The best tweets from @SusanHallam @ksaxoninternet and @wayneb77 for June:

1. Arts participation on the Internet: excellent report. Don’t use the horrible Flash version! Here’s PDF http://bit.ly/9RHKTl
2. All inbound links are not created equal: 10 ways to assess the value a link. http://bit.ly/a9fzuy
3. The interaction between SEO & Infographics: very interesting: http://bit.ly/9kKlQv #seo #infographics
4. Domain name scam: A company called tldschina.com is sending out threatening “dispute” emails. Don’t be fooled! #scam
5. Excellent overview of AdWords Quality Score http://bit.ly/a7e3bw. Thanks to @redfly
6. May 2010: Social networks get more traffic than search engines in the UK. http://bit.ly/9Y0vT3
7. RT @AshleyFriedlein: Unilever Says Goodbye to Social Media – http://www.audiencemachine.com/tag/jack-neff/
8. Update: SEOMoz’s Beginners Guide to Seach Engine Optimisation (PDF) http://bit.ly/9dmKik
9. A great Google help article about websites for multiple countries and multiple languages: http://goo.gl/ukLV RT @mattcutts:
10. 60 speakers in 60 minutes: the shortest Digital Marketing Conference Ever. 6 July @ 11pm, so sign up for MP3! http://bit.ly/cJaqKC
11. @mrmattdavies Protecting your copyright on the web: how stop them stealing your content http://bit.ly/bnFrOs
    
12. Does Google think Permission Based Marketing = Low Quality Landing Pages? : http://bit.ly/b5EzAd via @DaveChaffey RT @AndrewGirdwood
13. American Express are offering search marketing services in the USA . Don’t leave home without it….? http://bit.ly/c6KDdz
14. Informative social media infographics thanks to @econsultancy http://bit.ly/aHhJq0
15. I’m loving the new version of @Tweetdeck: not just scheduled updates, but also global filters to get rid of the junk! http://bit.ly/bOuyj3
    
