Prodo's Blog

Flickr is a photo sharing site with a vast amount of capabilities and has been around for quite a few years now. It has been hugely successful in helping photographers promote themselves and letting people share their love for photography. But more recently it has also been used by businesses to promote products and services, for example a Jewelry designer posting images of their Jewelry describing each one in detail, then linking to their website where orders can be made. This has been the same for graphic and web designers who want to promote their skills and want a universal platform in which to do so.

Flickr has the ability to tag photos with particular phrases and words so they can appear in searches. Flickr images, depending on the subject also appear very highly in Google image searches although it is not an official form of SEO. You can also 'Geo-Tag' items so they can be searched for by location, for example if Chester Zoo wanted to upload pictures of their animals and tag them in the exact location, they could! Having a subscription to Flickr Pro also allows in depth analytical data to show who is searching for your images, how long they looked at them for, what they were looking for in the first place and where those people came from, along with other data it provides a very easy-to-use form of web analysis that anyone can master.

Here is a list of things to do if you want your business to benefit from YouTube:

- Sign up to Flickr, its free but you will need a Yahoo email account first (also free)

- Create a profile, giving details of you and your company; remember to include links to your website and social media outlets.

- Upload! Upload! Upload! The more content the better and make sure to tag it and assign it to 'sets' if you are uploading different subject matter.

- Join groups that are related to your product or service, don't just add photos but contribute to the discussion.

- Start your own group and actively try and promote it. Search Flickr and see if there are other users who might want to join your group.

- Build up your Flickr contacts; invite your clients to join you on Flickr.

- Comment on other photos you find interesting.

- Make sure your photos are optimized with the correct titles, tags and descriptions.

-Do not try and sell your products on Flickr, this is against their code and you may find yourself deleted.

- Once a picture or set is indexed well in Google, add a link back to your website for greater SEO but don't do this on every photo (see above).

- Try and get a variety of photos on your account to make it interesting, try some photos of staff functions, your workplace or functions you have attended.

Flickr is very easy to use and maintain but as usual why not ask us to do it for you?

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet, there are more videos on YouTube than all the BBC channels have collectively aired since they were founded. If you want to see a video of something, you can find it on YouTube (with some exceptions).

Urban Dictionary states:

YouTubing:ver. 'to youtube'

'Simply dedicating an amount of time during your day to spend browsing YouTube'

This is a great place to upload adverts for free or videos about anything you want. Some companies choose to create videos about themselves or their products without having to adhere to expensive TV advertising slots. Some companies choose to give advice in their field but some just upload quirky viral videos. Whatever you want to do it's free and gives you an unlimited content allowance which will stay online forever and can be viewed by anyone at anytime, anywhere.

Here is a list of things to do if you want your business to benefit from YouTube:

- Create an account with an appropriate username.

- Complete you profile with information, URL's, links and a picture.

- Customise your own channel page with your company colours and an appropriate background which can be uploaded.

- Subscribe to other users channels you find interesting and appropriate to see what they are uploading which may give you ideas.

- Add your channel URL to marketing collateral and social network profiles.

- Post links to your videos on your various social networks.

- Add Call-to-Action overlaysto your videos to drive traffic to your web site.

- Earn money from your videos by entering into apartnership with YouTube

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- Look intoYouTube Promoted Videosto reach your target through contextually-relevant search results.

- Upload, Upload, Upload!

Uploading content is easy and YouTube will guide you through it step by step, it's creating content that is the difficult part. Users react to production value but that doesn't mean you have to be the next Spielberg, using a decent camera and windows movie maker can work but why not hire a professional who has all the equipment and production tools if you want to look really good. It all depends on your budget but you don't want a naff video out there for the rest of your life which gets re-uploaded by other users. If you're stuck, here are a few ideas:

- Create short videos of valuable tips of interest to your clients and prospects to show off your expertise.

- Record an important meeting to share with employees, shareholders and others, as appropriate.

- Put together a creative video explaining your product or service.

- Post customer video testimonials to add to your credibility.

- Show the results of someone using your services.

- Introduce your staff to add authenticity.

- Take viewers on a tour of your offices to help them feel connected with you.

