SEO & Social Media Summary February 2012

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on March 01 2012
Filed in Online Marketing Tips and Advice, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Marketing

The first part of February was relatively quiet by the standards of this industry, however towards the end of the month things get a lot more interesting – especially the news of Google’s latest algorithm update, with no less than 40 changes listed, and news of Facebook timeline for brands….

Here’s what happened in February 2012 in the world of Social Media and SEO.

SEO
• Danny Goodwin from Search Engine Watch details just how much Google loves Wikipedia. In a recent test by Intelligent Positioning, Wikipedia is placed on page 1 of Google for 99% of 1,000 unique one-word searches. When you consider the quality of content on some Wiki entries, maybe this percentage is a little too high perhaps?

• Rand Fishkin at SEOMoz highlights a ‘glitch’ in using Google’s Adwords for finding keywords. If you regularly run keyword researches, you need to read this. You could be missing out on some valuable keywords.

• Staying with Keyword Research, Jenny Halasz at Search Engine Land has written a great guide on how to find keywords relative to client, some great advice on Keyword ‘seeds’…and how to make them grow. 

Now for that interesting stuff I mentioned that happened at the back end of February.

• SEO Generation list the 40 changes Google have announced to maintain search quality. These include Improvements to freshness and fresher images. For bloggers, this is great news. Get that fresh, original content out there! Importance of local search is also key here.

• Search Engine Land’s Matt McGee highlights possibly the most important change, the fact that Google are looking at how they evaluate links. What this exactly means at present, is unclear, but perhaps cause for concern.

• Finally, State Of Search has an excellent infographic on how to optimise your website. ‘What would Googlebot do?’ is amusing and factually correct – worth a look!

Social Media

• Josh Constine at Techcrunch discusses the growth of Pinterest, the latest social media platform that is receiving huge interest (hitting 10m monthly uniques in US). What is Pinterest? How to use Pinterest for Business? Both questions will be covered in detail on the Orbital Media Blog next week.

• Fresh from its Social Network battle with Facebook, Google now seems to want a piece of Foursquare action too. Mashable detail Leaderboard, which works with Google Latitude where you earn points for check ins. Sound familiar?

• Google + and the Plus 1 button are also enjoying impressive growth according to Greg Finn of Marketing Land. A timely reminder that we cannot ignore Google Plus. If you haven’t managed to do so yet, here is a useful guide to create your Google Plus brand page.

• On the other side of the G+ fence sits Gabriella Sannino, whose negative appraisal of Google’s social network and social search function may actually get you to question the facts and numbers that are being thrown at us on a regular basis. Interesting reading.

• And Mashable’s Todd Wasserman has some numbers of his own. He very recently claimed G+ users spent 3.3 minutes on Google+ in January. In comparison, Facebook user spent 7.5 HOURS,according to a new comScore report. Ouch.

• LinkedIn is to introduce a ‘Follow Company’ button. Social Media Today ran with this and included a quote from a LinkedIn rep - “This marks the first phase of LinkedIn’s follower ecosystem strategy that will unfold over the coming weeks”. With a similar function to a Facebook ‘Like’, this surely is a good time to polish up your LinkedIn Company profile.

• Facebook Timeline for Facebook Brand pages will be available at the end of February, according to Gina Dietrich from SpinSucks (She was right!). Orbital media cover the importance of Facebook Timeline design for brands.

• Chris Crum at Web Pro News backed up the release date for Facebook Timeline for brands, and discusses possibilities of cross-brand promotions and app usage for Brand’s Timelines.

• Chris Crum also reports on Facebook’s ‘sponsored stories’ and raises the question, is this the way for Brands to succeed on Facebook.

• Social Media Examiner look at Twitter ads for small businesses in their weekly Social Media update, some interesting reading here.

• The ‘New Yahoo’ came out fighting…and this could pave the way for a very big scrap between all social networks. Yahoo claims it holds patents for ‘various internet technologies’ used by Facebook and it wants them to start paying for the privelidge. The message to the NY times was clear – comply or there will be consequences (“We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights.”) One to watch….

