“Never Said About Restaurant Websites” - Too True

by: iCopywriter Senior Editor, Heather Price-Wright

If hilarious Tumblrs and Web inside jokes are your idea of fun, you must check out the low-key but completely hysterical new blog “Never Said About Restaurant Websites.”

A few gems:

“I hope the phone number and address are actually images so I can’t copy and paste them!”

—No persons

“I like when the music blasts as soon as the site loads. It signals to everyone at work that I am going out to eat!”

—No one I know.

“I go to restaurant websites for the ambiance.”

—Anyone?

Of course, as Slate.com’s Farhad Manjoo pointed out back in August in his very funny article, “Overdone: Why are Restaurant Websites So Horrifically Bad?” the blog brings up a very real problem. While many other small businesses have managed to use their online presence to their advantage, with sharply designed sites, high-quality content and plenty of useful information for potential customers, too many restaurants still seem to be behind the curve.

Features like music that plays automatically, complicated flash animation, “welcome” pages that have to be manually “skipped,” menus that take forever to load as separate PDFs, while they may feel so early 2000s, seem to be mainstays of even the finest restaurants’ websites. And for the life of us, we can’t figure out why that is.

After all, most customers head to a site, especially that of a restaurant, for the most basic information:

·      What are the hours?

·      Where is it located?

·      Can I make a reservation?

·      What’s on the menu?

And yet it seems we have to wade through multiple verses of whatever odd love song the restaurant’s (presumably in-house) website designer thought conveyed the “mood” of the place before we can track down a menu, and even then, breakfast, lunch, dinner & drinks all have to load separately…As PDFs.

What gives?

We’ve got some advice for restaurant owners out there: Leave the website flourishes behind, and instead, invest some time in a clean, well-designed site, with clean, well-written content. Present the relevant information in a prominent place that’s easy for patrons to find, and maybe even consider allowing customers to do things like book reservations online. These days, simplicity and high-quality content, not bells and whistles, rule the Web.

And please, oh please, don’t make us listen to “That’s Amore” again! 

Shoot us a note if you want the names of some fab site designers we heart.

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Bing Announces Biggest Search Queries of 2011

by: iCopywriter Senior Blogger, Gaia Veenis

Bing was the first of the search engines to release statistics about its most popular Internet queries so far in 2011. Microsoft’s search engine released its “top queries of 2011” list the Monday after Thanksgiving.

What does this mean for online marketers and Internet retailers? Basically, the list provides useful information to help such businesses decide which key terms to focus on and what trends to follow in order to maximize traffic and sales during the holiday shopping rush.

Search Term Categories 

Not all of the search terms that Bing reported are useful to all retailers (or any retailers at all), but many of them are quite relevant. Luckily, companies can easily find the search query data that is most relevant or interesting to them, because Bing has categorized the most popular search terms of 2011 by topic. Whether you’re keeping track of the latest movements in pop culture or trying to maximize your profits by monitoring industry-related search trends, you should be able to find the stats you’re looking for. These are some examples of search query categories you might want to follow:  

Consumer trends

Electronics and popular products

Celebrities

Travel destinations

Film and music releases

News stories

Industry/technology

Health and fitness

What This Means for Retailers and Online Marketers

A lot of the information from Bing’s latest list of most-searched terms may seem irrelevant to the average consumer, but could be very meaningful for businesses. For example, while most individuals won’t benefit much from learning that Justin Bieber is a top Bing search term in categories including celebrity, musician and person, surprisingly enough, this information may be relevant to a great number of retailers. Music sites are constantly looking for this kind of information. It could also benefit e-commerce sites targeting important demographics like pre-teen and teenage girls; knowing that Bieber was a hot search term in 2011 could, for example, help retailers decide whether to carry the pop star's line of nail polish.

Other information from Bing’s list is more obviously relevant to businesses. “Selling a home” was a top search in the real estate category, for example, while “The Cholesterol Diet” was a top search in the health and fitness category. And in the closely-watched consumer electronics category, searches for products including iPads, Kindles, Playstations and Xboxes gave retailers and manufacturers some interesting insights.

The publication of this list before the end of November also means that businesses and marketers have some more useful information to look forward to, as Google and other search engines are sure to release similar lists very soon.