- Create "how to" videos to help your customers use your product or service.

- Answer customer-specific questions using videos. Imagine how surprised a customer will be when you point them to a video with the answer!

- Show a work-in-progress project to a customer for review and approval, without the need for a face-to-face meeting or in-person demo. And remember, if all else fails….. Ask us to do it for you!

Twitter has been around since 2008 and has grown dramatically with over 25 million users (many of them businesses) and growing rapidly, who collectively 'tweet' over 30 million times a day and, you guessed it, growing rapidly. Officially known as 'MicroBlogging', twitter has a compressed entry feed of 140 characters, just enough to make a quick comment or post a link or two. This pressure to make every tweet count has had a dramatic effect on its outcome; some people are saying things that others find very interesting. Obviously most of the users on Twitter, as on Facebook, have a personal account and this can range from a 14 year old in his bedroom on the Isle of Man to Barack Obama using his Blackberry aboard Air Force One.

However, there are plenty of businesses using Twitter for commercial benefit; Dell have been active users of Twitter since its creation and have recorded $3m direct revenue as a result of less than $50k investment by Tweeting about deals on their PCs.

The opportunities are endless but one thing is for certain and that's no matter how small or large your business you can't afford to not use this hugely successful social media platform. Research shows that traditional advertising media has experienced a massive decline in recent years while digital marketing is on the increase at an increasing rate. To add to this, consumers are following a trend of trusting peer recommendations rather than listening to direct advertising. To put it simply a modern consumer will often act on a 'Tweet' before they will act on an 'Ad'.

Here is a list of things to do if you want your business to benefit from Twitter:

-Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor's names, words that relate to your space.

-Add a picture, a nice picture

-Share links to neat things in your community.

-Be wary of always 'pimping' your stuff it may work in small doses but most people will tune out.

-Promote your employees' outside-of-work stories.

-Have more than one Twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It's nice to have a variety.

-When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what's coming next, instead of just dumping a link.

-Ask questions. Twitter is great for getting opinions.

-Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things follow them and see who they follow.

-Share the human side of your company. If you're bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections.

-Don't toot your own horn too much

-Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like TinyURL and all the variants. It helps tidy up your tweets.

-Commenting on others' tweets and 'retweeting' what others have posted is a great way to build community.

-Using a third party client like TweetDeck can allow you to manage multiple twitter accounts and see who is tweeting about you!

Most importantly don't set up an account only to forget about it because you are too busy, Twitter is only getting bigger and if you're not on it you WILL miss out, maybe not right now but soon enough. Remember if you can't do it: Find time/Make time/ pay someone to do it for you because it will create a return and sooner or later you WILL feel the benefits.

And as usual, you can just ask us to do it for you!

Facebook has been around for several years now and is commonly understood to be a free 'personal' social media site. There are over 300 million users with a personal profile, friends and photos who can interact with each other and connect via 'groups' of similar interests. "You can't judge a person by their Facebook"or so some people would argue but realistically it is very easy to define users with precise demographics. This allows for accurately targeted advertising which has a much higher hit rate than usual internet banner ads.

However, Advertising is not the be-all-and-end-all of marketing on Facebook, the very concept of the site allows anyone to create an online presence complete with a personality and even friends. Many small businesses have created 'groups' via an employee's profile who then governs the group but some of the more cunning marketers have created their very own 'profile'. This would allow them to collect 'friends', update their status, upload pictures and videos and manage their own groups and events.

Here is a list of things to do if you want your business to benefit from Facebook:

- Fill out a complete profile with as much information as you feel is necessary.

- Install appropriate applications to integrate feeds from your blog and other social media accounts into your profile.

- Upload professional or casual photos of yourself to reinforce your brand.

- Post your newsletter subscription information and archives somewhere in your profile.

- Obtain a Facebook vanity URL so that people can find you easily.

- Add your Facebook URL to your email signature and any marketing collateral (business cards, etc.) so prospects can learn more about you.

- Post business updates on your wall. Focus on business activities, such as "Working with ABC Company on web site redesign."

- Share useful articles and links to presentation and valuable resources that interest customers and prospects on your wall, to establish credibility.

- Upload your contacts from your email client to find more connections.

