Social Media Power Tools

More than 75% of consumers today use some form of social media in their everyday lives - if you or your business are not one of those then you might be missing out on powerful ways to communicate and be seen and heard. Peter Bowen, SEO strategist at First One On says "it's quite easy to get involved with social media applications and here are four ways to get involved and start using social media power tools".

Start a Blog

Blogs are easy to create and easy to maintain - with tools like Wordpress or Google's Blogspot they offer free weblog publishing tools for sharing text, photos and video. These easy to use tools will enable you to quickly start creating high-quality content that is relevant to your target audience.

Start a Facebook page

Facebook is one of the most popular sites in the world (along with Google). To get started, simply create a Facebook page where you can post updates, link to your blog articles, and receive feedback from your friends, clients and customers. As you post relevant content and interact with them on your Facebook page, you begin to develop powerful relationships for building business.

Post videos on YouTube

If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, a video must be worth 1,000 pictures and 1,000,000 words! Plus videos get priority in search engine results and allow you to show a little personality. Start with a company overview or a product demonstration and build your video library from there.

FirstPost Helps Business Communicate with Social Media

If you are not using social media tools like Twitter, Blogs and YouTube to get your message out, or to tell people what you are doing, then you are missing out on some exciting ways of communicating to potential customers who might never know about your services or products. Take for example the old way of getting messages out to the news media using press releases, direct mail, or newsletters - social media has actually enhanced all aspects of marketing communications.

In addition to enhancing a business’s message, Twitter provides real time opportunities to communicate on a daily basis. Blogs help to reinforce the message and provide longer lasting details with valuable links to other content and even webpages of more relevant and detailed content. And let's not forget the impact of YouTube as a powerful media tool for visually helping to get the message across to the potential customer. YouTube is also becomming an active 'search' tool to find out almost anything like 'how to'...

Since there are many businesses still struggling to embrace Twitter, First One On now offers a service called FirstPost that helps business customers to distribute their messages through social media channels. A news item, product announcement, or service offer is promoted through four different channels including, an article that is posted on a blog, distribution through a network of news sites, a web page with anchor text links, and 3 related messages tweeted over a 24-hour period with links to the customers blog and web page.

FirstPost can be purchased as a onetime event or subscribed to on a monthly basis. The premium subscription includes video clips that are posted on YouTube and optimised with proprietary knowledge based solutions developed by First One On.

To learn more about FirstPost please contact First One On

Small Business Marketing Training | The One Day Marketing Plan

Small Business Marketing Training | The One Day Marketing Plan

Google Instant Preview Changes How Search Results are Viewed

By Peter Bowen SEO Expert at First One On www.firstoneon.com

Google Instant Preview is a new feature following the September roll out of Google Instant which completes searches while they're being typed into Google's search field, with the goal of significantly reducing time spent searching.

But is the new feature really going to speed up the searcher's experience, or is it yet another complicated layer on what was once a simple and easy-to-understand search interface? Google's own research revealed that on average searchers using Google Instant Preview are 5% more likely to be satisfied with the search results they click after seeing a visual preview next to the organic listing.

Google Instant Preview essentially gives users the ability to see a website before they visit it. Google accomplishes this by taking a screenshot of every webpage in its index and giving users access to it via a magnifying glass icon that sits to the right of every search result.

When a user clicks on the magnifying glass icon, a screenshot of the webpage in question will appear to the right of the search result listing. It’s an at-a-glance view of the website page without actually having to visit the webpage.

One of the key elements to Instant Previews though is that Google sometimes highlights a section of the page where the page description occurs. Where this becomes a useful feature is if you’re trying to find information on a specific person on a page that lists dozens or hundreds of people. Instead of having to scroll through the entire page to find the person, you can just look at the Instant Preview and see where they are on the page.

"We realized early on that this kind of experience would only make sense if it was lightning fast. Not long ago simply downloading an image could take 20 or 30 seconds, and even today many websites take four or five seconds to load," Raj Krishnan, Product Manager wrote in the Google Blog. "With Google Instant Preview, we match a search query with an index of the entire web, identify the relevant parts of each webpage, stitch them together and serve the resulting preview completely customised to your search--usually in under one-tenth of a second."

SEO expert Peter Bowen at First One On says "while Google Instant Preview is designed to speed up the searching process what it actually does is to speed up the decision-making process of choosing whether or not to click on the link by previewing the visual screenshot of the resulting webpage".

"Google currently provides a lot of more data to help the searcher. At one time search engines just displayed the first two lines from a webpage under a search result, but now they include information like site links, date, cached content, jump to links and even Google Places".

Instant Previews can be helpful for many kinds of tasks. For example, say you looked at a page before and need to find it again—with a preview, you can tell if any of the results look familiar. Or perhaps you’re looking for an official website—looking for a logo and formal style and you’ll probably be able to identify it. Or maybe you’re looking for a how-to guide—it’s easy to spot a page with clear illustrations and step-by-step instructions.

From an SEO perspective the big question is how will Google Instant Preview affect our understanding of traditional SEO?, and what changes should we consider making to webpages so that they can be easily previewed in a tiny screenshot?