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Google & Bing Gear Up for the Holidays

by: iCopywriter Senior Blogger, Gaia Veenis

Search engine companies, just like any other product or service provider, tend to put some extra effort toward advertising and branding during the holidays. This year, Bing will release a holiday ad campaign that the search engine hopes will help it catch up with the competition. Google is the online search king, capturing a whopping two thirds of the market, but Microsoft’s newly designed search engine, Bing, is making every effort to chip away at that lion’s share. While other search engines, such as Yahoo! and Ask.com, aren’t putting much effort toward luring users away from Google, Bing is really pulling out all the stops this holiday season.

Bing Makes an Expensive Advertising Move  

If you recall the classic animated version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which has been airing on network television every holiday season since 1964, then you should be familiar with Microsoft’s new ad campaign for Bing. Rudolph and the rest of the gang from the original TV special will star in the ads, an expensive move on Microsoft’s part, considering the typical cost of licensing rights. The team at Microsoft had to convince the family that owns the rights to these 47-year-old characters that Bing would add an appealing new chapter to the classic story of Rudolph, as depicted in the original special. The holiday advertisements will be airing on television and online.   

Google Stands Its Advertising Ground

There’s little chance that Google will be giving up too much of its market share any time soon, even if Bing’s nostalgic advertising campaign shakes things up a bit. Google's powerful ads air year-round, showing the search engine at work, then simply flashing the Google Chrome logo. Unlike Microsoft, Google doesn’t have much experience with TV ads and other forms of traditional advertising. Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page purposefully avoided such marketing campaigns until the 2010 Super Bowl, when the company begrudgingly entered the television commercial market under CEO Eric Schmidt. But having spent nearly $6 million more on advertising so far this year than last year, it seems that Google has quickly fallen in love with advertising.    

So the question remains – will Rudolph win? According to the beloved children’s tale, Rudolph was a reindeer who made miracles happen. Bing could use a miracle to capture some of the market share from Google, but it’s still unclear how much the Rudolph-themed ads will help.

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November Brings Big News from Google+

by: iCopywriter Senior Blogger, Gaia Veenis

November brought some big changes in the online marketing world, just in time for the end-of-year rush. All the buzz is leaving some people wondering what kinds of major shifts are yet to come in 2012, but that speculation will just have to wait. Right now, the news is all about Google+.

The search engine giant’s answer to social media introduced Google+ Pages in November, and gained a 5% boost in traffic for the week ending November 12, compared to the previous week. This represented a whopping 25% growth over the same week the previous month. Although Google+’s growth was originally moderate, the introduction of Pages was responsible for a huge push of traffic in the week of and week after its introduction. Since the social media platform was introduced in June, the launch week of Google+ Pages has been Google+'s third biggest week for traffic. The top two weeks for traffic followed the removal of an invite-only policy that originally kept many people from being able to join. 

Other changes to Google+ may have some significance for online marketers who have avoided spending much time, energy and/or money on the site. When it was introduced, Google+ had a fairly minimal amount of content, but now that third-party social applications, including Buddy Media, HootSuite and Involver, are available for businesses and organizations to integrate into the site, the possibilities have expanded. These applications allow users to post to Google+ as well as sites like Facebook and Twitter simultaneously. The initial difficulties with updating posts and viewing others' profiles seem to have been eliminated for businesses and organizations, as well. 

It will be interesting to see what happens with Google+ in the New Year, but for now, it seems the king of search engines is making the right kinds of changes to make this a more viable social media marketing tool. 

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Top Six Search Marketing Insights from SES Chicago

by: iCopywriter Senior Blogger, Gaia Veenis

The SES Chicago conference highlighted quite a few interesting techniques and success stories emerging from the Internet community this November 14-18. All sorts of businesses from the Internet marketing world were in attendance, representing everything from small startups to big household names.  Many of those companies revealed what brought them success and what they've learned to avoid. New developments in the realms of SEO and social media were also evident from the week’s events.   

SES is a conference series for digital agencies, online marketers, webmasters and other movers and shakers in the Internet industry. Since 1999, the organization has been hosting annual conferences in cities around the world, including Berlin, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, NYC, San Diego, San Francisco, Singapore and Toronto. This leading international series has become known as a guiding voice in the multifarious world of search engine marketing. The various SES events take different shapes around the world. This year’s event in Chicago was a comprehensive conference and exhibition that covered many important topics of the moment.

