Using Twitter

I have recently started using twitter on a regular basis. I registered with the site about 6 months ago but never really got into using it.

A few weeks ago I went back to it to see what all of the fuss was about. I started adding more friends and a few different other users such as The Guardian and the BBC. I'm sure that these sites have noticed the same thing as me, that the site is a really effective method of generating traffic.

It seems a bit geeky logging in to a website which is no more than a glorified facebook status, but it is quite addictive. Adding the news sites makes the site act like a little Google Reader giving tiny 140 character bite size nuggets of info. You can quickly catch up on what's kicking off around the world.

Twitter also allows me to keep tabs on my new SEO best friend Edward Lewis, so what more reason do I need to keep going back?

Propeller has had a facelift

It's all kicking off this week.. It seems like lots of sites are revamping for the summer.

Facebook is at it..

Metafocus have launched our new Global Internet Marketing site..

and now Propeller has done it too..

One thing I noticed though, the new Propeller logo looks very similar to the Allan & Heath X:ONE logo



One of these logos is for a world class dj mixer, the other one is for a website that isnt quite as good as digg :)

Google Alerts for SEO

One online tool I have recently started using much more is Google Alerts. It is an automated system that emails you when it discovers new online material relating to your alert criteria.

Currently there are 6 different Google Alert types available: Comprehensive, News, Web, Blogs, Video, Groups and Comprehensive. These relate to the different search options available in Google.

The alerts are designed to be set up for keywords, but I have started using them for urls. This is quite a handy trick for anyone who works on a site’s SEO. The Google alert lets you keep tabs on any developments to your web pages – It is very handy when you find out where and when people have linked to them, very important if you are building links into the site. A friend on the David Castle SEO forum also suggested that the Google Alert technique could be used to help get new web pages or new domains listed in the search results.

I currently have lots of Alerts running. I have quite a range of different types and keywords. Examples of these include: a comprehensive alert on my SEO Nottingham blog url, and several of our clients keywords such as “luxury bed and breakfast” “hellebores” or “global online marketing”

Give them a try, keep up to date with your competitors and stay up to date with changes to your keywords and urls.

Making Money on the Internet.. Update

Well.. it's been a few weeks and I am fast approaching my deadline of the end of July to come up with some big suggestions.

I have managed a few ideas. I have registered a new domain for a Beaver Castle site I am going to create. At the moment I am working on the site design and also writing some content.

The Beaver Castle domain was only registered a few weeks ago, but it is already ranking quite well in Google for its main keyword. It's quite suprising, the site is ranked in the top 10 Google results in the space of a few days, with no inbound links (the above link is the first one!) and very little content on the page - just shows the importance that the domain name plays in a website's SEO.

Overall its been a fairly productive few weeks. I have got a few more ideas in the pipeline which will hopefully work out quite well.. On a plus note, I have also made £7 selling bits and bobs on ebay :)

Oh No!

I think the internet is broken..

SEO at Metafocus

One of the biggest sites which we have built recently at Metafocus is an ecommerce site selling male grooming products called Aspetto.

The site has been live for around six months and has presented lots of interesting challenges for us with the online marketing and SEO side of things.

At Metafocus we have a wide range of consumer and business facing websites. Speaking honestly, I find it more interesting working on the consumer facing sites! I think it’s more appealing thinking about “birthday gifts for men” and “mens skincare” than say something like “potassium permanganate”.

I often find it a bit strange that while I was studying marketing at Leicester University, most of the course content related to business to consumer (B2C) rather than business to business marketing. I think that this might be why working on consumer sites feels more familiar.

When we devise an online marketing plan for a site like Aspetto there is always a big selection of sites that we can incorporate and use to our advantage. We try to use lots of different social networking sites, blogs and forums to help attract visitors to the site. This makes it more interesting for us, and also by casting our nets a little further we should also get better results.

If you think that your business needs help to grow online, or if you are interested in search engine optimisation give Metafocus a call on 0115 947 0011.

Word Up with Camino!

I have been spending time looking in the analytics for my blog this morning and made an interesting discovery.

I have had one visitor viewing my site using a browser called camino. I had never heard of it before, but after checking out their website I think I might download it when I get home.

The Camino browser is for mac OS X users and designed to be as functional and elegant as the computers it runs on. The site says that the Camino web browser is powerful, secure, and ready to meet the needs of all users while remaining simple and elegant in its design.

Sounds good! I love firefox 3, but i do find on some computers it takes a long time to boot up. It would be boring to use the same browser all the time wouldn’t it?

Hanging in there with SEO!

At Metafocus we have got a fairly wide selection of clients who are enrolled on our monthly SEO program. A full list of our clients can be found on our links page. They range from small hotels in Newark, luxury bed and breakfasts, to haulage firms and contemporary architects.

As you can imagine, with such a wide range of clients comes an extremely long list of keywords. Good keywords should be relevant to the site and also be receiving traffic in the search engines. What’s the point in optimising sites for words that people aren’t typing into Google? Contrary to what some SEO companies may say, there is no point!

For some sites there is no choice but to optimise for fairly competitive keywords. There are many reasons for this, for example often clients will insist that their sites are optimised for specific keywords, or trying to optimise the site for more long tailed or localised keywords may result in very low levels of web traffic.

One of our clients is a group of strategic management consultants in Nottingham called Watson Sessions. Their domain is quite new with having only been registered in February. They do currently rank well for localised keywords such as “marketing consultants Nottingham” and “Business consultants Nottingham” but for other less specific keywords such as “strategic management consultants”, “strategy consultants” and “business consultancy” the site does not currently rank so well.

Over time as we build more links into the site, promote the site online, and as the domain matures the website will climb up the search positions for these important keywords. At the moment it feels like we are putting a lot of effort into promoting the site online for very low rewards. We just need to be confident with what we are doing – one day the site will rank well for “executive coaching and mentoring” and “independent business advice”.

Making Money on the Internet

Tonight I have made a decision.. I have set myself a challenge: to make £500 through the internet by Christmas. I work as on online marketing executive, for a company called Metafocus, so technically you could say that so long as I dont get sacked I will be earning money through the internet. I’m not counting this.. the £500 has got to be earned in my spare time through some sort of online scheme.

I have no idea about how I am going to do it, but I know that it is a fairly realistic challenge.

Thinking about it logically I have got around 6 months to come up with an idea and then put it into action.

I think I will spend the rest of July doing some research and hopefully by the end of the month I will have some sort of workable scheme.

I will use this blog to document my progress and hopefully share information to help you out too. Fingers crossed anyway!

If all things go to plan, then hopefully I wont end up selling my imac on ebay the week before Christmas!

Russian Classes with Globus Worldwide

One of the Metafocus SEO clients, Globus Worldwide is a modern and friendly Russian language school.

Globus offer a wide range of Russian language courses. For anyone who is thinking about moving to Russia or plans to spend long periods over there, Globus give people the opportunity to study Russian in Russia. This allows students to also learn about Russian culture and also interact with Russian people.

Currently, Globus provide Russian language tuition in Moscow and St Petersburg. If you would like to learn Russian in Russia, details on the Globus Russian classes can be found on their website here.

Don’t be put off applying! Globus offer a very wide range of programs including basic Russian language, corporate Russian courses, and intensive Russian courses.

Photoshop Disasters

This is kind of linked to yesterdays blog post about image optimisation!

I have started reading a new blog, recommended by Jon Winstanley! It's called Photoshop disasters and features loads of pics found on the web or on print material that have been photoshopped.. errm.. badly!

There are loads of funny ones looking through the achieves!