Posts Tagged ‘Social Networking’

How Will Google+ Affect Search engine optimisation?

By now you’ve probably heard about Google+, the latest social networking craze and most recent effort by Google to take on Facebook and Twitter. But did you know that it could affect how your business’s website gets found on Google’s search engine?

In addition to building a social networking, Google aims, with its ‘+1′ button, the equivalent of Facebook’s ‘Like’ button, to determine the value of websites. They want consumers to add personalized recommendations to Web content and business sites.

More than 20 million people have already jumped onboard Google+ and many internet marketing professionals are beginning to wonder if those ‘+1′s will also start affecting how businesses appear in the search engine rankings.

Google+ has some remarkable similarities to Facebooks, utilities a similar suite of names for areas of the software, including ‘Hangouts’, ‘Circles’ or ‘Sparks’.

We have to assume at this stage that these ‘+1′s are likely to affect in some way the positions of sites within the search engine rankings. Only time will tell, either way, if you were to see recommendations against a certain site, how would that effect your decision process.

So how do you optimise for recommendations?

The more searching becomes about real people, the more we, as marketer, need to promote such recommendations in a natural a way as possible.

Watch this space…

Google, the world’s most widely used search engine has now turned their hand to social networking. ‘Google Buzz’ or ‘Google Me’ as it’s fast becoming known as, is one to watch next to some of the bigger companies within social networking such as Facebook. Buzz looks set to work with gaming companies as one of their selling points. They are apparently talking to Playdom Inc., Playfish (owned by Electronic Arts) and the company that Google itself took a financial stake in – Zynga Game Network Inc.

For more information on Google Buzz read the Wall Street Journal site article which goes into great detail about the development of the new social networking competitor.

It’s interesting to see how government analysts and the general public are using social media to keep up to speed with, converse about and analyse the recent budget.

Check out this video from the BBC. Interesting stuff:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8586008.stm

Web 2.0 content is really starting to become useful in making purchasing decisions. User feedback and customers reviews on websites can aid the website visitor in making a decision and website owners shouldn’t be afraid to allow users and visitors to add comments or post reviews on websites.

Just recently, whilst searching for a hotel in the Lake District, new Lake Windermere, I was taken on a journey across a number of websites reviewing content and ended up on www.activehotels.com. The web 2.0 content there was extremely helpful in understanding a lot more about the resort, the facilities and the hotels available there, right down to reading reviews from people of a similar demographic and their thoughts about not only the hotel itself but about the specific rooms that they stayed in.

This was followed up by a quick call to the hotel to check availability of the exact room that we were interested in. Not only did we manage to book that room but we got a significant discount off the prices on the internet!

Without doubt we will be leaving our review on the very same website in the hope that other visitors will benefit from our comments. Hotels are just one example, but web 2.0 content could be used in any industry from automotive to telecoms, any website should consider the opportunities offered by this new wave of interactive web content.

Digital design consultancy Splendid is creating a new Facebook-style social networking site for entrepreneurs, due to go live this autumn.

Owned by Brightstation Ventures, business support website Smarta will put those wanting to start or grow a business in touch with other entrepreneurs. Dyson director Richard Needham sits on Smarta’s board.

‘A website like Linked In has a very professional edge to it, but there is room for a more inclusive business support and networking website with no gender bias,’ says design group Splendid’s managing director Paul Bishop.

Brighstation appointed Splendid to create Smarta 18 months ago without a pitch, having worked with the consultancy for the past two years on three other websites.

Bishop claims Splendid was recommended to Brighstation following the consultancy’s work on websites for former Emap-owned magazines New Woman and Heat.

Brightstation has secured funding for Smarta from Vodafone and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Splendid created a holding microsite for the venture that went live in December and can be viewed at www.smarta.com.
Article from Design Week – www.designweek.co.uk/Articles