SEARCH CLINIC

There are  a number of ways of using Twitter to maximise traffic and revenue for your website. As Google and Bing now count tweets, Facebook posts, and other social media activity in their search results, search engine optimisation is more important than ever.

Your profile is the starting point to any successful profile.

Firstly register an account using your most important keyword phrase. For example the Search Clinic has two Twitter accounts: http://twitter.com/searchclinic and http://twitter.com/seo_services_

Then use as many keywords as possible, because when a Twitter profile shows up in search results, Google may use the bio portion of the profile for the description.

Hashtags (#) are an easy way to implement keywords.

Marketing campaigns now create customized keywords for events and many people add keywords at the end of their tweet.

This is useful when the blog title or content you are sharing doesn’t list any relevant topic keywords.

Including hashtags that are broader and name the industry may make tweets easier to find. Additionally, naming specifics as hashtags in generic titles can also help.

Try to choose hashtags that are the most important keywords in the tweet and overall content that is being promoted. Hashtags make it easy to search by topic and will increase search result frequency and relevancy to the target audience.

Twitter had its fifth birthday yesterday- 21 st March 2011.And in it’s five years it has helped to transform the world- with it’s simple communications channel being cited by the protesters in Egypt leading to the overthrow of President Mubarak and the subsequent political reformation.

Since its first ever tweet by co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2006 (“Just setting up my twttr”) the social media website has grown to become one of the most important online marketing and communications tools of a generation – which many people claim is second only to Facebook.

It now hosts more than 1 billion tweets a week and is estimated to be worth around £6 billion.

Dr Search recounts some of the landmarks in its five year history:
* March 2006 First tweet posted by co-founder Jack Dorsey
* November 2008 Barack Obama thanks supporters via Twitter after winning the US presidential election.
* January 2009 Twitter users break news about a plane crash landing in New York’s Hudson River, with pictures.
* April 2009 Universal Pictures, Virgin Media and Gorrilaz among first brands to launch commercial services on the site.
* June 2009 Showbiz website TMZ breaks story about Michael Jackson’s death on Twitter.
* September 2010 Twitter receives more UK visits than MySpace for the first time.
* September 2010 Twitter overhauls home page design and partners with YouTube, Yahoo! and Flickr to embed content on site.
* October 2010 Dick Costolo replaces co-founder Evan Williams as CEO.
* December 2010 Twitter valued at £2.3 billion after fresh investment.
* December 2010 Twitter says more than 25 billion tweets were sent in 2010.
* January 2011 Over 40% of all Twitter posts are made by a mobile phone, says Costolo.
* February 2011 Costolo says Twitter is “already making money”.
* February 2011 Charlie Sheen becomes the quickest tweeter to reach 1 million followers (achieving this in 25 hours, 17 minutes).

AOL is to cut 900 jobs- nearly 20% of its 5,000-strong workforce, as part of a move to restructure the company in the wake of its purchase of online newspaper the Huffington Post.
AOL bought the Huffington Post last month for an astonishing £196m.

The job losses are intended to offset duplication between the two companies.

Some 200 jobs are expected to go from the company’s US content and technology divisions.

AOL said another 700 jobs would be lost in back office roles based in India, although 300 of these positions would be outsourced to firms taking over such support functions for AOL.

AOL is hoping its purchase of the popular Huffington Post will boost flagging advertising revenues.

Formerly known as America Online, AOL merged with media giant Time Warner in 2000, at the height of the dotcom bubble in what was then regarded as a huge destroyer of shareholder value

That deal is widely considered to have been a disaster and the two firms split ten years later.

At its peak AOL had a workforce of more than 20,000 employees.

The Danish Post Office is introducing The Mobile Postage service that will do away with the need for stamps on standard sized letters.
Instead, people will send a text to the post office and get back a code they write on the envelope.

Sweden’s post office said it was also considering introducing the service and is planning trials.

Danes sending a text bearing the word “PORTO” to the 1900 number will get in return a code that must be written on a letter in the place they would usually stick a stamp.

Initially only letters up to 50g in weight can bear the mobile postal code. Getting a code will cost 8 DKK (£0.92p), the standard rate for a letter, plus the usual cost of a text message. The charge for the code will be added to a mobile user’s phone bill.

Codes must be used within seven days of purchase and only on letters being posted to other addresses within Denmark.

