eMarketing Trends|Verbal Acrobatics & Graphic Gymnastics

The growth in the Mobile Industry over the last decade has made it paramount for all businesses to have Mobile Sites in order to reach this growing new target market.

Current local (South Africa) trends show that:

• There are ten million mobile Internet users in SA (Five million PC Internet users in SA)
• One in six Google searches in SA originates off a mobile device.
• In South Africa about 40 percent of mobile phone users have WAP-enabled phones.
• The top Mobile Applications currently in South Africa are: Mxit – with 15 million+ users – and Facebook.
• Mobile search and eCommerce will be a large area of growth in 2010.

In short, this indicates an importance for businesses to target mobile searchers and users of mobile applications.

Some of the best Mobile Site examples I can give include BBC, the Goal mobi site, and College Humour (N/B: “these examples obviously look better on your mobile phone – feel free to suggest your favourite mobile sites below“).

However, when creating a Mobile Site it is also imperative to build and optimise the Mobile Sites so it is user-friendly and accessible on the Mobile Web.

Mobile Design and SEO Best Practices
When designing a Mobile Site one aspect to consider is that one must understand that mobile searchers/users are different from PC searchers/users. In order to cater for Mobile users designers must:

• Provide an elegant experience by considering whether individuals possess a smart phone (for example an iPhone with fully featured web browsing) or a standard mobile phone (with stripped site features).
• Consider that phones are not used like PC’s – users are usually on the go therefore the site should be more goal oriented – Relevancy and Simplicity is key.
• Mobile designs are to conform to the new W3C standards in order to create mobile-friendly style sheets (CSS).
• Mobile Sites must be small, lightweight and fast-loading site – (< 20kb / page).
• Consider User Agent Detection –  this is another form of transcoding which takes into consideration the type of mobile phone an individual uses to search and provides more uniform browsing experience for various device types.

Once the Mobile Site has been built, Mobile SEO steps can now come into play. These include:

1.    Validating the page with the .Mobi Validator or the W3C Validator
2.    Following ‘traditional’ on-site  SEO Best Practices such as:

• Major keywords in the title tagging
• H1’s and body text
• Rich keyword Meta Titles and Descriptions
• Keyword-rich anchor text for internal links

3.    Mobile Search results tend to reflect ‘Local Search results’ – your site must be optimized for local type searches. Also submit your business info to local directories making sure your site is verified and included in sites like Google’s Local Business Center.
4.    Get the Mobile Site spidered and indexed – submit to major search engines:

• Google Sitemaps
• Yahoo! Submit Your Mobile Site

In short, the above Mobile Design and SEO factors are to be strongly considered when building a Mobile Site. These aspects help provide a solid Mobile Site foundation for your Mobile Campaign or Strategy. For further Mobile Campaign or Strategy enquiries, visit our Virtuosa website.

Its official there is a new big dog in the social media space. Just a week after Google launched Buzz, the social media service is already rattling the cage of top dogs Facebook and Twitter. It seems as if Google has finally made a successful foray into the social media world. Despite initial privacy flaws Google Buzz has proven to be an absolute success.

Google Buzz has surprised many experts who thought Google would never make it in the social media world. In the past Google suffered embarrassing setbacks with their attempts at creating a rival to Facebook and Twitter. Google Friend Connect and Orkut never really left the ground but Google Buzz shot into outer space.

The growth of the newest challenger to the social media crown has been phenomenal. According to statistics released by Google, just after the launch on the 9th of February 2010, there have been over 9 million posts and comments in about 56 hours, amounting to around 160,000 posts and comments per hour.

Google Buzz also generated big shock waves in mobile phone market. Google revealed that over 200 mobile check-ins per minute, nearly 300,000 mobile check-ins per day. The key to this success is the fact that Google Buzz is embedded into Gmail.

Gmail has millions of users around the world and by putting the Google buzz tab just under the inbox tab; Google applied a very innovative idea. When a user logs into their Gmail account they are greeted by a Google Buzz tab. The system is almost similar to Twitter the greatest difference is its integration to Gmail.

Many Gmail users find the system very convenient, when they open their e-mail account, they can quickly read the newest mail and won’t have to leave the account to create a social media post. Twitter, Flicker, Picasa and Google Reader can also be connected to the system. You can share pictures but this will be saved at Picasa. The most convenient aspect of Google buzz is that you don’t have to set it up if you have a Gmail account.

