Social Media Week 2011 - Global Announcement

Nice presentation and a great idea for a global communciations event. Social Media Week is a global event that connects people, content and conversation around emerging trends in social and mobile media.

Social Media Week is taking place across London from February 7th until 11th. Check out the website and schedule of events.

Making your website attractive - why is it important to build links?

It's a crucial part of organic search engine optimisation to build strong referral links to your website. The more referral website links you have to your website, means the greater your chance of higher search engine rankings. In fact search engines see links as ‘votes’ for your website.

Search engines are generally of the opinion that if lots of visitors find your content interesting enough to link to it, then your website must have something useful to offer. Search engines are always on the lookout for 'interesting' sites to display in their top ranking results. Hence the more links you have, the more likely search engines will give you a higher ranking.

However, don't be fooled into thinking that requesting links from just anybody will make your website more popular. When we talk about link building, we're talking about attracting and getting good, quality links from industry partners that you are happy to be associated with and that will add some gravitas and weight to your own website.

You should aim to get quality referrals from:

• People in the same sector, experts or suppliers
• Charity sites, educational organisations, people you support / sponsor
• Industry bodies and associations
• News sites
• Blogs and forums
• Social media and bookmarking sites

If possible suggest the link to your website to your referrer – search engines weight the actual ‘anchor text’ that forms the text link to your website.

Try and include at least one of your core keywords as the link. For example, “My favourite search engine optimisation partner” - where the text links to the URL of the website. However, links from different websites should be varied to aid natural searching.

Link to your own website pages frequently from your own Blog or Social Networking sites, using your website keywords.

Above all you need to encourage people to want to share content from your site. Your website is nothing without it's content and unless you keep your website up-to-date; write good, clear textual content; and provide interesting gimmicks, such as videos, no one will be attracted to your website.

The art of impressive presentations - Al Gore inspired...

I came across a review on this book 'slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations' by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore's Oscar-winning film, 'An Inconvenient Truth'.

So I'm hoping for both inspiration and invention when I come to next pulling together a top business presentation.

slide:ology will apparently challenge my traditional approach to creating slides by teaching me how to be a visual thinker.

So once I've read this you can expect no more boring PowerPoint presentations from me!

Does Facebook take over our lives?

An interesting set of statistics has just been published by OnlineSchools.org together with SocialHype about our global use of Facebook. Did you know that 57% of people talk more online to people, than they do in real life?


Via: Online Schools

But is that so wrong? In a world of instant messaging, email and texting isn't that what we'd expect to happen? Friends, family and colleagues are often dispersed across the world and being able to see them face-to-face is often not possible. It's a way to stay in contact with people that may not be possible in 'real life'.

We should surely be embracing ways that allow us to communicate rather than scorning them?

What purpose does your website currently serve?

SEO is all about making your website visibility strong in the major search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. However, the key point to remember is that in order for search engine optimisation to work and benefit your website, it has to have a direction and a strategy.

So, what role does your website currently play in your organisation's marketing strategy? Is its aim to sell your products and services online; or is it there for brand and corporate awareness? Attracting more visitors to your website is all about knowing your intended market and you can only optimise your website once you know what is.

Try out some initial benchmarking to see where your website currently sits in search engine rankings. You need to measure and monitor your website visibility in order to continue to improve it.

Similarly, you can't target your website at people, if you don't know what they may be looking or searching for. You need to research the keywords and phrases that your your potential customers and clients will use to find your organisations services.

You also need to stay ahead of your competition and find out what they're up to. Check their search engine ranking listings in Google and Bing - take a look around their websites.

You don't have to do all of this alone. If you'd like our advice on how to optimise your current website, or want to learn more for yourself, then visit us at Oxford Web SEO to take a look at our SEO services and training courses.