Sweden is also reportedly considering using a similar system for standard letters as well as small parcels up to 2kg in weight.

The Search Clinic has long been warning that pay per clicks- and Google’s AdWords in particular are not your magic online marketing channel, now new research proves my caution.

Online searching has become a nearly ubiquitous online activity and Google remains the undisputed king—receiving the largest share of search ad revenue and traffic.

But an eye-tracking study by user experience research firm User Centric adds a new perspective.

Its research indicates that most search users overlook search ads almost entirely.

The findings showed organic search results were viewed 100% of the time, and participants spent an average of 14.7 and 10.7 seconds looking at organic search results on Google and Bing, respectively.

However, only 28% of participants looked at right side ads on Google, and just 21% did the same on Bing—spending around 1 second viewing all ads combined on each search engine.

To put this in perspective, searchers who viewed the left hand site navigation spent more time doing so than they did viewing ads on both search engines.
Viewing Metrics for Search Results on Google and Bing, July-Aug 2010 (% of participants and time spent (seconds))

With users spending nearly all their time viewing organic search results, Hitwise’s latest numbers give some further insight.

Bing and Yahoo!’s success rates, meaning searches that resulted in a click, are just over 81% whereas Google sits much lower at 65.6% in December 2010 and January 2011.
Although the sheer volume of searches Google handles may bring down its success rate, the difference been Google and Bing is still large enough to draw conclusions.

First, users were shown to spend the vast majority of their time looking at organic search results on both search engines, and Bing’s success rate is 16 percentage points higher than Google’s.

Therefore, even though Google has more traffic than Bing, the Microsoft search engine generates a greater share of relevant traffic per search.

Additionally, this data indicates that SEO is more essential than ever. Users have learned to overlook search ads, and they will continue to ignore such ads as they become even more search-savvy over time.

SEO will become increasingly challenging as users start to rely on search engines for different reasons.

A recent study from Forrester Research found that internet users were 22 percentage points less likely in 2010 to rely on search engines to find websites than they were in 2004.

Although this doesn’t mean people are using search engines less to find information about product types or branded goods, it does mean that they are relying on search less to find websites specifically.
Perhaps this change is because internet users are becoming more knowledgeable and do not need to rely on search to find popular sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

Also, they may be relying on social media more to find websites. No matter the reason, this data indicates that search users’ behavior is in constant flux.

As search users continue to change their behavior, marketers will need to adjust their SEO strategy to keep up.

This research was initially published on: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008270&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Telecom watchdog Ofcom is seeking to stop internet service providers from advertising unrealistic broadband speeds.
Currently most ISPs advertise services as ‘up to’ a certain speed – for instance, 10Mbps (megabits per second).

But Ofcom’s latest research finds that very few consumers actually get these headline speeds.

“There is a substantial gap between advertised speeds and the actual speeds people get in their homes,” said Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards.

“The chances of someone receiving the advertised headline speed are fairly remote,” he said.

“We would like to see clearer information provided to consumers which more accurately reflects the likely speeds they will actually receive,” he added.

Ofcom’s latest research into broadband speeds found that just 14% of customers on ‘up to’ 20Mbps services received speeds of over 12Mbps, while 58% averaged speeds of 6Mbps or less.

Cable and fibre optic services fared better, with 92% of Virgin Media customers on an ‘up to’ 50Mbps service averaging 45.6Mbps.

Its lower 10Mbps service saw average speeds of 9.6Mbps.

BT’s Fibre-to-the-Cabinet technology, which is currently available to 15% of UK homes, has an average of 31.8Mbps on the 40Mbps service.

Unrealistic broadband speeds has long been an issue for consumer groups, who say such advertising is adding to consumer confusion over net services.

The Advertising Standards Authority is also looking into the issue.

Ofcom is recommending that ISPs use Typical Speed Rates (TSR) to avoid confusing consumers.

It has set guidelines for these speeds. It recommends that ADSL services currently advertised as ‘up to’ 20Mbps (megabits per second) be changed to a TSR of between 3 and 9Mbps.

From today, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) gets powers to police the claims companies make on websites- and includes social networks.How companies talk about themselves on Twitter feeds or Facebook profiles is to be policed just like paid for adverts.

The rules cover statements on websites that can be interpreted as marketing, even if they are not in an advert.

Until now, the ASA has only been able to oversee paid-for ads online.