When a searcher performs a search and sees the search results page displayed, they do have a choice of whether or not to activate the Google Instant Preview feature by clicking on the magnifying glass icon.

“However, clicking on the magnifying glass icon is less of a commitment than clicking on a link, and you still need to convince the searcher that it is worth their time to preview a website” says Peter Bowen. “Therefore it becomes more important than ever to have a well defined and well written description of what the website page is about and it has to fit within the 150 character limit. So the Meta content description is what you will have to change and be aware of here”.

As we already know, Flash is not SEO friendly because it cannot be read by search engines and is even worse for Instant Preview as it shows as a black rectangle and cannot be rendered. The same is true for video files that also display a black rectangle in the preview, so consideration of this is important too.

It should be pointed out that because the image size of the screenshot is so small, unless the text in headings is large enough, it will be impossible to read.

So what does all this mean, well, we have to start thinking about the overall page layout and does it look god at postage stamp size or is it just a blur of text with no images to make it look appealing. This means creating pages that pay more attention to navigation, titles and headers, spacing, colours and objects, such as call-to-action buttons. Having a good looking page with relevant titles now may count as much as the content on the page itself.

It is likely that we will begin to see a lot more webpages with well defined graphics and other visual aids designed to get a searcher's attention. This makes SEO even more important than ever, make sure that your images are named with keywords and their filenames and alt text are descriptive and accurate.

Google Instant Preview is here to stay and designed to make the search selection process easier and according to Google, faster, but in the end, good SEO practices are what is going make the difference of whether or not you get discovered on the search engine results pages.
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Peter Bowen is a seasoned SEO Marketing specialist who has been involved with the internet since 1994 when he won the Entrepreneur of the Year award for developing an online internet shopping mall. He has developed software for learning and now concentrates his efforts on helping others to understand and market their products and services through effective search marketing strategies. First One On helps clients through the maze of SEO to get top rankings for their clients.

Digital Marketing Seminar Delivers Results

Busines by word of mouth (mouse) in a world where Google, Twitter and Facebook write the rules was presented yesterday 30 November by SEO expert Peter Bowen, Managing Director of First One On and Social Media evangelist Paul Clegg, Executive Director of BNI (Business Networking International).

The weather was not the best and the roads were icy but delegates arrived from far and wide battling through adverse winter driving conditions to attend this morning event. The room quickly filled even before the 9am registration and the prime seats taken.

Paul Clegg presented an in depth look at how social networking is having a profound effect on the business of marketing products and services and how decisions are being made to buy services. He noted in his address the power of Twitter and how Facebook is being used by all types of businesses to reach consumers.

With barely a moment to refill cups at the 5 minute refreshment break, delegates were then treated to an overall presentation by Peter Bowen about how to get a websites' content pages to the top of Google and why most business fails to embrace the basic steps to achieve domination for primary keywords.

Changes to the way Google presents search results was discussed and examples shown for Google Places search - emphasising the need for even greater optimisation of page content to beat out competitors for top placement.

In a followup questionnaire, delegates agreed that further hands-on seminars would be of great value in the future - stay tuned for announcements from the Bowen Clegg team of a followup day long session in February 2011.

Google Place Search changes how local searches are displayed

Google local and map have become a big influence on how people search and get results. We can demonstrate this by searching for 'accountant' and the search result returns a broad list of 'accountants' but perhaps too broad so we tend to search again by narrowing the result - adding a location to the search - 'accountant in city' and the results we see are now closer to home.

So its no surprise that Google should be taking a closer look at how we search and attempt to refine the process and provide a more meaningful search result by changing the Google Local search algorithm to make it easier for us to find what or who we are searching for locally.

Today, 8.11.2010 we see searches that reference local business and all the relevant places in that location in a new clustered visual display located in the upper right corner of a search result page. The now familiar map displays each business with red lettered pins, and links to each business. And as you scroll down the page the Google Places Map will scroll with the page so that it is always visible.

In addition to the way we see businesses displayed on Google Places a new product is being launched - Google Boost.

Google Boost is a Google AdWords product that allows local businesses to feature more prominently in local searches. It allows small to medium size businesses the ability to feature more highly in searches, and concentrates much more on the relevance and location of that business than ever before. Now searchers will see sponsored location searches appear on the Google Places map as blue lettered pins and in search results with the blue marker pin next to the content description.

Search results for the 'accountant in city' will now appear first below sponsored listings and above organic listings. What this now means is that results for a business in a location will now appear grouped with the other search results, making it much easier for searchers to find what they are looking for in a local area.

Google reports that Place Search results will begin appearing automatically when Google determines that you are looking for a 'business in location' search result.

Google also says "We’ve made results like this possible by developing technology to better understand places. With Google Place Search, we’re dynamically connecting hundreds of millions of websites with more than 50 million real-world locations. We automatically identify when sites are talking about physical places and cluster links even when they don’t provide addresses and use different names.”

