Recently, Google rolled out another one of its search engine innovations: the Google Social Search. The announcement was made in conjunction with the company’s new partnership with social networking giant Twitter, which should help users find more up-to-the-minute, real-time data – including tweets – in Google search results. Google Social Search, however, is something independent from the Google-Twitter collaboration. Contrary to what some people might think, Social Search is not real-time search. What the new service does do is help users find content published by people in their social circle – and then see this kind of content included in search results. “Most people on the web today make social connections and publish web content in many different ways, including blogs, status updates, and tweets,” as explained by Google in the official blog entry announcing Social Search. “This translates to a public social web of content that has special relevance to each person.” It is this relevant, social web of – Read the full article
The search wars have just been taken to a whole new level. The catalyst? Social media. With the phenomenal popularity of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, both Google and Microsoft will now be integrating real-time updates into their respective search engines. In separate announcements made yesterday, October 21, Google said it has reached an agreement with Twitter to include real-time updates – “Tweets” – in a new Google feature called Social Search; meanwhile, Microsoft has signed deals to get full feeds from both Twitter and Facebook. Google cited the fact that “an entirely new type of data has emerged… not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.” The agreement with Twitter means search results will now include up-to-the-minute data and real-time observation from a stream of Tweets, so that users “will find tweets from – Read the full article
LinkedIn is not Facebook. It’s not Twitter, either. You don’t use LinkedIn to post 140-character statuses about your business or to officially like someone’s new online video. What you can do, however, is use LinkedIn to grow your small business and make it more profitable. And isn’t that your priority? As a business-oriented social networking site with more than 50 million registered users spanning 170 industries, LinkedIn is an online real estate for professionals big and small. It is truly a business networking site with the average user having $109K in income and 41 years old. If you’re unsure how to use your LinkedIn profile to gain a business advantage, you can follow these tips below: Brand your profile: As a small business professional, you want to be easily found by the people who matter – as well as by the most frequently used search engines. Make sure that you customize your LinkedIn profile by changing the default link into – Read the full article
When I come across articles like the one posted on TheStreet.com last week, I can’t help but get excited. Titled “Business Owners Question Social Networking” the article quotes some research that finds that a majority of small business owners haven’t seen value from social media, and that most don’t even use it themselves. A key section of the article reads: Among the 500 small-business executives surveyed, 76% said social networking hasn’t help them generate leads or expand their companies in the past year. And 86% said they don’t turn to these Web sites for business advice or other information. The majority, 61%, depend on big search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!, for business advice and information. Only 13% use social networking sites and only 10% rely on expert blogs. So why on earth would I be excited that small businesses don’t use social media and haven’t seen value from it yet? Opportunity. Plain and simple. For me, there is – Read the full article
Austin Online Marketing Company Get ahead of the game. Build a great website. Yes, a great website can help you and your brand stand out amidst all the clutter on the Web. Lakeshore Branding can help. Our web designers, SEO consultants, and Internet marketing experts all work hard to get you that much-needed competitive edge. We’ve put together web design and development solutions that are designed to bring in increased traffic, higher search rankings, better conversions, and superior return on your investment in an Austin web design company. We know what it takes to succeed on the Web. That’s what makes us different from other web design companies out there: it’s not just about design; it’s also about our dedication to results. After all, web design is only as good as the results it delivers. Interested to learn more? Contact us or fill in the form below. (Please complete all the fields marked *) Your name please. * Your – Read the full article
Internet marketing is generally broken into three areas- Research, Implementation and Tracking. Research includes using tools such as wordtracker, SEO Book or Google Adwords Keyword Tool. There are dozens of keyword tools to choose from but we like these because they are very easy to use and they supply the information that help us make good keyword decisions. These tools help you analyze what you believe the keyword list to be and modify it to maximize the potential website traffic. Simple things like making keywords plural has have significant increases in traffic or variations in phrases such as “online marketing” vs “Internet marketing.” While you may think that both phrases sound the same, you may think that maybe one or the other has a higher search volume- but you may be surprised to learn that “Internet marketing” has about 2.5 times the search volume of “online marketing.” Based on your objectives you would target the word that converts better for – Read the full article
I wrote a post about social media monitoring last week and in the news today is a Chicago company that is suing one of their tenants for $50,000. This lawsuit is already making waves at popular social media news site- mashable. Within the first two hours of the story being posted their are about 900 people tweeting and 115 comments on the blog. The tenant Amanda Bonnen made a comment on her twitter about mold in her apartment. “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.” The reason this story is already grabbing the attention of the social media community is the fact that Horizon’s Jeffrey Michael is quoted in the Sun-Times as saying “The statements are obviously false, and it’s our intention to prove that”, adding that Horizon has a good reputation to protect. Bonnen wasn’t contacted before the suit was filed or asked to remove the Tweet, he said: “We’re – Read the full article
Recently there have been a lot of discussions in the web design community about the issues of dealing with Internet Explorer 6 with the recent release of IE 8. One web designer has begun showing this image above for users that still use IE 6. Check out the landing page here. The fustration for the team comes when you basically have to code the website 3, 4, 5 different ways so that it is functional in all major browsers. One of the biggest users of IE 6 is the corporate IT community who does not like to upgrade browsers that work. Our stance: Lakeshore Branding still supports Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 as well as FireFox 2+, Safari, Google Chrome and Opera. Creating seperate style sheets can be a pain for any web development team, but with some websites still seeing 30% or more of their visitors using the outdated browser, it is crutical you support it for your – Read the full article
