Twitter Redesign: A Picture Is Now Worth 140 Characters

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Twitter Redesign: A Picture Is Now Worth 140 Characters

Last week, Twitter rolled out its newest look across the web and new mobile apps — one that’s consistent across all platforms and allows users to add a header photo to their profile.

CEO Dick Costolo told the Today show that the revamping of its mobile apps and website is in response to Twitter users who wanted a better way to express themselves.  “What we’ve heard over and over again from our users is they want to bring more of their personality to their profile pages” he said.

The Twitter redesign allows users to get to know people better through their pictures.  Photo streams now appear below your most recent Tweets, and the new design makes it easy to swipe through users shared photos. In addition to the new design, the new Twitter includes a header photo that can be customized to reflect users’ interest, giving you the option of using two photos for your profile.

The new update is a great opportunity for businesses to visually express their brand to their Twitter followers through new pictures and videos. The added customization offers companies an opportunity for more visual branding.

Split It, a San Diego-based SEO service has managed to blend their company avatar with the header and background.  Other companies, such as Taco Bell have also embraced the change and integrated their company icon with the new background.  And don’t think Twitter forgot about those of you reluctant to change, Twitter is allowing you to keep the old design…for the time being.

Split IT San Diego Taco Bell

Reception for the redesign seems mostly positive. The real-time analysis site, Topsy, offers sentiment reporting as part of its professional analytics service. Topsy Pro reported 54,361 positive tweets versus 23,252 negative tweets for the term “new twitter” during the first 24-hours.

Thanks to the new update, Twitter is putting an end to boring profiles, and giving brands a chance to add some life and personality into their social presence.

How is your business responding to the new design?

Pitfalls of Cheap SEO & Social Media Labor

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Pitfalls of Cheap SEO & Social Media Labor

Just wanted to share a blog post that appeared last week on Search Engine Land that talks about the dangers of cheap Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Expertise.

This is something that several of our customers have already pointed out before they came to us: they experienced search engine penalties, loss in rank and being blacklisted and ultimately, loss in revenue due to reduced quality traffic.

We unashamedly agree that cheap SEO can (and will) lead to problems and this is not something to be taken lightly – when it comes SEO, you really do get what you pay for. In this case, quality far supercedes quantity!  If your business is not listed on page 1 of Google for your services or products and people are not finding your website content, then you are losing clients/customers to your competitors who have higher rankings and thus getting more traffic. This is why you need SMG Melbourne services for your business.

Have you experienced any such “pitfalls”?

Effects of Typos & Spelling Mistakes: How Poorly Written Content Affects Your Website

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Typos & Spelling Mistakes – How Poorly Written Content affects your Website

At its core, the Internet relies significantly on the written word and that is something that we should never forget. There is a tremendous amount of content posted on the Internet. Of this, the bulk is written content; and the remainder is comprised of videos and pictures and other types of material.

When people want to learn something or find a product, a service, entertainment, news or almost anything on the Internet, they will search for what they are looking for by using search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo! and others. Now, written content is one of the primary ways in which search engines categorize websites. If your website has typographical errors and bad grammar, then it is very likely that you are not going to get the Internet traffic that you are looking for. Professional term paper writers know how to cope with it.

Search engines have some flexibility when it comes to determining the differences between misspelled words and properly spelled words. But when you rely on a search engine algorithm to compensate for your bad spelling, you are asking for trouble.

Effects of Typos & Spelling Mistakes: How Poorly Written Content Affects Your Website

For example, if your pastry business wants to advertise bear claws for sale and you continually spell it “bare claws”, don’t be surprised if Google penalizes the rank of your website. Common misspellings such as “teh” instead of “the” may also cause the search engines to ding your website, resulting in less web traffic than you would like.

A website with typos, misspelled words and bad grammar turns people off and prevents them from coming back. One of the more important aspects of owning a website is to generate repeat traffic for new content. If visitors cannot use your content because it is poorly written, then it will not matter how often you update your website – they will not want to come back!

Your professionalism and credibility can also be called into question when you allow typos, spelling errors and grammar on your website. People will not take you seriously if it appears that you do not care enough to present your information in a professional manner. Remember, just because your website is not selling books does not mean that people will tolerate poor content!

If you want people to consider you as an expert in your field and utilize your website as a resource, then you need to be concerned with presenting a proper & professional image. A large part of that professional image is making sure your content is free from spelling and grammatical errors. Invest in a spell-checker and, if needed, hire a proofreader to make sure that your content is always reliable and professional.

