We all know that the major search engines keep their search algorithms very close to their hearts.  To say they are closely guarded secrets would be putting it mildly to say the very least.  One of the stated reasons for not publishing more details about how the different elements of a website/page are ranked is to prevent the misuse of the information by spammers (those of us that have been online for many years will probably remember the fun and games we had with sites that ‘overused’ the meta information). Continue reading →

There has been an explosion of Social Networking sites in recent years and suddenly we are all being asked to be someone’s ‘friend’, whether we know them or not.   The biggest issue that most businesses I come across have with these services though, is the time.  The time taken by employees who are viewing the sites, the time to find out how they work and then the time it takes to establish them as appropriate communication methodologies for a marketing campaign or strategy. Quite often what happens though, is that most businesses give up before the seeds they have sown have had a chance to shoot. Continue reading →

Search engine optimisation involves two key activities, the work that takes place on your website which normally involves the way you write the pages of your website, the words and phrases you use and where you use them; and a second part where you have much less control which is called ‘off-site’ SEO.  The work of ‘off-site seo’ involves what could also be called online or Internet marketing and is the process by which you market your product or service over the Internet. But, it is easy to be stumped by what works, what doesn’t and what is just a waste of your time and cash. Continue reading →

According to Wikipedia the term ‘Viral marketing’ means using “marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can often be word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it can harness the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly”. Continue reading →