To get an idea of what went down at this year’s SES Chicago, consider a few of the hot topics of the conference and expo:

1. Advanced Keyword Modeling – Demand for keyword research is growing, based on emerging technologies such as Google Instant and the new intent-based results from Bing. With this kind of data, it’s now possible for Internet marketers to do comprehensive expansion and modeling to enhance their search, social media and traditional marketing efforts. 

2. Content Marketing Optimization – Content is truly the most important aspect of any successful SEO or social media marketing campaign. Some of the many content types to consider optimizing include web pages, rich media, Office docs, PDFs and other digital assets. 

3. Measuring Social Media Success – This conference session discussed the value that Internet marketers can and should be gaining from their blogging, Facebook status updates, tweeting and other social media efforts.

4. Multiple Sites and Duplicate Content – Having duplicate content on your website can result in penalties from Google and other search engines. To avoid being banned or penalized, it’s important to consider this issue and strenuously avoid posting duplicate content.  

5. SEO 2.0: Less is More – This session discussed how SEO can be overdone, and how to avoid that issue on your company's site. It’s important to shoot for just the right level of optimization to avoid overload without leaving search traffic open to the competition.

6. Smart Optimization – This session, titled “Reeling Them In: Attract and Convert Your Audience through Smart Optimization,” addressed the best practices to achieve high conversion rates. The overall message: segmentation, real-time reporting and other sources of insight help plan a better campaign and achieve a true marketing voice.    

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Fresh Content: The Big Winner in Google’s New Algorithm

by: iCopywriter

Have you been wondering whether consistently adding fresh, SEO-friendly content will really draw more eyes to your company’s website? While the evidence has always been there, the roll out of Google’s latest algorithm update offers a resounding, “Yes!”

The new algorithm, which reportedly affects 35% of searches, focuses more on the “freshness” of content rather than on past updates. And based on an analysis from Searchmetrics, which has accurately projected the effects of past Google algorithm updates, the focus on freshness is working.

Searchmetrics’ list of winners and losers from the most recent changes shows a clear trend. Whether brands, news sites, video portals or even government sites, the “winners” all have one thing in common: they have new, engaging content for their site visitors - always.

The kinds of sites that will come out on top in this algorithm shift vary, but they include several major, recognizable brands, such as Overstock.com and MarthaStewart.com. Celebrity gossip sites, like PerezHilton.com and hollywoodreporter.com, should also see boosts, as should news sites, such as huffingtonpost.com and Salon.com. Unsurprisingly, video juggernaut YouTube.com should also benefit, along with other video sites, like funnyordie.com.

Visit any of these winning sites, diverse as their offerings and purpose are, and you’ll see one thread in common: fresh, lively content that’s updated almost dizzyingly often.

What does this mean for your company’s website? Only good things, it seems. Stocking your site with new, SEO content will make more of a difference than ever in your ratings. That’s why choosing iCopywriter is a great idea for your business. Our team of college-educated, SEO-trained writers and editors keep constantly up to date on the latest trends in Web copywriting. We can provide the fresh, relevant content you need to stay on top or climb higher. With iCopywriter on your side, Google’s newest algorithm looks like a win-win.

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The Results Are In: Google Doesn’t Like Annoying Ads Either

by: iCopywriter Senior Editor, Heather Price-Wright

Have you ever encountered a website so littered with ads, you couldn’t tell what was site content and what was junk? Are you a little embarrassed to admit that your company’s website might consist of more pop-ups than substance?

Well, start cleaning up the clutter; otherwise, as Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Danny Sullivan reported this week, Google might start penalizing you for all those irritating ads.

At this week’s Pubcon conference, Google representative Matt Cutts said that his company is considering using the number of intrusive ads on a site as a factor in that site’s rankings. He noted that Google would look for the things that really matter on a site and whether or not those things were obscured or made difficult to access by too many ads.

For the average Web user, this is awesome news. Hopefully, it means less time spent dodging ads that blare sound or dart around the screen every time you try to minimize them.

