Following on from this month’s blog on Google+, we have provided you with a useful website that includes 5 simple steps to building a good business page on Google+.
Pinterest is the latest social networking site aimed at sharing what interests and inspires users. Pinterest is a pinboard-styled social photo sharing website. The website allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections. Pinterest’s goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.
Twilert is a Twitter application that enables you to receive regular email alerts of tweets containing keywords associated with your brand, product and service. Think of it as theGoogle Alerts for Twitter.
https://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/tips10.jpg31254754adminhttps://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/logooptimised.pngadmin2015-08-10 00:00:002018-05-14 15:13:03Top Marketing Tips For March 2012
For many, the term Google+ is relatively new. Unless you’re not actively participating, it is easy to shy away from updates and news surrounding yet further developments in the social media sphere.
Google has produced a number of social networking sites over the years, Orkut, Buzz and Wave spring to mind. However, none of them made Google a serious competitor in the social networking market….until now. Last June, Google released its latest social networking tool. When Google+ first launched, millions of users flocked to the new service, ten million in 16 days to be exact. However, only recently has Google+ allowed brands to showcase their services. So where does Google+ fit in your marketing plan for 2012?
Back to basics, so what is Google+ exactly?
Let’s start at the beginning; Google+ is Google’s latest attempt to enter the “social” world, currently dominated by Facebook and Twitter. Google+ is an amalgamation of several services we already use, the idea, according to Google, is to do them better. The easiest way to think of Google+ is not as a place like Facebook but as a layer on top of all the Google services we already use daily. Google has a lot of services that are at the centre of people’s online lives: their search engine, Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail and so on. Google wants to create a central hub, where all their services can come together.
Think of a Google+ business page as a mini website for your business, with social networking features built in, and hosted by Google. Google+ allows brands to build relationships between businesses and consumers. Like Facebook, you are given the ability to share, promote, and measure your fan engagement. Statistics show that in January 2012 there were over 90 million Google+ users, significant growth and the catalyst for businesses to start integrating Google + into their social media mix. Both Google+ profiles and business pages provide robust platforms for companies that want to grow their web presence and create real conversations with prospects and customers. There is also another benefit. Having an active Google+ presence for your business, brand or name has powerful implications for search engine optimisation….of course. Google is still the largest search engine in the world, not to mention the owner of YouTube and now the +1 button appears in search results.
What key features can you expect from Google+?
Circles, you can organise all your contacts into circles. You have the ability to target different segments of your audience through the Circles, enabling you to group prospective customers; people aged 18-35, Men 60+, or even employees into different circles. This means you will be able to control and target different messages to different circles. You can also see what conversations are going on in each of the circles.
Hangouts is another feature of Google+, which allows group video conversations to take place. Google+ gives you a “start a hangout” button, which will publish an update to your profile saying, “TLC is hanging out”. Up to 10 people can be in a hangout at any time, they’re free and they can be private or public. Users can also watch YouTube videos in sync with the other people in the hangout, a useful tool for virtual meetings etc.
What your business can do with a Google+ business page:
Conduct video conversations with employees
Live Q&A sessions
Product demos
Customer service “office hours”
Focus groups
Free training
Recruitment
Take a look at how Virgin have used Google+
Virgin has been busy using its Google+ page to help recruit 500 new crew members and offering followers a chance to meet CEO Richard Branson face-to-face. As well as Virgin, many other of the group companies are present on Google+, from the airlines Virgin Australia and Virgin Atlantic providing travel updates, to Virgin Money, sharing all the latest details of their mission to rejuvenate the banking system.
You may think. ‘Well my business isn’t exactly a big consumer brand like Virgin, Toyota or Pepsi’; however, Google+ business pages offer exciting opportunities for even the smaller brands, allowing great potential to target key Circles with specific messages and derive SEO benefits for your website.
Google+ is still at the start of its long journey to social media domination; however, starting to think about building your business page, the interesting content you can display and the ways you can further engage with other businesses and prospects effectively online, can only be an added bonus to your marketing plan in 2012.