- Market your products by posting discounts and package deals.

- Use Facebook Connect to add social networking features to your web site.

- Buy Facebook ads to target your exact audience.

- Start a group or fan page for product, brand or business. Unless you or your business is already a household name, a group is usually the better choice.

- Post upcoming events including webinars, conferences and other programs where you or someone from your company will be present.

- Update your group or fan page on a regular basis with helpful information and answers to questions.

- Join network, industry and alumni groups related to your business.

- Search to find groups and fan pages related to your business by industry, location and career.

Hopefully as a result of this you will begin to build up a list of contacts local or national depending on your needs, this will make it easier to establish trust with new customers and maintain relationships with existing ones.

Alternatively you could just ask us to do it for you!

Make the most of Google Local as part of your SEO campaign

If you have a business that delivers a local service and are looking to get the best from Search Engine Optimisation, then you should consider using Google Local, as a way of generating great online coverage. It could really assist in improving your search engine rankings. Google Local has some great algorithms that allow it to identify websites within a geographical location that match the key words or key phrases.

There are a number of key advantages:-

1. New sites can get an opportunity to appear in a high ranked position- a key aim in any SEO campaign.

2. Your business will be given greater exposure as your address, map and telephone number will be prominently displayed.

For example, if you are a specialist florist in Liverpool, and want prospective clients to find you when they search for 'wedding flowers' you can use Google's Local tool. It provides you with a link to your website as well as the ability to display customer reviews and potentially gives you a leg up over the competition.

Prodo Digital can help you further with getting on Google Local and think its a great additional any SEO campaign for a local company.

To get the very best from search marketing and if you decide not to use a search marketing agency then you need a good grasp of the rules and how to play the game. Best practice, patience, and knowledge deliver consistent results. There are very definitely no shortcuts to a successful search engine optimisation campaign - it still very much stands that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is....so we thought we'd put together our top 5 tips to ethical search engine optimisation.

There are two really important things to consider when looking to improve your Search Engine Rankings,

On Page activity - how good is your sites content for the keywords or key phrases you are looking to rank highly for.

Off page activity - generally the more high quality websites that link to your website the higher your site will be ranked on Google.

If you always keep these things in mind and then take on board our top five tips:-

1. Content is still King - this is as true today as it was 12 years ago when we started Prodo. Good quality content is what Google relies on to make a judgement on how good your site is, it can only read text so it stands to reason that the more relevant the content the more it will rate your site. So think of authoritative content, articles, tutorials, great industry news or advise - the better your content the more likely you are to also get others to want to link to your site.

2. Go for the quality links - quality is preferable to quantity, don't be fooled by the volume of links - it's the quality that really does count. Look at your existing business contacts and see which of them would like to link to your site, look at local government business directories, professional organisations or membership groups that have member directories. In addition try article marketing, loading your press releases with back links from key phrases in the copy and email them to online industry publications.

3. Go for the Natural Option! You will often hear of white-hats and black-hats and whilst it all sounds a bit 'Harry Potter' it is essential that you understand the difference. White hat techniques mean that you are following Googles strict guidelines - don't ever try and circumnavigate them, they take a very dim view of anyone trying to manipulate their rankings. Many businesses look for a quick-win or a short cut - don't be tempted if you don't do it right, you are safer to not do it at all.....if in doubt just check out Matt Cutts on Google and he will lead you away from the 'dark side' [sorry we promise that is the last Star Wars reference!]

4. Write a blog - think of BLOG as standing for Better Listings On Google. Blogs are an incredible way of attracting new visitors to your website, and as a way of gaining links. By creating a popular and interesting blog Google will see you as more authoritative. Each blog article can be packed full of keywords and key phrases which can do wonders for your Search Engine optimisation rankings.

5. Keep up to date. Practically all the search engines have ever changing algorithms - so you really need to keep up to date with the latest changes, we recommend reading something like www.blogstorm.co.uk which will assist or go to Matt Cutts site. Don't just stick with one strategy, try new things and if in doubt ask a SEM professional (like us!)