16. RT @leeodden: 10 Fun Facts You Didn’t Know About Google http://tprk.us/9efqER
17. What’s the best time to send a tweet? Try scheduling your Tweets using Tweetdeck http://bit.ly/beXuYV.
18. Who wants to work when you can only think of the #WorldCup ? Google makes it easy: http://bit.ly/GoogleWorldCup
19. Want to know how well your Adwords perform compared to your competitors’ campaigns? New AdWords tool. http://bit.ly/cfYYOg
20. RT @GoogleRetail: Mobile searches represent 8-10% of all search queries in 2010 but < 2% of paid search spend. http://ow.ly/1ZYFE
21. Must read: How to measure and analyse long tail searches by @patrickaltoft. Very practical guide. http://bit.ly/9mEQDw
22. Chris Brogan’s “50 Power Twitter Tips” (he also wrote “50 Ideas for using Twitter for Business”) http://bit.ly/dloSJZ
23. Google May-Day update: five tips for e-commerce sites http://bit.ly/dsAv6p (RT @Econsultancy
24. Google Update: Mayday algorithimic change impacts on longtail search rankings: http://bit.ly/b0oqyl
25. Five Keyword research ideas: http://bit.ly/9roAWR
26. If you didn’t find Google’s Caffeine diagram helpful, then @VanessaFox review will clarify: http://selnd.com/9P999F
27. Want to keep an eye on competitors? LinkedIn offers new “Folllow” option to monitor company updates. http://bit.ly/c20SSL
28. It’s week 2 of Wimbledon, so I’ve looked at twitter tips you can pick up from tennis stars http://bit.ly/awusz7
29. Woop! RT @jamesmacintosh: The top UK marketing weblogs list is up after a protracted absence… http://bit.ly/duHgWS. Nice one @Econsultancy
30. RT @mattcutts: A good move by Facebook to bring their robots.txt and related policies into line with internet standards: http://goo.gl/cySz
31. RT @thetafferboy: Google suggests I try waffles. Er.. Wut? http://twitpic.com/218dyd Because waffles make everything better?
32. Agreed: RT @lesanto“One of the best uses for micro-blogging is to tweet (or follow tweets) from a live event.” Oh yes! (by @guykawasaki)
33. I like this RT @simonhowland: Searching for ‘Bing it’ in #Google has an unusual “Did you mean”…
34. Advice on universal search optimisation from our Wayne – @wayneb77 http://bit.ly/9D2BEm
35. Bit slow on the uptake, but I love this FIFA vs Bavaria ambush marketing story http://bit.ly/cYlpi7
36. Not a surprise, but interesting all the same RT @Econsultancy: World Cup hits ad impressions http://bit.ly/9IjmqC
37. Pixar buys the 1st Twitter trending topic.. thoughts anyone? http://tcrn.ch/aGr2jQ
38. Twitter tips from @CeilaLacy (warning, do not read if you’re hungry!) http://bit.ly/cXNqwZ
39. Want to win the world cup brand wars? Be innovative http://bit.ly/cuD9iL via @econsultancy
40. mass engagement and ways to promote your #blog http://bit.ly/ao4qi0 #seo #internet marketing
41. a great guide to stumbleupon over at viperchill http://bit.ly/c9ADNS
42. how google works – a superb infographic to help you understand google! http://bit.ly/9AJ7Yg #google #seo #internet
43. Utilising Link Bait As Part Of Your Inbound Linking Strategy http://bit.ly/9TqROC #seo #socialmedia #linkbait
44. RT @seosmarty: RT @sejournal Google Meta Description Usage Clarified? http://bit.ly/9sc9fY by @AlanBleiweiss
45. RT @seosmarty: RT @sejournal The Power of Social Proof http://bit.ly/bj6TP4 by @garrettpierson
46. RT @JackNguyenCom: How To Optimize Your Videos On YouTube + 10 More Video Sites For Maximum Exposure http://bit.ly/bzDRgS
47. my guest post over at ‘link assistant’ on universal search http://bit.ly/b4pevK #seo #social media
48. #matt #cutts movie marathon over at #seomoz http://bit.ly/a05n2N
49. my guest post over at ‘online marketing blog’ http://bit.ly/a9oHAP #seo #social media #youtube optimisation
50. RT @IanLockwood: Social conversations count as links – social media becomes “real” SEO, proof from eConsultancy: http://bit.ly/aVn9nY
51. #google vs bing ranking elements…appears they are quite similar…note section on alt tags #seo http://bit.ly/9K3VyD
52. article on the #google #reasonable #surfer patent and how it may affect your links http://selnd.com/aclNj4
53. great article on quotes from #google engineers and what they could mean http://bit.ly/9ESLHq
54. is google’s new busy background page annoying you? learn how to turn it off http://bit.ly/bkjNFX
55. i4u.com tests the speed of Google Caffeine with pretty impressive results… http://bit.ly/aq7VKT
56. #randfishkin and #mattcutts – great interview from #seomoz http://bit.ly/b3nu51

Would you like a business grant that you can use towards a private training/coaching session with me to develop your Internet marketing skills?

Small business owners/managers are eligible for a grant of up to £1000 towards the cost of business training and development designed to develop their strategic skills to drive their company forward.

Take advantage of this grant funding from Business Link whilst it’s available, and as always the case, when the money is gone, the money is gone!

I’m able to develop a training programme designed for your specific needs, meaning we can skip over the bits you know already, and focus on what you really need to know to make your business more competitive on the Internet:

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaigns
• Social Media Marketing campaigns:  Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogging
• Web design reviews
• Google AdWords pay per click (PPC) advertising
• Google Analytics and web metrics
• Improving Conversions
• E Commerce
• Email marketing
• International Web Marketing

One grant is available per organisation of up to a maximum of £1,000.  The first £500 is 100% grant funded, with an additional £500 available for you to match at 50%, for a total grant value of £1000.

Both business, public sector and charitable organisations with between 5 to 249 employees are eligible to apply. Organisations who accessed previous Leadership and Management funding initiatives from the LSC are not eligible. Funding is made available for the development of a senior manager or key decision maker.

Our training and consultancy services are a approved by Business Link in both the East Midlands and West Midland, and our training courses rated amongst the top three in the country.