Facebook Timeline Design for Brand Pages

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on February 29 2012
Filed in Online Marketing Tips and Advice, Social Media Marketing

From today (29/2/12) Facebook Timeline is now available to Brand pages and will be compulsory from 30 March 2012. But how can you use Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages successfully?

Most of us are now familiar with Timeline for our own personal profile. Now Brand Pages get the redesign and it’s time for you to take full advantage of what could be visual excellence.

The image led redesign allows you to upload a banner cover photo. At 852 pixels wide by 315 pixels high, this image needs to be carefully selected to tie in with your brand and its identity / customers.

Facebook’s own advice on the cover photo is as follows; ‘Pick a unique photo to feature at the top of your Page timeline. Note: This space is not meant for promotions, coupons, or advertisements. Your cover photo should not be primarily text-based or infringe on anyone else’s copyright’

What we believe you need to consider for your page is a strong lifestyle shot relating to your brand, ideally something with the brand in it of course. The image, if correct, should help users automatically understand exactly what the brand represents.

Timeline Brand pages should be aesthetically pleasing; the redesign has the capabilities of changing your old brand page into something quite impressive.

Just as important as the imagery is the fact that you can now tell the Brand’s story (this is called Timeline for a reason), from the date it was formed to present day, highlighting key developments within the brand in a chronological order.

Brands with history will be able to utilise Timeline to great effect. Manchester United’s facebook Timeline starts (obviously) when the club was founded in 1878. 

This Brand page has adopted the Timeline with huge success.

The page shows us clearly what we can achieve with Timeline for Brand pages. It also changes the way we may view facebook and what we might expect from facebook Brand pages in the future.

Manchester United’s facebook presence shows us all how it could / should be done. No longer a Brand page, more a visual feast through the history of the club.

If you want to see how a brand can get the most out of Timeline, Manchester United’s page as well as the other brands listed below should provide the inspiration you need.

Coca Cola
Starbucks

Burberry
Ford

Timeline is exactly that. It can showcase your Brand to a heightened level and tell the story you want to tell in a visual format that has never been so easy to implement.

There are a few more reasons as to why Timeline will work for Brands, for example, admins of the Brand page have the ability to make selected updates ‘sticky’ for seven days.

Facebook have created a page to help Brands convert to Timeline. But if you still need some help with your Brand’s Timeline, why not get the UK’s leading social media agency, Orbital Media, involved?

Social Media & SEO Summary January 2012

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on February 02 2012
Filed in Blog Network News, Online Marketing Tips and Advice, Online PR, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Analytics, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Research, Social Networking

What a month! Dominated by the launch of Google ‘Search plus your world’ (and the other Social Network’s discontent of this Google – centric search), and the SOPA Blackout, with the big guns in full support.

Here’s what happened in January 2012 in the world of Social Media and SEO.

SEO Summary January 2012

* Google’s social search, incorporating G+ in its search results, are discussed by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land.

* Mashable’s Sarah Kessler comments it is too much, too soon – I agree.

* Erin Everhart, also from Mashable, comments on the SEO perspective of this new Social based search

This could all kick off - The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), has called for the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) to investigate the recent search changes. There are concerns that the new features favour Google’s own services over those of competitors.

CNN Money even reported that Google may be sued for the new ‘Search plus your world’.

We need to remember that, according to Google, facebook & Twitter did not want Google to crawl their content, if this had been agreed search plus your world would have been so much more relevant.

And as far as SEO goes, I think it is important to highlight these personalised results are only visible if you are logged into Google. With G+ gaining more ground daily (see below!), more people are likely to be logged in to Google – which may become an SEO issue for the future.

But….Google said facebook and Twitter did not allow access to their social graphs and that’s why Search plus your world results are steered towards purely Google listings.

By the looks of it, not true. Engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have got together and produced a tool that shows clearly that Google’s new search could have been more driven to the user and not to Google. The new bookmarklet tool, ‘Don’t Be Evil’ goes beyond G+ search results. Search Engine Land have a full write up and install instructions.

Social Search as it should have been?

Meanwhile….