This could be great news for businesses, as well, but only if they’re proactive. After all, no matter how strong your website’s content, customers will be instantly put off by too many ads and won’t stay on your site for long. Think of this as Google’s way of helping your company help itself.

Instead of ads, load your website up with fresh, interestingarticles and information. iCopywriter can help you create and optimize content for your site to replace all those junky ads. You’ll be killing two birds with one stone - keeping your Google rankings high and your site visitors happy.

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Interesting Online Trends from YouTube’s 2011 Stats

by: iCopywriter Senior Blogger, Gaia Veenis
 

As one of the most popular destinations on the Internet, YouTube is a force to be reckoned with and a powerful forecaster of trends in everything from pop culture to international politics. In a matter of years, YouTube has managed to evolve from a novelty to a major market shareholder in its own right. The site features millions of videos, created and/or uploaded by users all over the world. They can be anything from home movies and how-to videos to clever advertisements and snippets of TV shows to news clips and music videos, plus everything else in between.

Knowing what people are watching on YouTube is important for many online marketers and Internet-based retailers these days, because it reveals quite a bit about what consumers are thinking and doing.   

What’s Up With YouTube so far in 2011?

It’s getting closer to the end of 2011, and it’s about that time that websites like YouTube start to release lists of their most popular searches and other big trends. One interesting addition to the site this year is a “YouTube’s New Year Countdown” page that highlights the most unforgettable videos of 2011. And now that the year is drawing to a close, everyone’s already talking about stats such as the top music videos and commercials being streamed and downloaded. These are a few of the year’s most-viewed videos so far:

Commercial

The Force: Volkswagen Commercial

Music Video

Jennifer Lopez : On the Floor ft. Pitbull

Live Streams

The Royal Wedding

News Video Clips

Tunisian Unrest, Protests in Egypt, Civil War in Libya and Uprisings in Yemen

So Why Does YouTube Matter?

If you own an online business or work in the Internet marketing industry, you should definitely be paying attention to trends from sites like YouTube. While it may not always relate directly to your business, this is the kind of information that keeps savvy online businesspeople on the pulse of trends in consumer thinking. Fortunately, sites like YouTube and all the major search engines will be releasing plenty of end-of-the-year information in conveniently categorized lists as we move closer to 2012.  

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SEO Content: The Long and Short of It

by: iCopywriter

So, you’ve finally seen the light and realized your website needs a content upgrade. Congratulations! iCopywriter can help you replace clunky, old text with fresh, SEO content that’s sure to draw eyes and clicks to your business. But when it comes to SEO content, how long is too long? Actually, there’s no such thing, nor is there “too short.” (Wouldn’t it be great if everything in life were that way?) As Nicole Beckett notes on SEO News, the idea that there is any “right” length for SEO content is a big, old myth.

Instead, what’s important is to make sure your content is engaging, lively and, most importantly, natural. Don’t stuff five keywords into 250 words. Not only will search engines catch it and penalize you, but readers will know something about your content is fishy and move on. Treat your site visitors like the savvy folks they are, and don’t try to lure them in with overstuffed, unimaginative writing.

Instead, focus on giving whatever subject you’re writing about - from engagement rings to health and wellness to carpet cleaning - exactly the treatment it merits. People will respond to content that is relevant to them, excites them and makes them think about a subject in a new way. Can you get your point across in a punchy, 300-word post, while still achieving your SEO goals? Great! Do you need a few more words to delve into a more complicated topic? That’s fine, too. After all, it’s not how long your content is; it’s how you use it.

iCopywriter doesn’t just know the rules of SEO copywriting; we know what your customers want to read, too. Whatever length, style, tone or topic you’re looking for, our writers can achieve it for you. 

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Concerning News & Positive Trends for Search Marketers

by: iCopywriter Senior Blogger, Gaia Veenis

There have been several interesting developments in the search engine marketing world in recent months, some with very positive potential and others that may be concerning to online marketers. The latest changes Google has made to its algorithms and service offerings, including real-time search and freshness updates, have the potential to be very useful for online marketers and Internet users alike. The new query encryption update, on the other hand, may prove to be a thorn in the side of online businesses trying to promote their websites through organic and paid search marketing.