A tool to help you expand your Google+ following. Use Find People On Plus to search for individuals and companies using Google+.
Followerwonk helps you explore and grow your social graph. Dig deeper into Twitter analytics: Who are your followers? Where are they located? When do they tweet?
Removeem, a tool for identifying which backlinks are hampering your SEO efforts.
Following on from the launch of our ‘Marketing Titbits’ at the end of last year, here are 3 ‘titbits’ we think you need to know about this week:
In 2013, SlideShare is predicted to be the fastest-growing social network site, alongsideFacebook and LinkedIn. 2013 is the year content is predicted to become the new advertising. With this in mind, SlideShare provides businesses with a dedicated platform to showcase and share your own content. If you want to know more about SlideShare click here.
Twitter have announced that in 2013 your Twitter feed will be personalised to your interests and “TweetRank”. It also measures the popularity of various tweets e.g. how many retweets and favourites various tweets get and promotes more popular content. Expect some changes in your Twitter feed as a result.
Despite failing to attract headlines Facebook and Twitter do, Google’s social media offering is going about its business quietly but effectively and is now estimated to have in excess of 135 million active users. Not exactly a failure and currently growing as fast as Facebook. As each week passes, it becomes clearer that Google + is not just another social media site to rival Facebook or Twitter. Instead it is becoming the glue that holds Google’s diverse range of services together. As Mike Elgan puts it, think of all the other services Google offers (email, docs, search etc.) as ‘features’ of Google +. We are convinced Google + will become an increasingly important component of your businesses online strategy in 2013.
https://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/12.jpeg7091260adminhttps://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/logooptimised.pngadmin2015-08-10 00:00:002018-05-11 15:29:58Marketing Titbits - SlideShare, changes to Twitter and Google +
1. Want to quickly edit a picture, but don’t have Photoshop? Picture Monkey could be the answer. This online photo editing tool provides you with the opportunity to edit your images quickly from any computer, whether you are at home or in the office. Picture monkey has various templates, frames or colour effects that you can apply to your chosen image for free. For more advanced features, including a ‘spray tan’ or ‘wrinkle remover’, you will need to sign up to the website and upgrade.
2. Are you new to the area? Want to organise a networking event with like-minded people?Meetup is slightly different from other social media websites, the sole purpose is to organise real life meetings, whether you want to start a group for Southampton Web Developers or SMEs in Winchester, Meetup can help make this happen. According to Meetup, more than 9,000 groups get together in local communities each day. It is free to sign up and you can choose specific locations and interests.
3. Google have launched a new style of campaign in AdWords, called Enhanced Campaigns. The latest update has been designed to simplify campaign management across multiple devices and encourage more SMEs to adopt mobile advertising. The focus of the change is to enable advertisers to target people at the right time, in the right place, with the right advert and call-to-action. Essentially, the biggest and most relevant change is that Google are growing more contextually aware. If a user is on a mobile device they will see ads that you have marked as “mobile preferred”.
https://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/picmonkey.png240232adminhttps://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/logooptimised.pngadmin2015-08-10 00:00:002018-05-14 15:24:54Marketing Titbits - Picture Monkey, Meetup & the latest update from Google Adwords
1. Google + update
When talking about social media with clients, one of the questions we frequently get asked is what about Google +? Is it worthwhile investing time in? The short answer is, probably. Google + is quietly going about its business, amassing 250 million users (150 million active) at the time of writing and with current growth at 10 million users a month.
Having access to its user base is one benefit, but we feel it is the SEO benefits associated with being active on it that are really where businesses can take advantage. After all, if you want to succeed in enhancing your website’s ranking in Google, it is fairly logical to assume that you need to play by Google’s rules. Google + now represents one of those rules.
We should also stress that this is not just an assumption. We are finding increasingly that activity and shares on Google + are having a positive impact on search engine rankings in Google.