* WebProNews led with Google’s stunning announcement Larry Page claimed whilst discussing their results for the 2011 fiscal year; “Google had a really strong quarter ending a great year. Full year revenue was up 29%, and our quarterly revenue blew past the $10 billion mark for the first time. I am super excited about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+, which now has 90 million users globally – well over double what I announced just three months ago.”

This was posted by WebProNews on 19th Jan. To really see how fast this Social Network is growing, the same site also revealed that G+ users have now reached an estimated 100 million users. That’s an extra 10% growth in less than 2 weeks. Is Mr Zuckerberg concerned? I know I would be, G+ now looks to be a really viable contender to facebook.

* It’s not all good for Google though. Concerns over the new privacy settings may seem searchers adopt a new approach. Microsoft capitalized on this with a blog post ‘Google doesn’t put people first’. Google responded to these claims in their own blog post.

* The huge internet campaign led by the big players saw sites blacking out sections of their pages (or even complete sites) in support of anti SOPA. Examples of Google, Wikipedia and others during the ‘SOPA Blackout’ can be found here.

Not sure what all the fuss is about? You need to know – it affects each and every one of us. Mashable cover why SOPA is dangerous very effectively. Scary reading.

But, the blackouts seem to have worked! (For now). Mashable report on Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor of SOPA, pulling the bill. SOPA is dead.

Social Media Summary January 2012

* Social Media Examiner mentions Google’s new social integration, as well as highlighting Twitters new embeddable tweets and a really interesting, useful and free email tool for Gmail users – Brand My Mail, where you can add blog posts, Twitter or facebook updates and much more to your emails.

* Hubspot’s Pamela Vaughan also talks about Google’s “biggest social search update yet”.

* Bharati Ahuja discusses Google+ “as a complete blogging platform” at WebPro Tech.

* Brian Solis shares 10 social media strategies for defining a successful 2012 at his blog.

* Pinterest continues to grow, with Etsy being the latest to add a pin it button.

* More social growth? Danny Goodwin of Search Engine Watch  reports that YouTube is now serving 4 billion videos a day. If you are a stat freak, click the link, there are some more YouTube related stats there!

* Pen.io continues to grow as the fastest online content publisher. Although basic, it is also very effective at publishing a web page online quickly. We like.

* Too many Social Networks to handle?!! Macworld report that Twitter have acquired social media feed condenser Summify. Summify summarizes Social content in people’s Google, Facebook and Twitter social media feeds and delivers a daily summarized version via email, a website or an iPhone.

* Google were not the only ones to reveal good financial results for 2011. Facebook has just filed its IPO for 2011 with a figure of $3.71 Billion.

So in the first month of 2012, although Google has reported huge success, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft have all expressed some negative views. This year is going to be interesting, with a few more scraps to come.

I cannot wait!

What is Pen.io? New online content publisher

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on February 02 2012
Filed in Online Marketing Tips and Advice, Social Media Marketing

When it comes to online content, Wordpress is the dominant platform. The vast majority of Orbital Media’s client sites are wordpress based.

The reason for this is Wordpress is clean, easy to update and, in our experience, Google seems to love it. Other online publishing platforms include Blogger, Tumblr and Posterous – but for us, Wordpress is king.

There is a new online content publisher on the block, called Pen.io. What is Pen.io? Well, if Wordpress is the equivalent of a smart graphics design package, Pen.io is a scrap of paper and a pencil.

Simplicity is key….and I love Pen.io for it.

The ‘quickest way to publish online’, Pen.io is superb at what it does. No technical skill is required and sign up is completed just by entering a page name and page password. These two fields are all you need to create a new webpage.

You can see below an example of Pen.io in action, our social media Pen.io page took minutes to publish. It takes me longer to make a sandwich…

“The original project and idea was simply to create the fastest way to put a piece of content online,” Pen.io founder Anthony Feint says. “I was looking at WordPress and thinking it was quite complicated just to put a recipe or quote online,” he adds. “I didn’t necessarily want to start a whole new blog just to quickly put up a single piece of content.”

This is what Pen.io is great for. A single page of online content published in a matter of minutes.