What has been your experience, when it comes to poor content quality?

How can Pinterest Help your Business?

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How Can Pinterest Help Your Business

How can Pinterest help your Business? The concept behind Pinterest is actually very simple and that is what makes it powerful!

Pinterest is an effective social media marketing channel if utilized properly. As with many of the good ideas on the Internet, Pinterest is based on a simple form of communication that most people are already familiar with. When you sign up for a Pinterest account, you will establish your own “digital” pin board. This is just like the cork board you have by the phone or the board that you put on your refrigerator. Just like with a physical pin board, when you want to share an image, you “pin” it to your digital board: the Pinterest website refers to the process of posting images as “pinning images” on the board. It is a common form of communication that just about everyone can identify with.

As with any other social networking platform, Pinterest relies on the interaction of its members to produce interest in the website itself. Members are not allowed to post any offensive or pornographic images, and images can be reported to the administrators for evaluation. People can subscribe to (in this case, follow) other member’s walls and be notified when new “pins” are posted. Pinterest is utilizing the growing popularity of pictures and videos on the Internet and it can be the ideal place for you to grow your business and expand your brand name recognition.

The key to utilizing a social networking website properly is to understand that the average person does not want to read a commercial. When you use Pinterest to promote your business, you want to give customers the images they are looking for. As you prepare to release a new product, you can use Pinterest to post pictures of the product in action so that people can see the practical applications that the product offers. It helps people to understand why they should be excited about the product and that will drive sales. And if they are excited, they will share your “pins” with their connections and their connections with share with others and that can help you get rapid visibility on the Internet.

The advantage to using Pinterest is that people love to see pictures and Pinterest gives them just that – pictures!. It is the same principle that made YouTube so popular. When people know what to expect from a website, then they will feel more comfortable using it. So, once you get your business account set up on Pinterest, then you can start to post images that are interesting to your prospective customers. You can monitor the popularity of each image and use that information to develop additional “pins” that will get even more interest from the rest of the community. It can be a very powerful marketing tool if you take the time to learn how to really use it.

Here is a graphical representation of the tremendous rise in visitors to Pinterest between May 2011 and February 2012:

Can a Website be Over-Optimized?

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Can a Website be Over-Optimized?

Before we jump into the main topic, let us take a moment to refresh our memory. Website optimization for search engines (SEO) is an ongoing process whereby a series of activities take place over time to improve a website’s search engine rank.

Some (not all) of the activities included in website optimization include:

-building inbound links to internal pages
-creating outbound links to external pages
-creating content that has a minimum keyword density
-utilizing meta tags to get your website seen and
-putting the same content over various web pages to create a network of revenue-generating websites.

LCT Training is inalienable for those who want to serve their local clients and grow their own businesses. Prior to the Penguin Update by Google, keyword, link and meta tag optimization was an effective way to get more traffic and drive revenue. However, ever since the Penguin update, a lot of websites have been penalized for what is termed “over-optimization”.

Now, the Penguin update wants to see unique and original content on websites that is helpful to visitors. Google is more interested in the strength of your content and can penalize you for over-optimization which can include too many internal links to drive traffic and external links that are not relevant to website content. Furthermore, Google also wants to put a stop to websites repurposing the same content over multiple web pages just to generate traffic.

A lot of tactics that website owners could get away with before Penguin are now considered to be dangerous. If your site uses such tactics to gain traffic, then it is highly possible that it is over-optimized.

One of the first things that you can do to help prevent Penguin from considering your website to be over-optimized is to continually add fresh and relevant content. If you don’t have a blog on your website, add one to it and if you already have a blog, start adding new content regularly. If your website goes for too long without new content, then Google will start to drop it in the rankings.

Fresh, new content that is relevant to your website’s subject matter is very important in keeping your rank up. You will also need to remove any content that is written based solely on keyword frequency and keyword placement – content must be written for the human reader and NOT for the search engine bots and crawlers.

As you continue to re-tool your website, you will want to update internal links and you will also want to make sure that your external links are relevant and active. Analyze the anchor text that you are using for your links and make sure use natural variations so these become part of website content and that flows together and makes sense for a human reader.

The bottom line: original content for your websites will help you avoid becoming a victim of a possible website over-optimization penalty.

Have you been a victim of over-optimization?