To get started, we’d suggest implementing 3 things:
1. Create a Google + Local Page.
2. Add a +1 share button to the pages on your website.
3. Start sharing your content and importantly that of others, complimentary to your business.
We have found that once you start getting on top of these 3 areas, there is a marked increase in the search engine rankings of your website. Give it a go and see what you think.
2. Get to grips with Photoshop
If you’ve ever wanted to get to grips with Photoshop but have never had the time or budget to take classes, CreativeLIVE is for you. 2 weeks ago CreativeLIVE hosted Photoshopweek, 6 days comprising of 40 different online classes from Photoshop experts, catering for all levels of Photoshop expertise. CreativeLive have compiled all 40 of the training sessions into an online course available for download at a significantly reduced rate. If you are keen to hone your Photoshop skills this is well worth taking a look at. More information can be found here.
3. Snapchat
If you haven’t heard about it yet, you soon will have. It seems a week doesn’t go by without yet another social media ‘next big thing’ popping up onto the ever-evolving digital landscape. Snapchat has caught our eye recently; and if the 60 million + pictures and messages sent a day are anything to go by, Snapchat may just have a future. What sets it apart from the plethora of other messaging services out there is that the images sent through it only exist for a maximum of 10 secs and then are gone forever.
The appeal seems to stem from the impermanent nature of the communications. Unlike Facebook etc., your content is not indexed and accessible online indefinitely. It is also free (so far) from the increasingly intrusive adverts that permeate Facebook and other social media platforms. This, combined with the ease and spontaneity of the service, seems to have tapped into an as yet unsatisfied need amongst the younger population.
As to how businesses can make use of Snapchat, the jury is still out. It is clearly a very effective way of communicating in real time with an audience. Whether your target audience is engaged, is another matter. Watch this space! Take a look here.
https://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/snapchat.jpg330620adminhttps://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/logooptimised.pngadmin2015-08-10 00:00:002018-05-14 15:27:49Marketing Titbits - a Google + update, become a Photoshop expert and Snapchat
1. MarketingWeekLive – get your ticketsThe UK’s largest marketing event takes place between the 26 – 27th June 2013 at London conference venue, Olympia.
With over 450 exhibitors addressing all things marketing, a plethora of free ‘conference’ sessions from some of the world’s largest brands, networking opportunities and learning seminars, MarketingWeekLive is a great event to attend if you have an interest in marketing.
To find out more information about the exhibitors, insight seminars, speakers and to book your tickets, click here.
2. When Advertising Goes Wrong
We found this great blog last week showing 23 unfortunate advert placements. If you fancy a laugh take a look. It just goes to show that you can design and proof adverts all you like but there are some things outside your control, like where and how the adverts are placed. Our particular favourite is the billboard promoting heart disease awareness, placed alongside a Burger King ad promoting 2 ‘Croissanwiches’ for $3!
To see all the images, click here. Let us know which is your favourite.
3. Page Load Speed Insights – Improve your Website’s SEO
When attempting to improve your website’s SEO credentials it is easy to overlook an increasingly important factor – PageLoad speed.
A webpage that loads quickly offers an improved user experience. Faster page loads are shown to decrease bounce rates and improve conversion rates. As such, they are also thought to be a factor the search engines use when assessing your website and then positioning it in search results.
To find out how you can improve the page load speeds on your website, the nice people at Google have provided a free tool, PageSpeed Insights, to assess the pages on your site and suggest ways of improving the page speed.
Take a look to see how your site performs and how you can improve it.
1. The top 100 most valuable global brands of 2013
The annual BrandZ most valuable global brands list has been released and Apple keeps hold of the top spot for another year.
According to Millward Brown Optimor, the BrandZ list compilers, the Apple brand is worth an eye-watering $185bn.
