By: Sildjohn Quencia

Sildjohn is a web technologist from London. He works as a SEO strategist for House Removals and Sell House Quick London.

Reports of Google Drive’s (cloud storage service rumored as Dropbox competitor) launch have been all over the net this week. The news was reported by people from the online tech magazine, The Next Web who managed to get a sneak peek on the draft of an announcement from one of Google’s official Drive partners.

Earlier reports said that the cloud storage service will be officially rolled out this week but it no longer appears to be the case. According to news sources, Google Drive will move the official launch next week.

Google Drive promises as 5GB free cloud storage for all and as expected, they will offer premium services for additional storage.

Online community, Talk Android released the leaked screenshots of the said cloud storage service. The thumbnail shows Google Drive’s landing page. As seen in the screenshot, the cloud storage service will be offered for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices.

Google Drive launch is just around the corner but the question now becomes whether or not Google can make a good impression on cloud storage users that are currently using Dropbox. We’ve already seen a few attempts from Google to dominate the internet scene, look at Google+. 5GB free storage is way bigger than that of Dropbox’s 2GB free storage offer. Well, let’s just see what happens next week.

Google has finally expanded its GoMo initiative by teaming up with Duda Mobile (the one that offers mobile web development service commercially), to urge small businesses to create mobile versions of their sites by offering the  mobile web development service for FREE.

With almost 6 billion mobile users, 4 competitive Mobile OS and an ever increasing demand for mobile web, most of the businesses have already took the necessary step by optimizing their websites on mobile – by creating a mobile version of their web pages. But the problem was, especially for small businesses, building a mobile website requires them to hire mobile developers – which means it requires a serious sum of money. This is the very reason why there are still a lot of businesses who don’t have a mobile friendly version of their websites.

A recent report from Limelight networks has shown that almost 80% of customers that visit a non-mobile friendly website bounces back to search pages, moves on and never visit the site again.

Another significant trend in mobile web is that people now usually look into local maps (that “places nearby..” sort of app you see on most mobile devices) to find different services or products.

This is the main reason why Google has been advocating on going mobile for the past two years and now, they expanded it even more by offering a FREE, easy-5-step-setup and customizable mobile web development tool for all.

Here are some interesting features:

Easy Setup

Free Templates

Tons Customization Options

Google AdSense Integration

Click-to-Call Feature

Click-to-send-mail Feature

Mobile Maps

Google Analytics

Free Hosting

Unlimited Email & Phone Support

1 Year Premium Service worth $108 – FREE

We have tested GoMo-DudaMobile Tool and made a mobile version for one of our clients,  Removal Company. The image thumbnail is the actual appearance of its mobile version.

This year has been a spam content hunting year for Google. The newly implemented Panda was set to track spam content and links and there are already a vast majority of websites that felt the impact of the new algorithm affecting their ranking. Many websites were also penalized and deindexed because of over optimization. Moving forward, the best action to take for this year is to formulate a Panda friendly link building technique.

Earlier this year, Google sent out thousands of emails to webmasters warning them about “unnatural links” and just last month, Google busted another link network (Buildmyrank) by deindexing an overwhelming majority of its networks because of manipulating links and ruining the search results pages.

Here are 3 main tactics that you can use to be Panda friendly and retain your ranks in SERPs:

Anchor Text Variations

Anchor text is the one that carries the link where you want the people to land after clicking on it. Traditionally, we use the exact match anchor text. For example you want to rank for the keyword: Removal Company, you use the same anchor text for most of your content. Now, you cannot use the same anchor text over and over again because Google can easily detect you. There has been a lot of sites being penalized for this.

Now, what you can do is to make anchor text variations, instead of using the same anchor text. For example if you have London Removal Companies as your main anchor text, use variations like “London Removal”, “Removal Companies” and “Removal” instead. These variations actually are counted as partial match and having a number of anchor text variations actually makes your links look more natural.

Using calls to action is also a good practice because Google also acknowledges these lines as well. For example: “Click on this”, “Check our this useful link”, etc.

Link Spikes

Link spikes is very easy for Google to find.  Say if your normal link building campaign run and generate a maximum of 10 back links a day but the next day, all of a sudden you generated a hundred links, Google can easily track your link graphs and you can be penalized for that.

The best way to keep you link building campaigns to its normal, more natural level is to keep your back links at a normal level but then gradually increasing more links the next day. Say you generate at most 20 links a day, you can increase your link to 25 the next day. Don’t over do your link building campaigns.

Take heed of the Panda Spam Flag

As mentioned in our previous article, the newly improved Panda algorithm is designed to look out for spam links and content. When the linking pages gets flagged for spam, the page that those links are pointing to will also be affected.

The best way to check your site for spam flag is to search its domain name on Google. Your site should always be ranked number 1 for its URL/domain name. If it doesn’t then you definitely have some penalty.

For Websmasters, always check mails coming from Google.  As this year Google has been so busy sending out warning notifications to websites.

For content – make sure that your published content is at least 50% unique to avoid being penalized. Remember to make variations for your titles, anchor texts and observe a maximum of 2 backlinks per post.

We have seen a lot of major changes in the field of search engine optimization  before 2011 closes. The standard “On-page” and “Off-page” models that Google has been including in their search ranking criteria was drastically changed – adding “Usage” as an important factor that Google bots will be looking for in ranking the best web page that they will return on search engine results pages.

Usage

The new Panda algorithm that was rolled out few months ago was designed to look for a certain website’s “Usage” along with the on-page and off-page factor.

