Twitter.com seems to be hogging all the social networking and web 2.0 news these days. Every other day, one reads/hears something or the other about Twitter in the newspaper or on TV. Ashton Kutcher and Oprah have taken Twitter to the mainstream. Oprah has already interviewed the Twitter bosses on her show and tweeted for the first time on the show. Now, she already has over a million followers who read every tweet of hers. Ashton Kutcher, the hollywood actor already has over two million followers. He is known to post witty and funny Twitter posts which everyone likes to read.
Dell computers has done over $2 million in sales from their Twitter only deals. They post special deals in their tweets. Isn't this something new? Two years back, no one would have thought of something like this. Some airlines like Jetblue have started interacting with passengers via Twitter. People who have garnered many hundred followers have started selling ad space. On the background image of their profile, any image advertisement can be displayed for a certain period. One or two companies have begun ad agencies on these lines. Twitter has been experiencing the fastest growth these days because everyone worth their salt is jumping on the bandwagon.
Many many websites have started to offer something or the other for the community of users. Some are offering custom Twitter backgrounds for a price, while some are doing it for free. There are sites offering picture uploading, url shortening, creation of polls, desktop apps, mobile apps, etc. Someone has also connected a few plants with wires, and now plants have also started tweeting. Can you believe it? The funny part is that the main website itself has no advertisements. They aren't generating any revenues, at least it looks like that. But the company is still valued around a billion dollars. It has been in the top hundred websites of the world since a long time now. Lets wait and see where the phenomenon leads us.
Visit SEO Sydney.
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
How To Boost Seo With Twitter
Of course, it's certainly no closely guarded secret that to get more web traffic to their sites, many internet marketers have been taking advantage of Web 2.0 technologies in order to boost SEO. In fact, this couldn't be more apparent than it is with blogs and social networking sites.However, in more recent times, many marketers are becoming heavily involved with Twitter. Of course, one could argue that Twitter does in fact fall into the same category as social networking, but the difference is Twitter is unique in that it's a micro-blogging service as well. If you're currently involved with internet marketing and you're also considering taking advantage of Twitter in order to boost SEO, then you'd be well advised to look at some of the problems and challenges faced by fellow marketers.
A Big Challenge Awaits New Users
One of the first things new users need to realize is, you have to start off slowly, in much the same way as you no doubt started out with other social networking sites. First and foremost, you need to become a follower of all the other Twitter members that you've become acquainted with via other networking sites. If all goes according to plan, they will return the favor as such by following you as well. As you more than likely already know, if you want to improve your rankings, you need to have as many followers as possible.
In Twitter, Shared Link Have "No-Follow" Attribute
One of the most discouraging aspects of Twitter is that when somebody clicks on your link, it has absolutely no effect on your page ranking. However, there is no need to throw in the towel because of this. Instead, you can post rewritten URL's with the necessary keywords on the link which will of course ensure they are discovered by the various search engines.
Character Limits in Twitter
Essentially, you need to pay close attention to two numbers in Twitter. The first number is 30, and this is the character limit for live links. The second number is 140 and this in turn is the overall character limit for each message. While it simply isn't possible to get around the 140 character limit, there are a few workarounds with regards to the 30 character limit for URL's.
For example, many marketers now make use of sub-domains on their sites in order to point to their longer page. For the most part, sub-domains are easy to customize for free and what's more, there's a good chance that you'll be able to squeeze in a few words within the character limit. Likewise, some savvy marketers are also using dummy blogs which have similar content, but which link to the page they are wanting visitors to see.
The Importance of Keyword Research
As many marketers can attest to, Twitter can be painfully tough if you limit yourself too severely with regards to the keywords you use. However, because Twitter has such a phenomenal page ranking, the use of keywords is vital. By doing adequate research for the ideal keywords, you'll be able to tap into a potentially endless supply of traffic.
Of course, Twitter is more beneficial to some than it is to other. This of course depends on what product or service you've chosen to promote but even if Twitter is not the ideal tool for you, you can still use it to your advantage, even if you only use it to ensure your site gets listed on the search engine results.
Get more detail! Visit SEO Services..
Friday, June 19, 2009
Social Networking Research On The Open Road
Social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter may be hitting the headlines and are certainly the in thing when it comes to keeping up to date with the daily lives of friends and celebrities. But the value of social networking as a marketing tool for many businesses remains something of a mystery.
If you believe some of the biggest fans of the blogosphere, no self respecting business executive should be without his or her personal blog or twitter to keep the world abreast of their latest ideas, products or services.
But is the investment, particularly in terms of time and effort, paid back in terms of sales or even visits to the blogger's website?
In order to try and shine some light on the issue I recently set up a little experiment to test the effectiveness of blogs and twitters as marketing tools. Admittedly not the most scientific of tests, but it did highlight some interesting trends.
Those who know me will tell you that I'm something of a fanatic when it comes to motorbikes and motorbike racing in particular. For months I had planned to travel to the Moto Grand Prix at Le Mans and decided to provide live updates of the bike trip from my mobile on both a blog and Twitter, and test the commercializing possibilities of the interested traffic to a site providing other MotoGP bike tours.
I then asked friends and contacts, via email, to approach their extended networks to attract users to the two media channels to watch the progress of the five-day trip.
To ensure a fair result, both the blog and the Twitter accounts used were brand new, therefore there was no traffic coming from historical events or profiles. In addition to the blog and Twitter, I also posted updates on my existing Facebook page, this was primarily used to give a benchmark between social media; Facebook being friends that already know me and Twitter who didn't know me previously.