Since 2008, the watchdog has received more than 4,500 complaints concerning text on websites that it could do nothing about.

The ASA said that the new powers would help it tackle a growing number of complaints about the way companies sell themselves on the web.

Extending the UK advertising code to non paid for statements means that these, like paid for adverts, must be legal, decent, honest and truthful as well as not harming, misleading or offending readers.

While aimed primarily at sites using the .co.uk domain suffix, the ASA said its powers could also cover .com sites, such as Facebook, if the online space being used was under the control of a UK firm.

User-generated content, such as comments left by customers on a website, will not be covered by the extended powers.

But the ASA said that such content could be examined if a company adopted it and used positive endorsements to advertise.

To encourage firms to comply, the ASA said it would extend a name and-shame policy which will expose firms that make unsupportable claims.

Further sanctions for offenders could see non-compliant material removed from search engines. The ASA said it might also take out adverts to warn people about companies that do not comply with the code.

In anticipation of the extra work it will have to do, the ASA has expanded the number of staff in its complaints and investigations unit by 10%.

From 1 March, Britons will be able to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which has been given on new powers to regulate commercial websites.
Up to now the ASA has only been able to monitor traditional advertising- these were generally on billboards, newspapers or on television.

UK consumers will be able to make official objections about false, indecent or misleading information on the internet.

From the start of March, the ASA will be able to regulate any statement on a company’s website which could be interpreted as marketing, even if it is not a paid for advert.

These new powers will of course also cover anything that you write on social media websites like Twitter or Facebook.

The principle that marketing has to be legal, decent, honest and truthful is now going to extend to companies’ claims on their own websites.

Anyone with a website needs to have a fresh look at it, and ask themselves “am I totally happy about that?”

Certainly if you have had a claim ruled against you by the ASA, now is a very good time to put that right before 1 March.

The ASA has spent a year preparing for the change, and is expecting a large number of extra complaints.

Last year 2,500 people complained about website content, but under the old rules their objections were not admissible.

Nevertheless the ASA is expanding staff numbers by 10%, to cope with the extra workload.

The Advertising Standards Authority can be contacted at: http://www.asa.org.uk/

The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued new guidelines to consumers on staying safe online as a new survey reveals widespread fears among consumers.
Organisations are failing to keep customers’ personal details safe online, 92 per cent of people believe.

A survey from the Information Commissioner’s Office also found that three out of five people think that they have lost control of the way their personal information is collected and processed and four out of five are concerned about protecting their personal information online.

Christopher Graham, the ICO, highlighted the survey as he issued new guidelines to consumers urging people to take more care on social networking sites, to think before giving out their personal details online, and to understand what to do when things go wrong.

The relaunched 40-page ‘Personal Information Toolkit’, and accompanying online guidance, comes after Communications Minister Ed Vaizey criticised the ICO in parliament last year for “not being in the business of public relations”.

The ICO claims the new guidance will “help online users understand how to surf safely”.

It includes tips on how to protect personal details online as well as setting out people’s rights to access and correct the information that is held about them.

The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, said “It’s never been more important to protect your personal information and it’s crucial that people are thinking about how their information might be used”.

But there is a huge amount that people can do to arm themselves against misuse of data and knowing the risks really is the best way to protect yourself.

Amazon has announced that in the US it sold more e-books for its Kindle device than it sold paperback books in the last three months of 2010.
But Amazon’s profit margins were down as it spent more money on discounting, acquisitions and building new depots.

Three month net sales have passed the $10bn mark for the first time, up 36% to $12.95bn.

Three month net income came in at £262m, which was up 8% from the same period last year.

The world’s biggest online retailer’s operating margin declined to 3.7% from 5% at the end of 2009 and the company warned that it would be between 2.8% and 3.8% in the first three months of 2011.

Its recent acquisitions have included Diapers.com and the DVD mail-order and streaming business Lovefilm.

Amazon announced that in the US since the start of the year it had sold 115 e-book downloads for every 100 paperback books, even excluding its downloads of free books.

But it stressed that sales of paperback books were also growing.

“Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year,” said Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.

“So this milestone has come even sooner than we expected – and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales.”

Amazon has not said how many of its Kindle devices it has sold, but they did say that they had overtaken the final book in the Harry Potter series to become the top-selling item in Amazon’s history.

Amazon shares have risen nearly 75% from their low-point of $105.80 in July 2010.