SEO Web Tips is a regularly updated blog providing search engine optimization tips, tricks and tutorials. We hope you will find many useful web design and development ideas here as well. Thanks for dropping by and please consider subscribing to our blog feed or better subscribing by email for daily updates. More »
The globe’s best organizations understand and actively use social media to drive holistic marketing efforts and reach consumers who are participating in social media, according to a new survey by Aberdeen Research and Visible Technologies.
The survey found that the most successful organizations have tools and strategies in place to help drive marketing return on investment (ROI) by listening and learning from customers.
The report found that 68 percent of the companies gauged Best-in-Class have a process for monitoring social media. However, only a third of “average” companies and fewer than one in five of “laggard” organizations have a monitoring process in place.
The survey also looked at the potential of social media monitoring tools and platforms. Fewer than half of Best-in -Class respondents indicated they use tools and platforms to strengthen their social media monitoring process, and only 40 percent had defined metrics for measuring social monitoring effectiveness.
A fifth of people look for ways to find out what an advertiser has to offer via its social networking profile, according to a new study conducted by MySpace and digital agency Jam.
“MySpace has a rich history in creating innovative and relevant advertising solutions for brands, we hope that with this research we can further develop that dialogue and help brands to maximize the return on their social media investment,” said Nick Reid, head of sales at MySpace UK.
The study examined users engagement levels, finding that 34 percent of user have communicated with brands via instant messaging and 24 percent have texted advertisers details to others. The survey found that chat rooms and blogs were also important types of communication for advertisers, with positive feedback spreading fast by consumers word of mouth.
“This research proves that consumers actually do want to interact with brands in social media, and have no qualms about passing branded content onto friends, as long as it’s executed with them in mind,” said Amy Kean, senior PR and marketing manager at IAB UK.
“It’s important not to make the assumption that people will automatically engage with you online, even if you’re a well love brand- give them something interesting to read or play with, and even offer them stuff for free if you want t to get people talking about you in a positive way.”
U.S. mobile advertising revenues are on track to grow to $3.1 billion in 2013, form $160 million in 2008, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 81.2 percent, according to a new report from the Kelsey Group.
During the same period, the firm forecasts mobile local search advertising revenues will increase from $20 million to $3.1 billion, a CAGR of 130.5 percent.
“As mobile data consumption rises, we expect local marketing to be a big winner,” said Michael Boland, program director, Mobile Local Media (MLM), The Kelsey Group.
“There is a strong correlation between local search and the mobile use case, which will cause a good portion of the ongoing mobile application boom to focus on local.”
The percentage of mobile searches that have local intent will increase from 28 percent in 2008 to 35 percent in 2013.
Currently there are 54.5 million mobile Internet users in the United States, representing 25 percent of online users.
“We’ve been covering the mobile local space for some time within our Interactive Local Media practice,” said Neal Polachek, chief executive officer, The Kelsey Group. “The trend lines for usage, revenue and application development indicate a turning point that compels us to devote more resources and deepen our coverage of this market segment.”
If you are thinking about making some changes to your Website, but worry about the risks involved then you should checkout Google’s Website Optimizer.
Google Website Optimizer is a free testing platform and optimization tool that allows you to try out different variations of your sites content simultaneously.
Incoming traffic to you site is automatically divided so each variation of a Web page you want to test receives the same amount of visitors. Website Optimizer then determines via tracking which Web page is the best at generating conversions. The best thing about it is it’s available for free.
Google offers a number of reasons to use its Website Optimizer. It says it’s possible to increase conversions and receive a higher return on investment while still maintaining the same amount of visitors.
The Website Optimizer avoids the issue of having to guess what works best on your site by providing practical data, allowing you to make better decisions to improve your site.
It also can improve landing pages via automated testing making it easy to do changes that improve your Web pages.
Google says the Website Optimizer is easy to use and if you have what you want to test prepared you can set it up in less than 10 minutes.
Google also has launched a Google Website Optimizer channel on YouTube. It offers a number of helpful videos for testing and optimizing your Website.
Google offers a free service in its Local Business Center that allows businesses to add their listing to Google Maps.
When potential customers search Maps for local information they will find your business with your address, hours of operation, and coupons to print out. Businesses don’t need a Web site to add their listing to Google Maps.
The Local Business Center allows businesses to edit the content of their existing listing, or add a brand new listing to Google’s local database.
Here’s how to add your business listing:
Visit the Local Business Center.
If you already have a Google Account, sign in with your email and password.
If you don’t have a Google Account, click Sign up for an account now.
Follow the instructions to create a listing.
Google says to remember these points:
The street address you enter will be shown in the Google Maps search results.
If you already have an AdWords login address and password, you can use it to log in to the Local Business Center.
Once you’ve submitted your business information, you’ll need to verify the listing before it goes live. You can verify using a touch-tone phone, SMS, or a PIN that will be sent via regular mail to your business address.
Once the listing is verified, your information will normally appear in our results shortly after it’s verified.
You must be able to receive regular mail at your business address if you are unable to verify by phone or SMS. A post office box can be used to register.
The address you enter in the Google Local Business Center will be the address to which your PIN mailer is sent, and it will also be the address displayed in Google Maps results.
Editing your business listing using the edit link won’t prevent others from changing your business information.
Once you verify your listing with a PIN, only you will be able to edit the information displayed about your business through your Local Business Center Account.
Yahoo has announced it is testing a new note taking application built into to Yahoo Search that automatically helps users save Web sites they visit along with other information while they search.
The new feature is called Search Pad but is not yet available to all users. Search Pad helps users collect, edit, organize, save, print and email notes for immediate or future use.
Yahoo says Search Pad benefits users by automatically creating note documents, saving visited search results without having to use other applications such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs as you search.
Users who want to view their notes can click on the Search Pad bar located in the upper right hand side of the Yahoo Search Results page near the Yahoo logo.
For users who are concerned about privacy Yahoo says the Search Pad function can be turned off temporarily or permanently disabled. To turn off Search Pad temporarily users can click on the drop down menu in the application. Users can turn it back on by clicking on the Search Pad bar.
To permanently turn off Search Pad users can go to the Enable/Disable control in the main Search Preferences in the Options drop down menu at the top of the Search Results page.
Yahoo says it plans on releasing Search Pad to the public in the next few months and in the meantime the company is receiving users feedback from a random percentage of people who have access to the tool in order to workout any bugs.