On my return I looked at where the most referrals to the new blog had come from and the findings of the research threw up some interesting results.
Pouring through the statistics it demonstrated how a well constructed blog is important, Google particularly was revisiting the blog several times a day, it appeared that they were listing the content in the search results almost as soon as it went live.
But first things first- I am in dire need of finding a few more friends who are interested in bikes! The levels of interest shown by friends on Facebook only just beat that of strangers on Twitter!
More importantly, over the 5 days the blog acquired over a thousand views, of which Twitter and Facebook combined accounted for 29% of this traffic (Facebook 15% and Twitter 14%). Surprisingly the search engines generated more than twice the number of visitors- a total of 64%.
Out of these visitors 20% were interested enough to pass from the blog to the commercial site
to view other motorbike trips for the future.
Although the results of this simple test are far from conclusive, some interesting trends do seem to emerge- particular for anyone thinking of using social networking as a means to generating business.
First, both Twitter and Facebook could be good for businesses who are operating in a consumer-focussed environment- but only if they have something interesting to say!
However, in a business-to-business (B2B) situation, the advantages are not so clear cut. First many business people are too busy with their day-to-day work to follow Twitters and blogs. Equally the pace of change and having something interesting to say often becomes a hindrance to generating content for their own blogs or Twitters, or even to regularly update their Facebook pages.
What's more, a recently published study by a Harvard team revealed that just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content on the Twitter site which remains the preserve of a dedicated few, despite the hype surrounding it.
The results of my own research shows that although social media is a significant contributor to visitor attraction, search engines are still the most significant provider of visitors to blogs.
The fact that 20% of the traffic migrated from the blog, which was not an aggressive sales pitch device, to a commercial site goes to reinforce how useful a blog may prove to commercial sites, especially if it contains regularly updated theme news and information.
This will not only help the blogger to establish themselves as something of a guru in their own particular field but, more importantly boost their website's traffic and search engine ranking.
Overall the internet may by undergoing something of a social revolution but when it comes to online marketing, no one technique should be used in isolation but most significantly search engine optimization remains king!
Visit SEO Sydney for more detail.
If you believe some of the biggest fans of the blogosphere, no self respecting business executive should be without his or her personal blog or twitter to keep the world abreast of their latest ideas, products or services.
But is the investment, particularly in terms of time and effort, paid back in terms of sales or even visits to the blogger's website?
In order to try and shine some light on the issue I recently set up a little experiment to test the effectiveness of blogs and twitters as marketing tools. Admittedly not the most scientific of tests, but it did highlight some interesting trends.
Those who know me will tell you that I'm something of a fanatic when it comes to motorbikes and motorbike racing in particular. For months I had planned to travel to the Moto Grand Prix at Le Mans and decided to provide live updates of the bike trip from my mobile on both a blog and Twitter, and test the commercializing possibilities of the interested traffic to a site providing other MotoGP bike tours.
I then asked friends and contacts, via email, to approach their extended networks to attract users to the two media channels to watch the progress of the five-day trip.
To ensure a fair result, both the blog and the Twitter accounts used were brand new, therefore there was no traffic coming from historical events or profiles. In addition to the blog and Twitter, I also posted updates on my existing Facebook page, this was primarily used to give a benchmark between social media; Facebook being friends that already know me and Twitter who didn't know me previously.
On my return I looked at where the most referrals to the new blog had come from and the findings of the research threw up some interesting results.
Pouring through the statistics it demonstrated how a well constructed blog is important, Google particularly was revisiting the blog several times a day, it appeared that they were listing the content in the search results almost as soon as it went live.
But first things first- I am in dire need of finding a few more friends who are interested in bikes! The levels of interest shown by friends on Facebook only just beat that of strangers on Twitter!
More importantly, over the 5 days the blog acquired over a thousand views, of which Twitter and Facebook combined accounted for 29% of this traffic (Facebook 15% and Twitter 14%). Surprisingly the search engines generated more than twice the number of visitors- a total of 64%.
Out of these visitors 20% were interested enough to pass from the blog to the commercial site
to view other motorbike trips for the future.
Although the results of this simple test are far from conclusive, some interesting trends do seem to emerge- particular for anyone thinking of using social networking as a means to generating business.
First, both Twitter and Facebook could be good for businesses who are operating in a consumer-focussed environment- but only if they have something interesting to say!
However, in a business-to-business (B2B) situation, the advantages are not so clear cut. First many business people are too busy with their day-to-day work to follow Twitters and blogs. Equally the pace of change and having something interesting to say often becomes a hindrance to generating content for their own blogs or Twitters, or even to regularly update their Facebook pages.
What's more, a recently published study by a Harvard team revealed that just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content on the Twitter site which remains the preserve of a dedicated few, despite the hype surrounding it.
The results of my own research shows that although social media is a significant contributor to visitor attraction, search engines are still the most significant provider of visitors to blogs.
The fact that 20% of the traffic migrated from the blog, which was not an aggressive sales pitch device, to a commercial site goes to reinforce how useful a blog may prove to commercial sites, especially if it contains regularly updated theme news and information.
This will not only help the blogger to establish themselves as something of a guru in their own particular field but, more importantly boost their website's traffic and search engine ranking.
Overall the internet may by undergoing something of a social revolution but when it comes to online marketing, no one technique should be used in isolation but most significantly search engine optimization remains king!
Visit SEO Sydney for more detail.
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