Peter Walshe, Brandz global director explains the value of a ‘brand’:
“What we see with the most popular or powerful brands is that brand lasts a lot longer, is more robust and doesn’t tend to slip as much, whereas the finances go up and down,”
The Apple brand is ahead of its nearest competitor, Google, by $70bn dollars, demonstrating that despite its recent share price decline, Apple’s brand loyalty still stands it in good stead.
When two corporate giants like Microsoft and Google decide to battle it out, the odds are it is going to get nasty. This time it is Microsoft’s turn, in the form of a cutting parody of Chrome’s ‘Now. Everywhere.’ Ad.
The video is the latest iteration of Microsoft’s ‘Scroogled’ campaign, designed to highlight the commercialisation of our data by Google, for its own profits.
It is speculated that the video was only ever designed to be seen internally at Microsoft. You can decide for yourself.
Whichever way you decide to view it, it all feels a little bit like sour grapes from Microsoft. For so long the industry bully, Microsoft has not been having it all its own way of late, whilst Google continues to go from strength to strength. Perhaps instead of spending time coming up with videos attacking other companies, Microsoft should focus its resources on creating an operating system people actually want to use!
3. Mobile payments apps to improve customer service
If you are a small business and would like to take credit / debit card payments but don’t want the hassle of setting up card machines and dedicated lines etc. then these handy little apps are for you.
Not over from the US yet, Square is one of the market leaders. It is an app designed for iOS and Android mobile devices, which allows users with the simple addition of a free card reader, to take card payments via their phone or tablet.
Its rival, Intuit, has crossed the pond and offers a very similar experience, except provides a streamlined card reader, with a chip and pin keypad, for users to take card payments.
Whichever app you go for, adding the facility to take card payments to your organisation is a great way of improving your customer experience, making it easier for customers to pay for your services and products.
https://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/titbits.jpg640960adminhttps://www.tlc-business.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/logooptimised.pngadmin2015-08-10 00:00:002018-05-11 15:13:07#MarketingTitbits - Top 100 Global Brands, Microsoft vs. Google and Mobile Payment Apps
Over the past few years, there have been several changes to Google’s SEO algorithms. It feels as if as soon as companies start to master search engine optimisation, Google decides to move the goal posts. This can be frustrating for businesses; however, quite rightly in our opinion, each evolution of search is driven by improving the experience for the end-user, so it is important for companies to get their SEO strategy right, in order to make the most of their website.
With the SEO goal posts constantly moving, knowing how to improve the page rankings and performance of your website is often easier said than done. With this in mind, over the next few months, we will provide you with a series of blogs to help you demystify SEO and improve the visibility of your website.
Creating content for your website isn’t about embedding as many key terms and phrases on your site as possible. Google can distinguish between content that adds real value and content that has been posted solely for SEO purposes.
Use keywords, headers and page titles to support your text:
Quality content is the key! Most end-users aren’t looking to read long, academic papers; instead, they’re skimming the text, looking for what they need. Search engines do a similar job when indexing your site. Include keywords in the page title, headers and toward the top of the content. By doing this you are giving your website the best opportunity to be placed higher in search engines for those terms. Don’t be tempted to bombard your readers with links or bury the answers to their questions underneath vast swathes of ‘fluffy’ text that adds nothing to the reader’s experience or knowledge.
Write for your audience, not the search engines:
It is important to include good content that has been written for your end-user and not for a search engine. Before you can create great content for your website, you have to understand who your target audience is. Who are you talking to? Who is most likely to buy your product or service or religiously read your blog? If your target audience is a group of engineers, the content you create and the tone you use is going to be different than if you were targeting the over 50s looking for information on pensions and investments.
The frequency of your content matters:
Uploading one blog every few months isn’t going to generate the results you desire, but producing content with value on a regular basis is! Being a marketing company ourselves, it is extremely important for us to practice what we preach. During the busy Christmas period, we didn’t upload as many blogs and top tips on to our website as we would usually. This had a knock on effect on our search engine rankings. By increasing the frequency and quality of our content, we have experienced firsthand the positive impact on search engine rankings afforded by regular quality content updates.
