To deviate from the subject is to risk diluting your subject matter and alienating subscribers.

Advertise

The link to your Twitter profile should be in a prominent place on your blog such as in the header or in the sidebar. And just in case your visitors miss these links, you should put a link to your profile at the end of each of your blog posts. You can find many tutorials online that will show you how to edit your blog theme so that the link will automatically show up without any additional effort from you. You want to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to find your Twitter link on your blog.

Host a Subscription Contest

When Namecheap hit the Twitter scene, they built their subscription base by hosting a quiz contest for free domain names. Although people had to sign up for both a Namecheap and Twitter account as well as subscribe to the Namecheap Twitter feed in order to enter the contest, their marketing tactic worked. Today, Namecheap has close to 8,000 subscribers.

People love to win stuff. As long as you provide great prizes and make it easy for people to enter, you should have no problem increasing your subscriber count with a simple contest.

Get Involved

You wouldn’t go to a party and stand in a corner talking to yourself all night would you? But that’s exactly what many people do that on Twitter. They just hang around their own feed tweeting about themselves.

Twitter is a social networking website with an emphasis on social. People go there to hook up with friends, exchange information and to find out about what is happening in the world. If you want more followers then you need to get out there and interact with other Tweeters. Subscribe to Twitter feeds and respond to tweets. Most people will reciprocate and subscribe to your feed- especially if you have great content.

To find people to follow, use a Twitter directory such as WeFollow. WeFollow lists Twitter members by subject which makes it easy to find people interested in your niche.

Article Marketing

Article Marketing is a form of marketing where you write articles and submit them to article directories. This is a great way to gain back links and traffic to your website as other webmasters use these directories to find articles to post on their blogs, websites and newsletters.

If you already engage in article marketing gaining subscribers is as easy as adding a link to your Twitter profile in the author resource box. If you aren’t doing article marketing, then consider adding this marketing tactic to your bag of tricks. You’ll gain exposure for yourself as well as snag new subscribers in the process.

Give Away Free Stuff

People love swag. It’s amazing the things people will do for free stuff. That’s why offering something for free is an almost guaranteed way of getting people to subscribe to your Twitter feed.

The trick is to offer something that people want. An informational ebook, a blog theme, an iPhone app are all good pieces of swag that will have people knocking down your Twitter door. To prevent people from accessing the content without subscribing to your feed, use the direct message feature on Twitter to send download links directly to new subscribers.

Link Drop When You Can

You should link to your Twitter profile whenever you have an opportunity to do so. If you’re out in the blogosphere commenting on blogs, place a link to your Twitter profile in the space set aside for a link to your website. If you are a member of a forum, place the link in your profile as well as the signature space.

Most email programs will allow you to include a signature that will show on all of the emails you send out. You can find many tutorials online that will give you step by step instructions on how to do this with your particular email software.

Participate in Twitter Memes

A meme is a kind of game that brings together a group of people around a subject. For example, in the blogosphere, a popular meme is Thursday Thirteen where each blogger submits a list of thirteen items about any subject. The main goal of memes is to bring people together and interacting with each another.

Twitter has quite a few memes. One of the most popular is Follow Friday where every Friday you recommend a person to follow on Twitter. You can find a list of popular memes on Tweme.com.

Use Hashtags

Hashtags are a way to categorize your Tweets. Similar to categories in blog software, they are called hashtags because of the hash mark (#) that goes in front of the tag name.

Users can do a search on Twitter for specific hashtags that will bring up all the Tweets on Twitter marked with that tag. Needless to say, when you use hashtags, all of your posts marked with that tag will be included in the search listings for that subject. This makes it easy for you to be seen by people interested in your niche.

Building a targeted Twitter following does take time and patience. But the reward of having a group of people passionate about you and willing to spread your message around is well worth it.