Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Real Time Search


As I've mentioned before, the Engines are struggling to cope with the impact of real time search as seen on social sites such as Twitter. I think if you haven't claimed your social media name already, you're wasting time. At least your brand name or company name - even if you're unsure of what to do with it just yet.

We've seen steps recently that Google seems to be adding Twitter information (profiles, not Tweets) of fairly high profile users in the SERPs - where a normal search for your own name might throw up a Linkedin page, Ashton K's Twitter profile is showing.

Bing has also attempted to add real time search into their results, but it's a bit sketchy at best. Keep your eyes peeled for more.

Looking for better results from your website? Contact me at Barcelona SEO for a no obligation chat/review of your site. I also offer Link Building Services in Barcelona to boost your rankings in the SERPs.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Facebook Click Fraud

I commented on this blog last year about Facebook Ads and them being a cheaper alternative to Google's AdWords and other Pay Per Click ventures.

Facebook Logo - Barcelona SEO Blog
However, a recent thread over at techcrunch has highlighted the fact that many people feel they're being over charged for their accounts, with conflicting reports of clicks from Facebook compared the third party web analytics software. This is worrying as in some cases the ratio was said to be as bad a 1:10.

Facebook is a huge company who many believe have not been able to monetise their vast growth - the same kind of rumours flying around about Twitter at the moment. They are expected to raise $550 Million this year - over twice the amount raised in 2008, so that might be a big ask, especially as they're not the bigger player in the Facebook vs Twitter game in terms of growth.

I have 2 clients with Facebook ads, but we have had them on pause since December last year, so I can't comment directly on any known discrepancies with our Weblogs vs Facebook's spending/Billing cycles. What I will say, is that I won't be resuming either campaign just yet, until I can see a transparent solution (which if you read the techcrunch artile, Facebook cliam they're on top of it).

Looking for Website Optimisation in Barcelona ? We also provide SEO Training in Barcelona in a workshop or One-on-One basis. Please contact me for more details.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Search with a Bing

Microsoft recently released Bing, it's new Beta search engine, with a fairly powerful advertising campaign, and email campaign.

Bing - Barcelona SEO

I have to say that compared to MSN search and Live! search, it's much much better. They've managed to clean out a lot of the spam from the listings, and there's a handy pop-up box to the right of the search results which displays what is on the page and other links on the page, too. It also looks more like a search engine home page, with no distractions apart from the search box (no news, no tabs, no other images) which is where Google has always steered clear from.

I can also say from the web analytics from my sites and some of the sites I manage that people are using Bing, or at least experimenting with it. It's not all just Google, which is good news I think. If people find the right information within Bing's results, they'll come back.

If you want to know how to optimise your site for the search engines like Bing, drop me a line at Barcelona SEO and we can chat about your site. Or if you're looking for instant traffic to your site, I can help set up and maintain your AdWords Barcelona Account, too.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

How to Keep Visitors on Your Website - Part 6

Server Down time is an important factor in any website or online business. Google themselves have stated that if your server is down on more than one occasion that Googlebot tries to crawl your website, then you risk exclusion from the SERPs - obviously not something you want.

This is equally important for your regular customers or those which will visit your site either directly, or from another means that is not a search engine - other publicity or advertising you may do. Imagine if they visit your site ready to buy/sign up, and the server is down, so they get an error page. Not good. So how can you tackle this?

Barcelona SEO - Free Website Monitor

Some people would say pay for a dedicated server, so that you have a unique IP address for the site and thus avoid the possible pitfalls of shared servers, etc. However, there are easier ways of deciding whether or not to switch servers or hosts. For example setting up a website monitor service. This is not an affiliate post at all, but I'd like to share a free website monitoring service with you. The site is very easy to use and sign up for an account, and you will be emailed reports when your site is down, and when it comes back up again - handy to know and this kind of thing might influence a change of server, or dedicated server instead.

Not getting the results you want? Contact me for SEO in Barcelona Or fancy learning more about website marketing? I also offer SEO Training in Barcelona for groups or one on one.