As search marketing experts, we regularly sit with clients to discuss their SEO campaigns, and without exception (and quite rightly) all clients want to get their website to number one on Google. But what about the other search engines, and should you still be considering them when putting together your SEO strategy? Google is still the predominant website player with in excess of 80% of all traffic, but Bing and Yahoo are still to be taken seriously. And any serious SEO campaign should include all three of the top Search Engines.

Google has by far and away the most complex algorithms, which means that best practice for Google will mean that your site will naturally perform well in the other two. However, Bing (Microsoft's response to Google) needs to be considered slightly differently, it is gaining ground on Google, by applying approaching live search slightly differently to Google. Our SEO experts have been watching it's development and we've listed the main factors that Bing considers important in ranking on it.

Content - the old adage 'Content is King' again, but the big difference between Google and Bing is that Bing doesn't worry about the frequency of updating of the content. So sites that are less maintained still perform consistently well on Bing - which is great news for an SEO campaign as it means that once you have achieved great results on Bing you can re-focus efforts on Google and other more demanding search engines, allowing your SEO time to go further.

Age - the age of the website has greater weight on Bing as opposed to just the domain name age, it is one of Bings most important criteria. Although you can do nothing about this in your SEO campaign, it is worth bearing in mind.

Domain names and keywords - whilst keywords in domain names wan in and out of popularity with Google, Bing rates a domain name with the keyword in it as highly important. Bing also seems to be less 'fussy' than the other search engines on keyword density - ie the more keywords in the copy the better for Bing - but we would still advise avoiding 'stuffing' in your SEO copy writing, as you should always bear in mind the an the relevance of the copy to them.

Architecture - Bing prefers simple, flat architecture, - so simpler sites with three clicks or less will always do well in Bing. More complex sites with deeper architecture will have to undoubtedly work harder on Bing.

So if you are about to undertake SEO optimisation then don't just focus solely on Google, largely Yahoo will follow in Google's shadow - but Bing may just give you the edge over your competitors if you add it into the mix. But as with all things related to Search Engine Optimisation - things never stay static - so if you want the latest advise, give Prodo Digital a call and talk to our Search Marketing experts.

If Search Engine Optimisation is still a mystery to you, then you probably won't even be aware that there are many inherent dangers in doing an SEO campaign badly. But as search engine experts we've come across many repeated errors, and thought it would be helpful to list just five of the most common SEO mistakes that we see being made by many 'DIYers' - so hopefully if we highlight them - you won't fall into these traps. If you aren't currently using a Search Engine optimisation consult or SEO agency, then just be aware of the dangers:-

1) Using the wrong keywords and key phrases

Keyword research is essential as any SEO expert will tell you, it's amazing how often we see clients who have spent a huge amount of time and money optimizing their site for the wrong keywords. We can't stress how important it is to get the choice of keywords just right. Don't just assume because your competitors are appearing for some keywords that these must be the best for you. Invest in the time to get the keyword research done by professionals or spend time investigating them thoroughly on the web.

2) Poor on-page content

I know we talk about this constantly, but having a site that has just the right density of relevant keywords is incredibly important. It doesn't matter to the search engines how cool your images are, you need enough good quality content for them to be able to assess how good your site is and it does that through text.

3) Incorrect use of title tags

A title tag tells the search engines what your site is about, so it's critical that the title tag reflects the sites content. It's incredible the number of sites we come across who either have no title tags or just use the same title tag on each of it's pages which can cause real problems.

4) Black hat techniques

The kind of things that we are amazed to still see, some through ignorance and some through mischief - but either way incredibly risk behavior. Creating doorway pages, keyword stuffing, duplicating content, white text on white background, to name just a few. Some clients are tempted by quick results but it is usually short-term and the consequences of this unethical activity can result in being banned from the Search Engines.

5) Failing to commit

SEO needs a bit of commitment, just having a quick go and expecting results really won't cut the mustard, but you'd be surprised at the number of clients who are told they have had their SEO done and have been advised that a one off piece of activity will do the trick.

Search engines are ever changing and your site needs to adapt, you need to be continually working on your site to build natural results.

We've listed 5 of the most common errors we come across, if you aren't sure whether your site has been well optimized, then the best way to check is ask us for a free, no obligation SEO consultancy.