Real-Time Search and Freshness Updates = Radical Changes to Searching

Anyone who knows a thing or two about online marketing surely knows that Google is always changing its search algorithms. The latest changes that have been turning heads are different from the average algorithm updates, however. The new real-time search algorithm, for example, allows Google to track and deliver search results as the Internet user is typing. Web pages are crawled then and there to search for relevant results that are updated based on content from things like blogs, news websites and social media sites. For anyone who uses SEO to promote a business or website, this means social media will play a bigger role than ever before.  

Freshness updates are making equally big waves in search engine marketing. While the Panda update was pretty big, this newer one has been huge. Now, more than 30 percent of each and every query will be tied to fresh, new, relevant content. This gives more power to new domains, which means online marketers must utilize fresh content and domains more than ever before. Posting fresh, time-stamped content will be an increasingly important online marketing tool.  As many of us have long known, content is really the key to effective search marketing. 

New Privacy Limitations with Google Analytics

Google wants to give Internet users the choice to have more privacy when they’re searching online, which is why the company recently updated its query encryption options. Now, online searchers can seriously limit the data that SEO companies can keep track of by logging into their Google account and performing “safe searches.” While this is a good thing for consumers, it makes things a bit trickier for SEO firms and online businesses that use Google Analytics to access consumer behavior data. It may now be much more difficult to gain access to organic keyword referral data for some traffic. This can be alleviated, however, by using SSL to make the website more secure.

Just like any other change in search marketing, Google’s recent updates will only inspire new ways to advertise for online marketers. With creativity, there are always innovative ways to reach online audiences. 

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What’s Going on at Google

by: iCopywriter Senior Blogger, Gaia Veenis

There’s always something new going on at Google; that’s how this Silicon Valley company has remained the biggest search engine on the planet for so many years. Some of the most notable recent changes from Google are a new premium service charge for websites using the Google Maps API, the introduction of Google Analytics Premium and the birth of Google+.

New Premium Services from Google Coming Soon

Since its inception, Google has been known for its free services, but some of that is set to change on the first day of 2012. On Jan. 1, the Google Maps API will become a premium service for some of the websites that use it. Hotel chains, travel agencies and similar types of companies will pay $4 for every 1,000 views on the Google Maps feature; not a hefty fee, but for a website that sees a lot of traffic, it could add up rather quickly. For many sites, however, this service will be well worth the cost.

Keep in mind that the map feature will still be free for up to 25,000 map views each day. In other words, regular Internet users don’t need to worry about the fee; less than 1 percent of users, mostly in high-traffic business sectors, are expected to be affected.

Another premium service from Google is the analytics tool, Google Analytics Premium, which is popular among businesses that rely heavily on search engine marketing. The costs for these premium services are also not likely to affect the average user. 

Google Enters the Social Media World

No one can deny the power of Google in the Internet space, but until this year, it has not had much stake in the social networking revolution. With the inception of Google+, all that has changed. This social networking site, among other features, gives users the power to endorse any website or business by simply clicking the +1 button that appears next to search results for users who are part of Google+. The site has been slow to pick up momentum, possibly because of the fact that it was exclusively invite-only for some time and has seen some development issues, but since the invite-only feature was removed, it has continued to grow. Now that Google+ and the +1 feature have been introduced, there seems to be more power in the hands of marketers and consumers alike to influence search results and market trends. 

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The Effect of Spelling & Grammar on Google Rankings - And How iCopywriter Can Help You!

by: iCopywriter Senior Editor, Heather Price-Wright

All those sentence diagrams and spelling tests from elementary school may be back to haunt you in a surprising new way. Answering users’ questions in a YouTube video, Google’s Matt Cutts notes that, while spelling and grammar are not specifically used as criteria for determining page rank, there is a strong correlation between poor spelling and poor rankings.

Google’s Webmaster Central Blog lists a variety of other factors to help companies determine whether their sites would be considered “reputable” and, therefore, earn high rankings. These factors include the following:

·      Expertise - Does the content writer know what he or she is talking about? Is there evidence of deep understanding and/or research on the topic at hand, or is the information shallow?

·      Editing - Does the content look thrown together? Are there awkward formatting issues, typos or other mistakes that an editor would easily have caught? Does it seem like someone checks the content before it goes live?