Key Features

• Simple interface
• No set up required
• Social media integration
• E-mail integration

Initially there were major privacy concerns. The system had an auto follow function where a user automatically followed people he regularly sent e-mails to. According to Ben Parr Co-Editor of Mashable “the auto follow function can let people figure out your email habits.” Google has changed this to an auto suggested model. This allows you to control who you follow. Another concern is that your inbox can be flooded by Buzz spam.

There are clear indications that Google Buzz is already taking some market share from Twitter and Facebook. People are spending more time on their Gmail accounts than before and this is surely taking some time from Twitter and Facebook. The Buzz threatens Twitter and Facebook’s ad revenue. Advertisers are certain to be impressed with the reach that Google Buzz has.

The future of Google Buzz will depend on how it is going to react to upgrades by the two social media giants. Some predict there is going to be a major dog fight between the three networks. If this fight gets very intense Google buzz will be the last network standing. Google has immense resources and will be able to match any upgrade. Google has been salivating for some time now at the prospect of properly sinking its teeth into the social media world. It has shown great determination at penetrating the social media realm overcoming numerous setbacks. Like a hungry dog biting into a bone it won’t let go of its new grip on social media.

I recently wrote an article for our November Newsletter and thought to make a mention of it before most of us go on leave for the Christmas Holidays.

What Influences The SEO Landscape Today? talks about how quickly our online world has changed and the role that SEO still plays. If you are finding it hard to stay ahead and don’t know too much about how Social Media is integrated these days, then I suggest you have a read. Enjoy.

Organic traffic is the web based traffic which you are naturally able to attract to your site without using any short cuts or paid submissions for the promotion of a website. This traffic is an unpaid listing on search engines or web directories.

Just the other day I came across a site that had a serious drop in its Organic traffic and this got me thinking of strategies that could be used help the site recover from this slump in Search visits.

Anywoo, I thought I’d write a short blog – (well 3 short tips to think about actually) – that you can employ in order to Increase Organic Search Engine Traffic to your site.

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Want more people to follow you on Twitter? I was looking for tasteful Twitter strategies on how to get more people to follow me the other day, and I came across a horde of uninspiring articles offering just that: Tips on how to get more people to follow you on twitter. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s remarkable how people have taken to this Twitter phenomenon. A diverse group of people ranging from celebrities to evangelists, from newscasters to sex gurus tweet on a regular basis; whether it’s to pass on knowledge or just to rant about what is going on in their lives. The bottom line is all the buzz in the social communication world these days goes through Twitter.

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Virtuosa is currently looking for an Online Marketing Manager to join our amazing team to help drive business and revenue strategy for our clients.

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longtail has started to expand exponentially into all the social networking channels. One of the main areas we are focusing on is YouTube. At the beginning of the year YouTube had almost 80 million videos online with almost 200 000 videos published every day!! These statistics cant be ignored and as a result of this longtail started designing and implemented branded YouTube channels.

One of the most recent channels set up on YouTube is the “Gil- it works beautifully channel“. This channel was established to increase brand awareness as well as drive visitors to the Gill Hygiene web site where people can enter a competition to win Tri-Nations rugby tickets.

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In a recent blog How the Internet is affecting (y)our world?, I made mention of how the “Interent has shaken up the US Elections”. Another article on this topic caught my eye this morning which made for further interesting reading.

The article, written by Greg Jarboe, asks the question whether the more seasoned Hillary Clinton was out-Googled by the more search savvy Barack Obama for the 2008 US Presidential Campaign.

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So SMX (Search Marketing Expo) is upon us. Its like the Oscars of the search marketing world, well Oscars without the red carpet, wardrobe malfunctions and certain speakers over-extending their stay in the spotlight…oh wait, this happens at SMX too.

There were several interesting tidbits that has come out of SMX in its few first days, below is a list of items I found interesting (this probably means it won’t interest you in the least

Buying Sites For SEO – instead of buying links buy entire sites

How Google defines IP delivery, geolocation, and cloaking – Pretty self explanatory

Latest post on Matt Cutts blog – this covers a lot of new/refined Google definitions announced at SMX

Creating Value In Your SEM Businesses

Money For What? Search Marketing Payment Models

Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques

Will keep you up to date regarding the conference and if anything noteworthy happens (Google and Microsoft Executive mass brawls, public nudity or anything of the like) I will update you immediately.