Contact us to discuss your training requirements and learn more about how you can apply for a grant.

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Link building is crucial to any SEO campaign but it is also the most time consuming and frustrating. One of the best ways to get inbound links is from blogs that are in the same niche as your business and these offer some great benefits:

• Solid inbound links often within the body copy of the text on the blog
• They help your business reach out to a new audience
• Blogs can drive new, relevant traffic to your site
• It may lead to more exposure and natural links through social media sites like StumbleUpon, delicious and digg.

Like a lot of SEO techniques the key to success in link building with blogs is building relationships. Before this can be done you need to identify influential bloggers that write about topics that are related to your business.

Finding influential bloggers

There  are a number of ways of finding influential bloggers within your niche and these are some of the techniques I use:

• Go over to Google and search for the blogs that are using similar keywords to you. The blogs don’t have to be an exact match to your business – be creative and look for blogs that have similar ideas and concepts to your business.

• Make a list of the ones that you like the most – obviously the number of blogs yo0u choose will all be based on how much time you can give to the project. Set up a an Excel spreadsheet with the name of the blog and then it is time to do your research.

• Check the Page Rank of each blog – this isn’t the greatest way of measuring the popularity of the blogs but it is a good starter for ten. Remember the more trusted the blog the more link juice will be passed down to your site if they link to you.

• Run each blog through the Hubspot Blog Grader

• This is a great way to find out the quality of the blogs you are researching and it will show statistics like traffic, authority, frequency of posts and blog engagement. Pay particular interest to the traffic the blog is getting and blog engagement (twitter mentions, facebook likes and comments) as this will help you build traffic to the site as well.

Through some basic research you should now have found a number of blogs that you will want to get a link from – for both SEO purposes and for exposure of your business. It is now time for you to get the link and this is the difficult bit! As the title of this post suggest you have to build a relationship with the blogger in order to become successful in getting those killer links.

Building relationships with bloggers

• Most bloggers have Twitter accounts so begin by following them – everyone like to see their numbers of followers go up!

• Retweet their Tweets and comment on their Tweets. Don’t overdo this as you may come of as a bit of stalker let it develop over time so they start to recognise you. Tweet the occasional link to one of their posts.

• Comment on their blog posts saying how much you enjoy them. Make sure you have read the posts and comment accordingly.

• Link to the posts that interest you the most. Link from a post on your site or blog that is relevant to something they have written about.

• Locate the blogs that they post on and post a few comments there as well.

• If they are active on Linkedin and Facebook leave comments there as well.

• Connect with them on mybloglog.

• After a while you can send them an email asking a question or making a comment. If they recognise you this could lead to a few emails back and forth – and if you haven’t pushed it too hard you could possibly ask about the possibility of them writing a post about your fantastic business or product.

If you put the time and effort into building relationships for your links you will find you suffer less rejection. Bloggers are more likely to link to you if you have been participating in the community.

They key to success in getting links from bloggers in to give and then give some more and only ask for that link or review when the time feels right.

Follow these links for more information on linkbuilding:

Updating your Inbound Linking Strategy

How To Write Link Bait In Five Easy Steps

+++Wayne Barker+++

People across the county are going crazy for the World Cup, but I’ve always been more of a Wimbledon girl myself. This year there’s a new side to the game (and no, I don’t mean the record-breking marathon match) – growing numbers of tennis stars are on Twitter.

Top players like Andy Murray, Serena Williams and Andy Roddick are tweeting their thoughts and giving followers the inside scoop on life as a sporting star, but is there anything you can learn from them?

Your Personal Brand Is Important

Sports stars of any kind live or die on the success of their personal brand, relying on their reputation to bring in lucrative sponsorship deals.  Twitter is another way for them to maintain an active profile and build their personal brand.

The success or failure of your company is unlikely to depend on your personal brand in the same way.  But if you’re a small business owner, or plan to tweet on behalf of your company, you do need to think carefully about how you are going to present yourself on Twitter.

