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.

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. ‎

Apparently There's No New Twitter 'ShoutOut' Service

Yesterday blogger Louis Gray speculated about how 'ShoutOuts' could be a new Twitter service that will allow users to effectively ‘endorse’ other users, similar to the way the ‘Follow Friday’ tradition works. See the story at - http://bit.ly/bVIU33

Today Twitter have released an official statement saying that 'ShoutOut' is an internal service for employees - see the very funny statement at http://bit.ly/9I1fy1