Schedule and plan your content:
In order to help your online marketing stay on track and make the most of what good quality content can do for your website, we would recommend creating an editorial calendar to help support your marketing plan. Strategically plan out the order, topic and timing for each blog or news piece. Don’t feel like you have to be the sole source of content for your website. Introduce different voices within the organisation and get employees involved in providing fresh content. You might be surprised by how much good quality content is available right at your fingertips.
Don’t forget to measure your website analytics:
Once you have started the process of making your content more search-engine friendly, it is important that you measure your results. Tools like Google Analytics will allow you to review traffic levels and identify any particular trends associated with the content on your site.
Stay tuned for more top tips to help you improve the visibility of your website.
Last month, we provided you with a series of top tips to help you improve the visibility of your website, by uploading regular, quality content. To help you make the most of your website, the second part of our ‘demystifying SEO’ blog delves into the world of video and viral marketing.
If executed correctly, video content can be extremely beneficial when trying to improve your organisation’s position online. The average internet user views 32.2 videos a month and it’s been shown that videos can increase the number of website visits by 55%. It has also been predicted that by 2014, 90% of website traffic will be video. With numbers that significant, what business would argue against the incredible opportunity video can offer your organisation?
In order to use video to boost your online presence, it is important to consider the following points.
1. Outline your SEO goals, strategy and content:
With SEO and video, it’s important to first establish what you want to achieve. Do you want to increase your social presence? Generate lots of views on YouTube, or perhaps create more tailored traffic to your website? Designing and making the video is the simple part, but companies often fail when it comes to defining goals and putting an online strategy in place. Goals can include:
Improving website traffic as a whole or for specific pages
Generating social shares and creating a viral campaign
Increase sales from your website
Building your brand awareness online
In addition to this, you will need to decide what type of video you want to produce. Over 80% of the videos that list in Google’s search results are informational. Pushy sales videos do not tend to rank as well within Google, so it is important that you produce content that appeals to your target market and adds value. Video content can include.
Client testimonials
Introducing your organisation and team
Product demonstrations
Top industry tips
Fun viral video about your organisation
2. Include a title and description within your videos:
Search engines look at the information you have provided about the video and compare it with the context of the page that the video is on. If the page title and the video title match up, there is more of a chance that you will get a higher ranking on Google. It is also very important to make your video’s title specific; you are much more likely to rank higher when the keyword is not too general.
3. Take into account the length of your video – less is more
Most people would rather spend two minutes watching an interesting video than spend ten minutes reading an article. Statistics show that people tend to engage with online videos for 2.5 minutes on average, so when making your video, try not to make it too long in order to keep you audience interested.
4. Duplicate your video across several platforms.
To reap the SEO benefits associated with video, you will need to include your content on several different platforms. There are numerous outlets for you to take advantage of, the most important being YouTube. Having recently celebrated their 8th birthday, YouTube is now one of the most viewed websites in the world, generating billions of hits. Once you have created a YouTube channel, you can then embed the video on to your website and include it on social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to increase the exposure and linking potential.
5. Create a Video Sitemap
Once you have included the video on your website, you will need to create a Video Sitemap. Currently search engines can’t look at what is in the video, so the Video Sitemap tells the search engine everything it needs to know about the content, for example, the title, description and duration.
6. Measure the success of your video with Google Analytics:
Like any other marketing activity, you will need to measure your results. Free tools such as Google Analytics will help you establish if your video content has increased the level of traffic to your website. You could produce a couple of different videos and compare the results, this will determine the type of content that your audience responds the best to.
Even though video isn’t new to the web, many businesses fail to make the best use of tools that will take their video and SEO results to the next level. If you are going to invest time and money in boosting your SEO, start considering video in your marketing mix.
Not only is video a great way to share your story, it’s also an effective way to build links back to your site and if you target your audience in an exciting, unique way, maybe your video will even go viral. This is where the major search engine optimisation benefit comes into play.
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