Your Company Brand Is Important Too

I ran a quick search to find out if Roger Federer is on Twitter.  I found this profile:

Aside from the lack of tweets, this Twitter profile failed to impress me or convince me of its authenticity.

Why is that?

Federer is known for his slick sense of style, the standard Twitter background is not what I’d expect from him.  It may just be that he never got the hang of this particular social networking tool, but who knows?

The lesson for all you business people is that you need to reflect your brand on your Twitter page if you’re representing your company.  Create a branded background, use your bio, and keep sending out relevant tweets containing company news, industry news and interesting things to do with your field of expertise.

You Need to Network

Even tennis players network – tweeting to their fans and other tennis stars.  @andy_murray may have over 160,000 followers, but that doesn’t stop him from responding to fans, bigging up his bro @jamie_murray and running competitions to keep his followers happy.  Similarly @andyroddick with over 280,000 followers regularly retweets content and sends messages to his fellow tennis players.

Twitter is a social network, if you’re going to get on board and start using it you must connect with your peers, colleagues and customers.  It’s a great way to promote yourself, but without those connections you’re shouting in an empty room.

More than that, by engaging on Twitter you establish trust and build your credibility.  If the Federer profile had a few messages to and from other players I’d have been more willing to believe it was genuine.  And when you’re working with social networks people have to believe in you.

So there’s just a few tips you can pick up by following the world’s top tennis players – have you got any great advice of your own?

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Katie Saxon

There are lots of sources of information about using social media – top tips, how to guides, etc..  But I’ve got one simple piece of advice to help you with your social media strategy.

Be consistent.

Be the same person on your Twitter profile as you are on your website.  Present the same brand on Facebook that you show in your corporate literature.  Build upon the same key messages time and time again.

Yes, there will be differences in the way you approach each marketing medium.  But think about it the same way you would a real-life business setting.  You may be more relaxed and informal when attending a social networking event, but you are still representing the same company as you do when presenting reports to your investors.

An example that I was shown at the SMX Conference in London demonstrates this beautifully.  You’ve all heard of Lady Gaga?  Her most recent video was viewed 30,458,631 times on YouTube and she is currently one of the top selling musicians in the UK, possibly the world.

How about the band OK Go!?  They released a quirky video has had 2,818,090 views on YouTube – an impressive social media success.  And yet, they have just been dropped by their record company.  No one knew who they were outside of their YouTube video because their branding and messages weren’t consistent with the rest of their marketing strategy.

Lady Gaga on the other hand looks and acts the same in her videos, on stage, in magazines…  People remember who she is and what she does, and every time they see her that brand is reinforced.  Her success isn’t built on a one-off concept for some juicy linkbait.

A more business-focused example is the friendly brand Innocent that just wants to help us to get our five a day (by buying their products of course).  I can sum up their core message – “We make being healthy easy peasy” – without thinking too hard.  That’s because every advert, piece of packaging and digital communication tells me this using the same tone of voice, halo logo and repetitive wording.

So before you start creating YouTube videos, sending out tweets or building a Facebook community ask yourself what you are saying about your company and your brand.  And make sure that you are being consistent.

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Katie Saxon

If  you missed The Internet Conference 2010 then you missed one amazing day.  Our expert speakers shared a huge amount of knowledge, and feedback from the delegates says it was a great opportunity to network and connect with other businesses using the Internet.  We will be organising another event next year, even bigger and even better, so watch this space!

In the meantime, our speakers have kindly agreed to share their slides with you:

What’s New With Google

Susan Hallam:  Hallam Communications Ltd

Getting it Wrong:  Change and Measurement on the Internet

Charles Arthur: The Guardian

Essentials of Search Engine Optimisation

Ian Lockwood:  Ian Lockwood Digital Consultancy

Improving the Ecommerce User Experience

Linkbait – an easy way to get inbound links rolling in, right?  But wait, you followed my How to Write Great Linkbait in 5 Easy Steps guide to the letter, and you haven’t seen your inbound links increasing yet.  What’s gone wrong?