·      Errors - Are there misspelled words and/or major grammatical or factual errors?

This is where iCopywriter comes in. Maybe you’re not the best speller in the world or the nation’s leading expert on comma usage. With iCopywriter, you don’t just get great content writers; you get a staff of highly trained editors who make it their sole business to provide you with clean, error-free content.

We understand that site visitors don’t want to be accosted by sloppy content or silly mistakes. We’ll carefully edit and fact-check every piece of content we create for you to make sure that it’s smart, well researched and free of unsightly errors. Even your scariest elementary school teacher would be proud. 

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Chapstick Can Teach Other Business Hard-Won Lesson on Social Media Marketing

by: iCopywriter Senior Editor, Heather Price-Wright

Think your company has a fun, edgy, attention-grabbing ad campaign just about ready to roll out on social media platforms like Facebook?

You may be right - maybe those ads will be received exactly the way you intended them. People will chuckle, think, “Now that’s clever” and, best of all, remember your brand.

Or maybe people will find your ad campaign a little more than, ahem, cheeky, as was the response to this gem from Chapstick:

More than a few people who saw this ad found it offensive, saying it objectified women. In particular, blogger Margot Magowan of the blog “ReelGirl” called the ad sexist and encouraged her readership to “take Chapstick up on their bold-print offer to ‘Be Heard at Facebook.com/Chapstick.’”

Now, the arguments for both sides make a lot of sense. Does the ad seem to have anything to do with Chapstick? Not really. It truly is just a huge picture of a woman’s derriere. But, as lip balm users ourselves, we have to admit that we can relate to this ad (where is my lost Chapstick, anyway?), and concede that it is pretty clever. Plus, the butt featured is fairly innocuous - by which we mean clad in jeans and not shaking in the face of some rapper. As exploitative ads go, it’s pretty tame.

The real lesson here has little to do with the ad itself. Chapstick may or may not have made a small misstep there. But when people objected to the image, and voiced their objections, as the company itself suggested they do, on Chapstick’s Facebook page, a mysterious thing started happening.

The comments started to disappear.

And while Chapstick did eventually pull the ad and (sort of) apologize, the company’s excuse for all the missing comments was not all that satisfactory:

We apologize that fans have felt like their posts are being deleted and while we never intend to pull anyone’s comments off our wall, we do comply with Facebook guidelines and remove posts that use foul language, have repetitive messaging, those that are considered spam-like (multiple posts from a person within a short period of time) and are menacing to fans and employees.

We’re finding it pretty hard to believe that people like Magowan cursed in their Facebook posts, or that anyone undertook a massive spamming attack.

Which brings us to the lesson here: We live in radically social times. For the most part, that’s a good thing, especially when it comes to marketing efforts. But if you’re going to launch an ad campaign that’s anything other than squeaky clean, you’d better be ready to engage with your audience, because these days, they have almost infinite ways to express their feelings - whether amusement or rage - to you. Playing the social media game is not a choice anymore; it’s a necessity, and even the smallest business would do well to remember that.

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Top 2 YouTube Trends Worth Thinking About

by: iCopywriter Senior Blogger Gaia Veenis

Everyone should know by now that YouTube is a major indicator of pop-culture and Internet trends. It’s always worthwhile to pay attention to what people are watching on this user-generated online video database, particularly as new information is released towards the end of the year. In addition to end-of-year video search stats, YouTube also has some internal trends that online marketers and Internet businesses ought to be aware of. If you haven’t been paying attention to what’s been happening with YouTube in 2011, here’s your chance to get caught up.     

YouTube Trends in 2011

1. Live Events 

The launch of YouTube Live was announced in April, which completely changes the type of online video experiences that YouTube users are able to have. The new platform integrates discovery tools and live-streaming capabilities in one easy-to-use video viewing application. This means Internet users can use YouTube for watching live events as they are happening, not just for watching old videos that someone has already posted. Some of the most popular live events viewed in YouTube Live so far have been concerts, interviews, sporting events and the lunar eclipse. And we mustn’t forget the event of the century, The Royal Wedding, which was live streamed 72 million times on YouTube alone. Just imagine how many people were watching the event simultaneously on all the live streaming sites worldwide.       

