How Exciting is Your Website Content?

I'm sure that you've heard this many times before, but your website is nothing within interesting, valuable, quality, interactive and above all up-to-date content.

If you have, but haven't yet reviewed your website with this in mind, then you really need to take action. It's so true - if you want to increase your visitor numbers and your websites visibility in search engines, then take a good look at your content.

Content sells - it sells you, your organisation, your products and services. It's about creating content that people will want to read, find engaging and want to share; as well of course as making it search engine friendly and readable.

Start off with thinking about a logical approach to the information you want to share. How easy as a visitor is it to find details about you. Make content clear, precise and to the point. Make sure that you focus on and include the most important keywords and phrases in the first paragraph of each web page. Look at your tone of voice - just be yourself and remember to write as if you were just talking to someone.

Content however, is no longer just about the written word. It's about providing interactive content, such as Flash, video and audio that will engage your website audience. Get people to engage with you, communicate about issues and just generally network with each other and your organisation. Using tools for business, such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can all help to enhance both your websites and companies visibility.

SEO is all about continually updating and monitoring your website. Reviewing the content, creating interesting articles, investing time in posting to Twitter and Facebook. It need lots of work to make your website a success and to continue to keep your organisation visible in search engines.

Consider using Facebook as a marketing tool

It'll be surprising to learn that a recent survey, carried out by Hitwise, admitted that Facebook had accrued more hits than Google Search in October this year. So, with that in mind, should more of us be thinking about honing in on the power of Facebook and using it as a key marketing tool. An additional way to generate awareness of our brands, products and services?

Think about setting up a Fan Page for your organisation. Make it a clear path to your orgnanisation, make sure the Page title is clear and describes who you are. Include a strong logo, or visual representation of your organisation.

Your 'Fan Information Page' is like creating a landing page within a Facebook tab. You can choose this page as the tab that people first access on visiting your page. It's essential to include as much information on here about your organisation as possible. The more relevant information you include, the more likely that people will find you whilst searching.

Also take full advantage of the small 'About Us' box on the left-hand side of main Fan, to succintly describe your services and organisation. Include keywords and phrases that people will use to find you in the search.

Key to the prominency of your Fan page, is getting as many people as possible to 'Like' you. As in standard SEO practices, links to your Fan page are 'votes' for your page. The more votes, the more points for your page. So you'll also need to advertise your Facebook page from your website and promote it as much as possible.

Facebook allows you to create a 'Find Us on Facebook' badge, or embed a 'Like' Box on your website for maximum visibility.

If you need some help with harnessing the marketing potential of Facebook, then please do get in contact with us at Oxford Web SEO. We can review your current website marketing plan and advise on ways you can include social media optimisation into your strategy.

Is Facebook Turning into a Stalker's Paradise?

Don't get me wrong, I am as much the avid Facebook user as anyone else; in fact you could tell me I have 'FAD' and I wouldn't be offended. I love the good things it stands for; the ability to stay in contact with friends that you don't see everyday; its frequent mundaneness and the way I can make complete strangers lifelong friends.

However, what I don't understand is Facebook's increasing disrespect for Members' privacy and security. I read a great article today on PC Pro about a new Facebook feature that they have just launched "See Friendship".

At first glance this link is a great new addition, allowing friends to see a history of all the posts and comments that they have made between themselves. However, this is where the 'creepy' side comes in, not only can you see everything between yourself and your friends, but also all of the content shared between any two friends via a new search facility. It lets you enter in the names of any two friends to reveal their entire Facebook correspondence with each other — even if the content dates from before you added either as friends.

Does the phrase 'Stalkers Paradise' spring to mind here? Of course you could do this yourself just by rifling through your friends accounts if you really wanted to, but this new facility saves you at least a day! Obviously this being Facebook, all users are automatically opted in and it currently appears that there is no way to turn the feature off.

To read the full article 'Creepy Facebook Adds Friend Stalker Tool' go to the 'PC Pro Blog'.

Are we moving back to a world of private messaging?

There have been many high profile reports of faux-pas with users of Facebook and Twitter. Many of us may not have been sacked from our jobs by posting inappropriate facts about our boss, but I'm sure at sometime or another we've all had a social networking regret. Whether that's sharing something you wish you hadn't, saying the wrong thing or accepting people as 'friends' because you felt you had to.

It seems that many of us are now looking at more discreet and private ways to share the intimacies of our lives with real friends, rather than our Facebook page or Twitter. So are we looking at a resurgence of the old-school chatrooms? I came across this interesting article on The Next Web, which looks at how people's concerns over privacy are leading them to find apps that allow private chatting with select friends. For example, Blackberry Messenger, Whats App and Foursquare. Even the new Facebook 'Groups' features allows small privately invited groups of people to chat together, share photos and videos that only they can view.

I quite like that idea that people are beginning to return to the 'old fashioned' way of communicating, (well circa the 1990's anyway). Sometimes it's nice to just share a few intimate words with close friends, rather than announce it to your extended Facebook or Twitter family. ‎

What Next for Generation Facebook?

An interesting article from the CEO of Google Eric Schmidt about his fears on how much personal information we're giving away online now and the repurcussions this could have for us the future - "My fears for Generation Facebook".