You’ve been waiting for visitors to come to you, that’s what.  If you want your linkbait to be a success you need to get out and promote it, and here’s my 3 step Social Media plan of how to do it:

1. Encourage Social Bookmarking

Start off by adding bookmarking buttons to your pages, making it easy for visitors to bookmark your linkbait.  Here are a few examples I’m sure you’ve seen before:

These are simple buttons that encourage readers to share your linkbait through their social network of choice.  By adding bookmarking buttons, not only are you making it easy for your visitors to share your content with everyone they know, but you’re also reminding them that they should.

There are a number of different services around that offering bookmarking buttons.  You can get buttons just for Twitter and Digg, or a more generic share button, like addtoany.  A service called AddThis offers a highly customisable share button that works across many different CMS, blogging platforms, email providers and even collects analytics data on how often your page is shared.

Whatever button you go for, remember it needs to be visible, alongside or just below the headline is often a good place for a bookmarking button.

2. Use Social Bookmarking

At the same time, create a few bookmarks of your own using sites like Delicious, Digg and StumbleUpon.  These sites are easy to use and normally let you install a toolbar so that when you’re on a page you like (e.g. your lovely linkbait) you can just click and save.

NB: Always add tags and a review, some users subscribe to these and will be sent your page without any extra work from you.

Don’t forget that it’s called social bookmarking for a reason.  If you’re going to be really successful and get loads of link love coming in you need to really engage with these sites.

Build your profile by subscribing to relevant tags and connecting with other users who share your interests.  Gain credibility by engaging with the voting systems (but don’t only vote for your pages!) and link to pages other than your own.  Add links from related sites (and if you’re really clever, from other pages linking to your website) and you’ll build trust with other users.

Each of these sites work slightly differently – for example on Digg it’s frowned upon to link to your own pages, where on Delicious that isn’t an issue – so the best thing to do is get online and start using them.

3. Use Social Networks

Do you tell all of your friends on Twitter / Facebook / Google Buzz that you’ve got some exciting new highly link-worthy content on your website?  You should be – if you’ve built up a following on a social network then you’ve got an audience for your content ready and waiting.  And if they really love it, they may just tell all their friends about it too.

If you’ve been neglecting your social networking profiles now’s the time to think about getting it up to scratch.  Make sure it’s up to date and start connecting to people with shared interests.  Once again the rules of engagement will depend on the network you’re using, but the key is to get involved and start conversations.

So hopefully that’s given you a taster for how to promote your linkbait, and remember my two final pearls of wisdom:

• Remember you are using social networks – don’t do a hard sell or people will switch off
• You’ll only get out of this what you’re willing to put in.  Not every campaign will go viral instantly, but if you keep working at it, testing new ideas and making those all-important connections in time you’ll see your volume of inbound links increasing.

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Katie Saxon

Join me and my handpicked selection of Internet marketing experts for a full day of discussing the latest tools and techniques for promoting your business on the Internet. Book now for your early bird registration discount.

Date: 14 May 2010
Location: East Midlands Conference Centre
Cost: Early Bird Registration only £195 +VAT, rising to £245
Full Details: www.theInternetConference.co.uk

Bit.ly isn’t just a URL shortener, turning long web addresses into short addresses. It’s also a social media measurement tool that counts clicks, monitors conversations,  and store your data all at the click of a button.

If you ever share links via social media then you’ve probably used an URL-shortening tool at some point. Bit.ly with its extra data collection features is well worth consideration amongst the broad stable of shortners that also includes services such as Google’s goo.gl, Cligs, and the grand daddy of shorteners, TinyURL.

Just as you wouldn’t launch a website and never check how it’s performing (shame on you if you would) you need to keep an eye on social media too. Not analysing your performance on social media could be the kiss of death for your campaign. The data offered by bit.ly will help you to check how your campaign works, so let’s see what they tell you:

Number of Clicks

The basic stuff – how many people have clicked on your bit.ly link – whether you’ve tweeted it or used it in an email. Use this data to test what your customers want to read about. Find out if your method of delivery makes a difference to click through rates. Keep trying out different styles until you find one that works.