2. YouTube.com/Create

YouTube is also making it easier to get creative with another new rollout from the past year,

YouTube.com/Create. The new page, which was launched in March, makes it possible for Internet users of all experience levels to create their own online videos in a matter of minutes. The application is free and doesn’t even require a video camera since so many laptops and phones have built-in camera capabilities. Features include a video editor and instant access to some of the most popular video creation sites.   

These are just examples of two of the biggest trends from YouTube so far this year. We believe it's always worth taking the time to stay current on trends such as these, because in the world of online marketing and e-business there’s nothing as precious as the latest data.

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New Features from Facebook (Yep, Again!)

by: iCopywriter Senior Blogger, Gaia Veenis

Social networking has continued to become a bigger and bigger player in the online marketing world in the past few years, though Internet experts weren’t exactly sure how to harness its power for marketing purposes at first. Right now, Facebook is one of the heaviest hitters - if not the heaviest - in the social media marketplace. It is a hugely popular tool for businesses, advertisers and individual users alike. So far this year, the social networking giant has seen several big changes.   

The New King of Display Ads

One big milestone for Facebook came in May, when comScore released its quarterly report. The big news for Mark Zuckerberg and company was the announcement that Facebook accounted for 346 billion display ads out of the nearly 1.11 trillion display ads that were delivered to Internet users in the first quarter of 2011. This made Facebook the most popular spot for display ads - accounting for approximately one third of the market - and a very wise place for online marketers to spend their ads budgets. 

New Features: Timeline and More

Several new Facebook features have been introduced to the public in September. 

• Timeline: Mr. Zuckerberg announced the new Facebook Timeline feature this month, which will open up all sorts of new possibilities for brands as well as individual users. Basically, Facebook users will now be able to look back at a chronological history of their lives in the online space. The Timeline feature may prove to be especially advantageous to brands that want to create a compelling company narrative as a new, more personalized way to reach out to their audiences. 
• “Like Button” is going to see some changes, too, which Zuckerberg announced at the Sept. 22 f8 conference. Research has shown that people are often hesitant to use the “like” button because they don’t want to blindly endorse certain content, even if they do like it or find it interesting. Now, with Facebook Gestures, users are able to say more specific things, like tell people they just read an article, listened to a song or watched a video, rather than just claiming they “liked” it. There is still no “dislike” button, but for online marketers, this is probably a good thing.

There’s sure to be more news from Facebook in 2012; there’s no way of knowing what’s up the social media behemoth’s sleeve. For now, it’s safe to say Facebook isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

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Tumblr - The Up-And-Comer on the Social Media Landscape

by: iCopywriter Senior Editor, Heather Price-Wright

For all the talk of tumbling being heard lately, you’d think Cirque du Soleil was in town!

Okay, so that was lame - but what’s not lame is the explosive growth up-and-coming social media site Tumblr has seen in the last year. According to the May 2011 Nielsen report “State of the Media: The Social Media Report,” Tumblr has seen a staggering 183% growth in the last year. That growth has been especially pronounced among younger demographics; Nielsen also found Internet users ages 18-34 were 75% more likely to visit the site than the average of all users.

One key aspect to Tumblr’s growing popularity could be its unique mix of content - it is partly a blog-hosting site - and social networking capabilities. The Nielsen report pointed out that much of Tumblr’s popularity comes from the fact that it’s a hot topic of conversation outside of the actual site. In May 2011, a daily average of 21,280 messages and links relating to the site were shared per day off of Tumblr itself. And even within the site, sharing is a major part of the way users interact. Those with Tumblr accounts can “reblog” posts from other users, thereby allowing individual blog posts to “go viral” much more easily.

Tumblr’s popularity, as well as its expert use of social and sharing capabilities, can teach other sites, even those of small businesses, lessons about how to gain traction in the online space. Basically, Tumblr and its impressive growth show us that people want to access, interact with and, especially, share content. Other sites would do well to think like Tumblr and build sharing, linking, socializing and interacting into their online strategy.

How can the average business achieve that level of online social interaction? For one thing, it’s important to have a strong content-creating team (iCopywriter.com to the rescue...) to write search engine optimized content that third-party sites will want to pick up, and users will want to share. After all, you’ll never go viral, or even close, without first creating something that will get people talking and sharing.

