Snaptu it, Facebook…

Snaptu it, Facebook…

Facebook is, frankly, enormous. Not just in a social networking sense, but also in a brand sense. A commercial sense and recognition sense. Over 30 million people in the United Kingdom currently possess a Facebook account, with that number steadily growing as time goes on.
While quite a lot of people access Facebook via their smartphone, there is still a huge number of people who log on through conventional handsets. Though the smartphone trend is ploughing ahead, a whopping 80 per cent of the global phone market is still taken up by ‘non-smartphones’.

In what many see as a clever move, Facebook has quickly moved to acquire London-based company Snaptu for a price estimated between $40-70 million. The American-Israeli technology firm’s expertise lie in making social networks and platforms accessible through ‘feature phones’. One of Facebook’s key goals for 2011 is to expand in the mobile market – the team at Snaptu seem happy with the acquisition, blogging: “We soon decided that working as part of the Facebook team offered the best opportunity to keep accelerating the pace of our product development.”
In the past, Facebook’s head of mobile business, Henri Moisinnac, has said: “We want to have every user in every market using Facebook– we’re investing in smartphones and at the same time as in mass market phones because we believe with great features and great integrations, every phone can become sociable.”
Mobile search is becoming incredibly important in the world of website optimization as companies look to harness searchers on the move. With 80 per cent of the global phone market being identified as ‘non-smartphone’, then Facebook are already laying down the foundations to try and corner as much of it as possible. Link building is very important when promoting your website, but keep in mind that a strong mobile presence will also be crucial in the coming years as the medium grows.

 

Facebook Getting Tough on Profiles

Facebook Getting Tough on Profiles

Facebook and other social media websites are a vital part to search engine optimisation campaigns all over the globe. Making proper use of Facebook and similar platforms is a great way to increase your brand’s exposure across the web in SEO – but sadly, like a lot of things, there are people who try to take advantage of social media for quick rankings and to gain an advantage over the competition as quickly as possible.
Facebook has recently clamped down on profiles were they believe the user is underage, and has claimed that they’re currently deleting approximately 20,000 underage users every single day. Users looking to join Facebook have to be 13 or older, but because of the popularity of the medium, obviously a lot of people under 13 are trying their luck and joining the largest social website of our time!

But there are other underlying issues here. If a 12-year-old can create a profile, then anyone can create a profile, whether the reasons are for good or bad. There’s a difference between a kid joining Facebook to share photos with their friends and a company creating a lot of fake profiles to post a lot of fake, positive comments on the wall of their company page.
“There are people who lie. There are people who are under 13 [accessing Facebook]. Facebook removes 20,000 people a day, people who are underage,” says Mozelle Thompson, chief privacy advisor at Facebook. comScore rates that number to be much higher in the US, where their research shows that a possible 3.6million underage people regularly access Facebook.
It’s great to see that Facebook has recognised there’s something of a ‘profile problem’, and that they’re working hard to fix it where they can. How can they solve the problem though in the long-term? Leave us your thoughts below!

 

Twitter – Keep it Private.

Twitter – Keep it Private 

We’re massive fans of social media, and recommend it highly for anybody who’s looking to incorporate an SEO campaign alongside their web presence. But for all the benefits the likes of Twitter and Facebook can bring to an organic SEO campaign, people still have a hard time remembering that it’s a very public platform. Just ask Calvin Harris and Katy Perry…
It’s worth remembering that no matter how bad things get, either in a personal or professional sense, it’d be a wise idea not to air your dirty laundry in public. What’s the point?
Perry and Harris have been generating headlines over the last day or so because the latter has pulled out of the former’s tour around the UK. Harris cited behind-the-scenes issues, but instead of things staying that way and both parties sorting things out amicably, a slanging match erupted between Harris and Perry on Twitter, with thousands watching.