But bit.ly has a nifty trick up its sleeve. It can tell you how many people have clicked on a link to your page altogether. They can monitor any bit.ly link to your URL – so even if someone creates a different short link to your fantastic blog article bit.ly will still show you the data.
And, they’ll even tell you who’s linking to you:

Conversations

The bit.ly feature conversations pulls together all conversations containing your link into one handy place. So you can see at a glance if someone said “brilliant article…” or “I can’t believe they wrote this…!” This shouldn’t be your only guide to how people are responding to your content, but it’s useful for a quick thumb in the air test.

The one draw-back here is that you will only see conversations from Twitter and FriendFeed so if you only use Facebook you aren’t likely to find anything of use.

Traffic Data

As with every good measurement package this can tell you when people used your link, which site referred them to you and which country your customers come from.

*Warning*

If you are new to twitter and only have a small number of followers your traffic figures are likely to be low. (What do you mean 50% of my customers are in Singapore??) Don’t set too much store by this data, it should just be a useful guide suggesting the days when your target customers are most likely to read what you have to say.

Bit.ly at the moment is relatively limited in what it can measure. That said, it could help you to test, monitor and refine your social media strategies – much more than your bog-standard URL shortening tool. Data is great, but it’s what you do with it that counts – do you really need to know more?

+ + +

Katie Saxon

If Social Media is so important,  then why I am I recommending that your company ban Facebook?

Facebook now has 350 million active users around the globe – that’s an increase of 40% in just six months .  Of these users at least 175 million log on every single day, and they’re posting more content to the site than ever before.  So it may seem inevitable that your company will jump on the Facebook bandwagon and let your staff post away.

But is allowing access to Facebook really the best thing for your business?  Let’s look at the facts:

Facebook Wastes Staff Time

Statistics suggest that a large proportion of Internet use in the office is for personal business.  And – even more shocking – that two-thirds of traffic to porn sites happens during office hours.  I’m not suggesting that Facebook is a hotbed of pornographic activity, just that Facebook is not appropriate use of company time.

If your staff are updating their status, tagging themselves in photos and leaving posts on their friend’s’ walls they are wasting your time and your company’s money.  And, if you allow access to Facebook for business use how can you tell the difference between genuine business activity and time wasting?

Facebook Strains Your Internet Connection

Research shows that a massive 50MB of bandwidth a day could be wasted on non-work activities.  That means you’ll be paying significantly more than you need to for you internet connection.  And any business that you do conduct online will be slowed down by the loss of bandwidth.

Not only are you throwing money down the drain but you are putting more strain on your IT department by letting staff use Facebook.

Facebook Could Ruin Your Reputation

Your previously immaculate reputation could go down in flames very quickly indeed from just a few careless Facebook remarks.

Virgin Atlantic employees are calling their customers Chavs, and say the airplanes are full of cockroaches.

More than 8,000 Vodafone customers received an obsene tweet sent out by an employee based in local Stoke, and hundreds replied thus propogating the message over social space.  Vodafone has had to do some serious grovelling to get out of hot water.  And more importantly, they have had to suspend the employee.

If you allow your staff onto Facebook – and they can mix business and pleasure while they are there – it’s only a matter of time before the headlines read “Facebook Disaster for [insert your company name here]”.

Facebook Could Land You In Legal Hot Water

While the Vodafone case is a story of a stupid joke gone horribly wrong it does show how easy it is to mess up.  Your company has a responsibility to keep your client’s private data private, and all it takes is a slip of a click for someone to accidentally broadcast confidential information to the world.

Not only could this be potentially damaging to you, your client and your respective reputations, but it could also put you in hot water legally.
And that’s without considering the damage a disgruntled employee could do all with the help of Facebook.

Facebook Could Get You Sued

One of Facebook’s best features is how easy it is to share content with other users – but this content isn’t always be appropriate for the office.  And, if an employee is offended or intimidated by the content their colleague is sharing via Facebook, your company could be landed with a lawsuit.

The easiest way to avoid the potentially unlimited payouts from a discrimination claim?  Block employees access to Facebook and other similar file sharing services.

So when you consider the additional costs to your company and potential damage to your reputation, can you really afford not to ban Facebook?

+++

Katie Saxon