What you do with this simple webpage is up to you. Whilst not having the whistles and bells of Wordpress, Pen.io does have the capability to insert HTML, images and YouTube videos.

Pen.io can be used as a very basic business webpage, with contact detail (or anything you choose to add to the particular page). I would recommend Pen.io for publishing upcoming events, recipes, essays or songs. I guess the anonymity of Pen.io will see some pretty full on rants going on here too – sadly.

Pen.io sees 300,000 visitors a day and this number is increasing. Teachers and students are embracing it and it is easy to see why.

Pen.io has relevance. It sits nicely in the middle of the likes of Wordpress or Posterous and a social network status update. More than an update, less than a blog.

“WordPress and Posterous aren’t as relevant as they were before. People are definitely using Twitter and Facebook more, but they still want a place to put their content,” Feint says. “So used in conjunction with [Twitter and Facebook], Pen.io is great.”

Feint is correct. Using Pen.io in tandem with your social networks makes perfect sense. Announcing your latest Pen.io page to your followers really works. That list of tour dates can be mentioned on your facebook page with a link for you fans to the Pen.io tour dates page. Simple, yet effectively brilliant.

Pen.io – love it. Just need to get the band together now….

Look out for our ‘Pimp my Pen.io’, coming to this blog very soon!

What’s wrong with Google’s new Social Search Feature - Google ‘Search plus your World’

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on January 23 2012
Filed in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Marketing

Using Google+? Add Orbital Media to your circles. You’ll find out about the latest hints to get the most out of G+ as well as up to date information on all the other social networks.

When Google makes a change, there is always an outcry, it’s a given – we just seem to see all the negatives and jump on them. In the world of Search and Social Media, any change is met with opposition – remember facebook’s last changes? Wait for Timeline to kick in….!

What we very quickly discover once we have calmed down, is the changes are generally to the benefit of the user.

Now the dust has settled on the launch of Google ‘Search plus your World’, I do still have some issues.

This is Google blending search and social and providing even more “personalised” results. A Google search that adapts to your own social media networks seems like a good idea, only this doesn’t do exactly what it says on the tin.

For Social Search to truly work, there needs to be an agreement with Google and Twitter and Facebook (and all other social networks). Currently there isn’t and I can’t see facebook handing over their social graph to Google anytime soon.

So, Google’s Social Search is a little bit unbalanced (OK, a lot). Plus one’s and G+ results springing up on SERPs. Which is great….

…but is it a true reflection on search? When did you last plus one? When were you last on G+?

I am in complete agreement with Mashable, who have stated Google ‘Search plus your World’ has come too soon.

Google should have done one of two things before launching their new integrated Social Search –

1) Dominate the social networks with G+. At least then there would be some relevancy to the results.
2) Find a way to work with other social networks to deliver an accurate form of search results,

Both are not going to happen any time in the near future.

Google ‘Search plus your World’ is a mouthful. A more precise name would be Google ‘You will use our new social network…Dammit’.

OK, still a mouthful, but this is where I am sitting on the new Google search.

However, We knew this was coming.

Google have been driven to creating a more social search for some time now. Everything is in place. The Google ‘Search plus your World’ feature will only apply when you are signed into your Google account, and even then you can refine the search to include or not include social pages.

What I like about Social Search is if I Google my mate Paul Handley, I get the Head of SEO for Orbital Media, rather than a musician, photographer or vicar.

I can see a lot of good in this new search, but without facebook or Twiitter’s involvement presently, I am worried about its relevancy.

The usual outcries of ‘The death of SEO’ have also followed this launch. Social search will not kill SEO, but we have to adapt.

Not using Google+ is now not really an option from a marketing / SEO point of view.

So, like it or not, we are going to have to embrace Google+. Share every post on your Google+ page and make sure you have Google+ buttons on your posts.

This new Social Search from Google is not going to kill SEO. Google do, however, mean business. They have created a Social Network that feeds into their search results. Eventually, more people will use G+ on a more regular basis and that’s when this search feature will come good.

It’s not SEO that needs to worry, we are OK there. Maybe, perhaps, we are looking at the death of facebook?

Don’t forget to add Orbital Media to your Google+ circles.