A Closer Look At Twitter’s Search Engine Debut

In another step closer to real time search, it was announced yesterday that Bing would be adding a new option focusing on updates made through Twitter. If the Twitter search option is selected when Bing is used, it will provide links to individual Twitter feeds that reference the key phrase in question.

A subsequent deal has also been made with Google, although their results will not be made available immediately.  The aim behind these changes is to ensure that web users have even more information available to them through using search.  Looking at Twitter as a data source essentially shows it to be a website which is constantly processing an incredible level of information – information that can be used to strengthen search engine results.

Although the first set of Twitter search results on Bing will be ordered with regard to the time at which the updates were posted, there are further developments also being implemented.  This includes the option to find the best possible match to your search, in addition to prioritising results by measuring the influence of the individual Tweeter.

Any move towards real time search is incredibly exciting for SEO and the use of social media sites in this development is even more interesting.  Social media has been a key concern for SEO companies for the last few years – not only does it help establish corporate authority and build links, it also allows you to introduce your brand to a much wider audience.

With the integration of social media and search engines, the opportunities provided only seem to multiply and this particular move forward certainly deserves plenty of attention from SEO companies who like to keep up with these developments.  For all the details, check out the blog post on Bing!

In a recent video, Matt Cutts talks about ‘Sock Puppet Marketing’, and how this is bad practice for SEO. For the uninitiated ‘Sock Puppet Marketing’ is where somebody creates multiple profiles in forums, social media sites etc to fake conversations about products or services. This is bad because you are basically lying about the product, Matt Cutts points out that if the product or service isn’t good (or bad) enough to create natural, viral hype then you shouldn’t be faking it.

Watch the Video, apart from anything else, Matt Cutt’s voices are excellent and made me chuckle!

On the serious side, by partaking in sock puppet marketing, you will begin to devalue the natural links that can be created in this way, by honest people who genuinely love a product enough to tweet, answer questions on forums or blog comment about it in a positive way. It is, in my opinion a terrible shame (though inevitable) that these links are devalued. The fact that Mr Cutts has thought this a considerable enough problem for him to create a video dedicated to the subject makes me think that Google at least, has already begun to devalue this kind of link.

I would suggest that it would be a largely pointless exercise to start this kind of campaign. The links you create will be obsolete an a short time, so why bother? Surely, as Matt Cutts says, creating useful and informative content for your users would be a much more valuable use of your time. Though, maybe not as fun as creating multiple personalities for yourself!

How Can E-mail Marketing Help Towards Search Engine Optimisation?

Alongside general Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques, you may have noticed that we have been explaining some of the benefits and techniques used in the old-school method of reaching potential clients, e-mail marketing.

In one of our latest blog posts we explained how to carefully craft an e-mail to attract a target audience, in the right way. Today, we are going to explain some of the benefits of e-mail marketing for an SEO campaign, plus how you could spread the word to the masses.

E-mail marketing is a tried and tested method that businesses the world over have been using for years, to contact potential and existing customers. What these businesses may not be aware of, is that e-mail marketing could significantly enhance your SEO campaign.

One of the main techniques used by SEO consultants to get their websites ranking in the search engines is link building; there are various ways that consultants can go about this for example, through articles, press releases and blogging.

By including links within your newsletters that are archived on your site, it will strengthen any internal Search Engine Optimisation, by adding keyword rich content and links to other pages of your website.

All web optimisers know the importance of original content; search engines such as Google favour websites that are regularly updated with fresh, original content. This offers another opportunity to utilise your newsletter, by archiving regularly on your website you will automatically be adding fresh content.

Of course we mustn’t lose sight of the main purpose of an e-mail marketing campaign, which is to communicate with existing and potential customers. Reaching potential customers does not have stop with the contacts on your e-mail list; existing customers that are satisfied with your service are often more than happy to refer you to their friends, and similarly if your newsletter is worth reading potential customers may send it to their contacts too.

This often results in your newsletter being forwarded to two or three more people, but there could be a way for you to target the masses.

Anyone that has read an article or blog post online will be familiar with the ‘share to social’ button, the one with the Twitter, Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon icons. Social bookmarking and networking is a popular tool used by SEO consultants and general web users. Adding a ‘share to social’ tab to your e-mail may encourage readers to share your newsletter, potentially to hundreds or even thousands of people.

If you are considering running an e-mail marketing campaign and want to harness it to it’s true potential, consider the SEO benefits that it could offer and why not add a ‘share to social’ section, to see how the traffic to your website could increase.

With YouTube Fast Becoming The “Second Search Engine” Is It Time For You To Invest In Video SEO?

Not only can using pictures and videos on websites help to engage your audience, it can also improve your search engine optimisation.  Content is crucial and it is not only comprised of text - it is important not to underestimate the use of multimedia.

So, to start with pictures – using pictures on your site can help your optimisation in a number of ways.  On a technical level, if you ensure that you use descriptive alt tags containing your keywords, in addition to keyword rich titles and filenames, a picture can serve as a helpful boost to SEO.  Further to this, pictures often need a short caption to explain the content they are illustrating, which can also help.

One of the biggest trends from this year has been video SEO.  If a picture says a thousand words, imagine how many a video can say!  Online video distribution channels like YouTube have grown at an exponential rate, with statistics indicating that with over 100 million users in the US alone, the site now provides 42 million video streams every hour or 700,000 every minute.  Clearly this has potential as a vast marketing platform, and already, many users are aware of this.

For successful video SEO there are some important tips to bear in mind.  Firstly – keep it short!  Viewers are as easily bored as readers, if not more so, so ensure your video sticks to the point.  The title is also a crucial aspect of video optimisation, and can be seen as the key selling point of your video.  If it doesn’t grab attention, chances are not many people will be watching it.  Finally, be careful with mass distribution sites, it has been suggested that by distributing to a wide variety of video sites, the overall effect of your video may be diluted.

The crucial point to bear in mind is that regardless of how far it helps your search engine optimisation, including videos and pictures is still be a great idea.  The main point of having a website in the first place is to communicate with your audience and using multimedia effectively can help to do just that.