Google Places is being rolled out across the world and will be available everywhere, in 40 languages once complete. Google are hoping to provide a better, local search to users, while exploiting a different revenue stream. It’s also competing with Facebook Places which was launched a while ago. Facebook was able to use very targeted advertising to provide a similar service to its users.

Google should have the advantage here though, as most Facebook advertising is passive, appearing alongside the primary content. Google’s Place Search is active and should have the advantage when it comes to conversion.

Location-based services are seen as a growing market, with Facebook Places and location aware services like Foursquare enjoying significant growth since their inception. Placing Google Place Search alongside search results, Google can hedge its bets while not detracting from its standard offering.

From an SEO perspective Peter Bowen at First One On says, "One of the downsides to this new display of results is how it will affect businesses that previously enjoyed number one placements for 'business in location' or featured well alongside the old Google Map".

"Now with the introduction of Google Place Search in results it is quite possible that businesses that had worked hard to get top placements on page one now find themselves listed on page two! Other businesses that did not even have a listing on the old Google Map are now being brought to the top of the search results based on the location of their business and business listing in Google Places".

What this means is that in the long run it will be more difficult for businesses to rank at the top of a local search unless they realise that they will have to spend much more time and effort on local search engine optimization. Businesses that had previously enjoyed a prominent position on the old Google Map without a website, which was possible before, will now find it almost impossible to maintain a listing without a well developed and locally optimised website.

Businesses will now have to have a visible and physical location if they want to be listed in a local search, in the past businesses could hide their physical location and yet still be found locally through their websites, but now consumers searching for a business in a location will be able to determine if they contact that business or not based on their location. So as Google exposes competitors in searches it is now revealing where those businesses are located – hopefully providing the consumer with more information before making a purchase decision in the long run.

First One On has been advising clients and optimising websites for some time that include not only business name in location but also business service in location.

Writing Articles that Boost Website Traffic

Articles must contain searchable keywords

When you invest time writing articles to gain traffic to your web site they must appeal to both the search engines and your potential readers. Careful consideration must be given to the article structure and content, follow these steps to write effective articles that will boost website traffic.

Step 1. Choose a topic

Your goal is to write on a topic where you solve a problem i.e.
-7 reasons to use articles to market your web site
-How to write an effective article
-How to market your articles to boost your web traffic
Sometimes it's difficult to come up with a topic that you feel inspired to write about. An easy method is to write about a problem that you have come across while working. You will have an in-depth knowledge of finite details. Then after having solved this problem you should feel comfortable writing about it knowing that this article will then help others that may have struggled with the same problem.

Step 2. Keyword research

The primary goal of article writing is to make your article as search engine friendly as possible. Within the article include searchable keywords that search engines will spider. Therefore researching appropriate keywords before weaving them into your article is crucial.

Use the keyword research tool to find which words or phrases are searched on most often. It will display up to 100 top results depending on the data available for that keyword.

Make a list of the top researched keywords and write them into your article being careful not to repeat them too often so that it won't read smoothly. You want to your article to appeal to your readers also.

Step 3. Create an outline for your article

Your article should include a headline, an introduction, the content body, a conclusion, a list of resources and a bio.

Headline - make this as catchy as possible because your reader will read this first then decide if he or she will continue reading the rest of the article. i.e.
"Writing Articles that Boost Website Traffic"

Introduction - introduce the problem you will be discussing in your article or write a short story of your experience with the problem.

Body - discuss all the solutions to the problem you outlined in the introduction. Break up each point into separate paragraphs and keep them to about 5 lines. You may want to create a sub-heading for each point. This makes it easier to read as most people will scan your article when reading it online.

Conclusion - this should include a brief summary of your article and a call for the reader to take action.

Resources – This can be a synopsis of the article with some keywords.

Bio - this is the place where you can safely include a bio about yourself and your business plus provide a link to your web site or blog. This provides an opportunity for readers to visit your website and learn more about your product or services.

Step 4. Article length

Begin writing out your article without worrying too much about the length. It's more important to let all your ideas flow out of your mind first. If you think it's getting too long split it up into two or more articles. It's often easier to write a short article of 500 words than one of 1000 words.

Most article publishers prefer articles between 500 to 800 words and will not accept articles any longer than that.

Step 5. Take a break

After you have written the article, come back to it after several hours, a day or several days. This will enable you to take a fresh look at it, find new mistakes or even want to rewrite a paragraph or two to make it flow better.

Step 6. Check your article

After writing your article, run it through a spell checker first, then read it through a few times to check for spelling mistakes the spell checker may have missed and to correct the grammar and punctuation. Make sure it flows well by clearly identifying the problem, providing a solution and concluding with an action step or steps. Get someone else to read it over. Often they will find the mistakes that you missed.

Step 7. Format your article

You will need to format your sentence length at 60-65 words per line before submitting it for publication. This will enable people to read it in their email software. If the sentence length is longer than this the article may break up making it impossible to read.

Step 8. Conclusion

If you consistently write an article every other week and submit it for publication you will soon generate a steady stream of traffic to your web site for years to come.

Please let us know if you found this article on Writing Articles that Boost Website Traffic of interest by contacting First One On