Of course, this is a very high-profile incident between two chart stars, but there’s lessons for everyone to learn here. Many people still, understandably, confuse Twitter as an innocent form of fun. Twitter though, is regarded as a valid form of publishing and can carry all the associated legal consequences – just ask ex-Liverpool FC footballer Ryan Babel who was hit with a hefty fine for his tweets in January.
The tweets between Harris and Perry focused a lot on what many assume were the terms of the deal between the two, with talk of ‘goalposts being moved’. Pretty dangerous when each tweet will be read by potentially millions of people.
Whatever the problems you encounter in your business, deal with it professionally. Twitter can very easily – as the example above shows – turn things into a public slanging match, adding fuel to the fire. Keep things in-house. You not only owe it to yourself, but to the poor souls who follow you and have to read your tweets!

 

Five things you must do when using social networking websites for SEO

Five things you must do when using social networking websites for SEO

It is impossible not to notice the increasing popularity of social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Millions of internet users now use websites of this kind on a regular basis and it is not just those using them for personal and social reasons that are logging in. Online business owners are developing and updating profiles on social networking sites and for some, this is making a big difference to their search engine optimisation campaigns.
If used appropriately, a social networking website can help a business to gain exposure, build trust and respect for its brand and direct traffic to its web pages. These are impressive results and are why so many site owners are becoming interested in what social networking websites can do for them and how these results can be achieved.
If you want to use social networking websites successfully as part of your SEO campaign, there are five things you must do:
1. Be polite. You are representing your company when you interact with others within social networking environments and must remember this at all times. You must always be polite and respectful if you want to show others the professionalism of your business.
2. Provide relevant information. Whilst all the content you create does not have to be about your business, a lot of it should be. This is because this is what a lot of your followers will expect and will be one of the main reasons why they are following you.
3. Be fun. If you are going to keep the attention and interest of your audience, you not only have to provide useful information but you have to make things fun too. There are many ways this can be achieved such as by running competitions, having quizzes, giving free prizes away and other ideas such as this. You do not always have to be serious when using social networking sites for SEO.
4. Be ready to respond to others. When using social networking websites, it is not just about giving information to others but also about reading their responses, communicating with them and learning from the information they offer you. If another user makes a comment, try and respond. Always acknowledge those that show an interest in your profile and try to help bonds between you and them to develop.
5. Be sociable. If you are not ready to be sociable on behalf of your business then there is little point in using sites of this kind. You have to check on your social networking page often, add information, respond to others, comment on the profiles of others and really get involved in the social networking community any way you can. This is how you will gain the most exposure.
We at the-websol.blogspot.com are helping many of our clients to establish themselves within the social networking communities and are seeing impressive results. If you require some help with sites like this or with any other SEO techniques, we are here to offer our assistance.

 

AdWords Finally Gets Phone Support

AdWords Finally Gets Phone Support

It’s something that those who have been involved in search engine marketing have been crying out for for years! But the day has finally come – Google has announced that it now provides phone support for its AdWords program, meaning that people will hopefully be no longer stuck in the wilderness when they need questions answering about their PPC campaign.
It’s taken Google nearly ten years to implement this most basic of measures, but better late than never! We’re still waiting to test it ourselves to see how effective it is, but anything has to be an improvement on the methods used beforehand. Previously, getting an answer out of Google in regard to an account was a hugely drawn-out process. If the solution to your problem wasn’t on the official Google FAQ then email was pretty much your only saving grace, with responses and replies taking days at a time to resolve matters.

Which is a shame because pay per click is an incredibly effective form of SEO, and Google’s main form of revenue. You’d think, in that sense, that they would do everything they could to make the service as accessible as possible. No use in complaining now though, a problems been identified and fixed, and we’re looking forward to seeing how easy accounts are now to manage in a practical sense.
As far as SEO services go, PPC is a great tactic to employ for quicker results and an overall long-term improvement in your ROI – as long as you have the budget, that is. PPC can be an expensive business, but a good campaign done the right way can get you fantastic results!