Overall, as Tumblr shows with its rapid growth, quality content and social media are a potent combination. By taking advantage of these two aspects of a strong online marketing push, businesses may be able to get a taste of Tumblr’s success.

Have you checked out iCopywriter.com lately? 

What Nobody Thought Would Happen: Social Media Beats Out Search for Top Web Activity

by: iCopywriter Senior Editor, Heather Price-Wright

To almost no one’s surprise, social media has become the undisputed belle of the online ball. According to a May 2011 Nielsen report, social media has beat out search, as well as all other categories, as the activity Web users spend the most time participating in. Nielsen reports that one in every four online minutes is spent using social media.

Also to no one’s surprise, Facebook is the ruling force in social media. In May, Americans spent a staggering 53.5 billion minutes on the site from work and personal computers. And in all likelihood, that number is much smaller than the actual time spent on Facebook - Nielsen also found that almost 40% of users access social media sites by way of their smart phones. Compared to those numbers, the time spent on sites primarily devoted to searching was paltry. Even fellow giant Google saw just 17.2 million minutes in May - still a substantial number, but nowhere near Facebook’s dominating performance.

Of course, it’s only logical that users would spend more time on social media than search sites. After all, the whole point of searching is to be led elsewhere on the Web, whereas social media sites are designed so that users stick around for at least a few minutes. And that, experts argue, might be the model to follow for all websites, from search engines to social media to business and personal sites.

#1 TIP TO PROMOTING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE??

Rhadha Subramanyam, senior VP of media and advertising insight and analytics at Nielsen, notes that one of the biggest mistakes companies can make is separating their search, social and other media departments when it comes to marketing and advertising. She adds that when social media is made its own department, “it tends to get buried.”

So instead of having different teams managing and overseeing different aspects of your overall marketing push, the Nielsen results point to a better way: integrating social media, search engine marketing, content creation and other online marketing strategies into a cohesive campaign that catches users’ eyes on a variety of platforms, bringing them to your company’s site.

What are YOUR social media strategies?

Have you checked out iCopywriter.com lately? 

Google Insider Makes it Clear - SEO is NOT Spam

by: iCopywriter Senior Editor, Heather Price-Wright

Matt Cutts, a member of Google’s Search Quality team, has important news for businesses wary of using search engine optimization to boost their online visibility: SEO is not spam.

In a Google Webmaster Help video posted August 5, Cutts emphasizes that Google does not consider so-called White Hat (that is, legitimate and honest) SEO practices spam. He adds that there is “nothing at all wrong with these … methods” and, in fact, Google actually finds quality SEO firms helpful to overall page rankings.

According to Cutts, an SEO firm can help your business in a variety of ways, including the following:

·      Crawlability: Basically, Cutts notes, optimizing your content and links can make your page more accessible to both users and search engines looking to rank it. Being able to access your site by clicking on links is important for potential customers looking for your product or service, as well as for search engines looking to add you to search results.

·      Optimal Keywords: According to Cutts, overly technical sites that use jargon or lingo can benefit especially from this service. A quality SEO company can help your business learn what keywords people actually understand, and what they’re using to search for your business. That way, you can simplify your approach, allowing more people to find your site through search engines.

·      Usability and Design: SEO companies can also help you streamline your site, so both users and search engines can navigate it more smoothly. A usable site, complete with readable and relevant content, will boost your reputation with site visitors, as well as within search engine rankings.

·      Speed of Site: Cutts points out that some SEO firms that also aid in Web design can help you speed up your website. Not only does Google include this factor in its rankings, but research shows that websites lose visitors surprisingly quickly when they’re slow to load. A faster site could mean more visitors who stay longer.

Overall, Cutts points out that SEO firms can help you create and utilize high-quality content that converts. With the help of an SEO website design and copywriting team (eh hem, iCopywriter.com), your site could become better represented where it counts: on search engines.

And that, Cutts adds, is not in any way cheating the system or spamming search engine users. Rather, SEO simply helps Google do its job - helping people search for websites that are relevant to their needs - better. After all, says Cutts, “Search engines are not as smart as people.” So to make Google and other search engines work for you, you need people - smart, experienced SEO experts and writers - by your side.

Have you checked out iCopywriter.com lately?