SERP CTR (Search Engine Results Page – Click Thru Rate) – This is the percentage that you get from the search engine results page. Google fetches the average click rates of the websites on the SERP and tracks their respective click through rates. CTR is the ratio between the number of clicks you get over the number of times that your website appeared on SERP’s. Google tracks your average CTR and compare it to the rest of the websites in the same SERP page. It is very important to keep your average CTR in order to stay in the same spot that you have in SERP’s right now.

Bounce Rate – Another triggering factor for Panda is the average bounce rate that you get from SERPs. Bounce Rate is the percentage of page visits in which the user left your site and bounced back to the results page.  Getting a higher bounce rate will certainly affect your ranking on SERP as this tells Google Panda that your page is not really useful.

News Users/Visitors – The percentage of new users/unique visits is also another big factor in determining SERP ranking. The general thinking there is that the more unique visits or returning users you get, the more of your site will be a nice view in the eyes of Panda.

Average time on Page – The average time that user stays on your page can also be used by Panda in determining your rank in SERPs.

Google also made a few additions to the on-page and off-page models.

On-page SEO

It is now important that your generated content is 50% unique. Google has developed a number of algorithms that hunts for duplicate content.

It is also important to have the exact match and variations of keywords in your title.

Meta Description is still important, not for the idea of seo but for a better CTR on SERP’s. The better meta description snippet that your site displays on SERP, the more people will click through.

Freshness is also one of the new criteria that every websites should meet as one part of Panda algorithm looks into the freshness of content on a certain website. The more frequent you update your website (with fresh topics or events relevant to a given keyword or query), the more Panda will give importance to you on SERP.

Off Page SEO

Geolocation is very important as more and more people are using geo location based searches, specifically on mobile web. It is very important to have your website listed on local maps in Google Maps and other geo location services. If you have observed, for some location based searches on Google, it SERPs returns websites with corresponding geo location results with google maps.

Mentions/Social Signals is another important factor that is closely related to social media. It is very important to get your site to facebook, twitter and specially google+ because some search results actually returns Google+ content.

Nowadays, millions of businesses could not lived without having a website for advertisement of their products and services through the Internet, wherein business trades from one company to another has been made very easy. Of course, these business websites would not be a successful source for gaining more clients without the use of social media platforms such as facebook, twitter, linkedin, and the like.

When visitors visit your business website and are impressed with your services and/or products, they will just simply click on the like button of your website and follow your activities on every social networking site you have.

Social Media platforms have been part of businesses all over the world. It has been a mechanism to easily send invites to clients and to make their businesses to be known to everyone. To easily understand the importance of having social media platforms be integrated on your websites either personal or business, here are five (5) reasons, as follows:

1. To gain more clients and be able to sell your services and products easily.
2. To announce promotional offers and rebates to increase their sales or source of profit and boost up your sales statistics in the market.
3. To give clients an easy way of accessing information about the goods offered by your business.
4. To help your business stay in contact with your clients wherever they maybe.
5. To help your business collects feedback, ideas, and complaints from your clients.

These reasons had been the starting point of most businesses to avail websites with social media optimization package. If you have a business that is yet to come or that has been present for several years, but has not yet established relationship with clients, maybe this is the time to start and see the results yourself.

Tons of companies and individual business owners reach more customers and increase their sales through Internet marketing. The term “Internet marketing” encompasses many different activities, including increasing search engine rankings, advertising and social media marketing. This article contains advice for using internet marketing techniques.

To help an eCommerce site’s PageRank skyrocket, come up with a limited time offer. You can also “buy” PageRank by getting deal sites and consumer news sites to link to your page. The concept is similar to businesses selling an item at a loss, expecting to profit from the move in the future.

Comments are an excellent resource, even from non-buyers. Adding a form to fill at the bottom of ad copy will allow these visitors to explain why a purchase was not made. They may not have liked your copy, your guarantee or something else.

Planning you website may seem very time consuming, but it is very important for your business. Narrow down your interests until an obvious winner is on top. It is best to choose a niche that you find both familiar and enjoyable. Having a definite goal will make marketing your site a lot easier.

Like any other business endeavor, internet marketing required dedication and knowledge. A mentor is an invaluable resource. Most internet marketing pros provide low cost or free services. Another important consideration is to choose a proven technique, and make sure you follow it. Keep in mind that while you may experience a slow start, in the end it will be worth all of the time and effort you have put into it.

Be certain that the information you provide to customers when you promote your business is appropriate. Always make sure the information you offer is of high quality. Visitors to your site should find valuable, up to date information about your company. Make sure you try incorporating prizes in a unique way. One simple contest idea is to hide an image or word in various places throughout your website, and then ask your customers to locate them… when they do, offer them a free prize or discount. Getting customers involved in your site will make it more personable and fun, allowing them to feel comfortable purchasing from you.

If you hold any kind of promotion, event or product push online, you must track how it is perceived by your customers in an effort to make the next offering more successful. Look at how people interact with you on blogs and forums when you launch any type of an event. Use their ideas and advice to help your business as well as to show them respect for their input.

You should always include coupons and/or free samples in your shipping boxes that relate to the product that you are sending to the customer. Most people look at coupons in a positive sense and it gives them a reason to purchase more of your products.

In conclusion, many businesses use Internet marketing to sell products and services. Internet marketing uses methods such as search engine optimization and advertising to generate sales interest. If you remember the advice in this article, you can use Internet marketing to seriously boost interest in your own products and services.

Increasing number of individuals all over the world is continually creating their Google+ accounts and is learning more about the newest social media platform. Success can be gained faster using Google+ if you do not make mistakes when getting started on trying to build an audience.

If you want to build a network and connect with more people in the Internet using Google+, try to avoid this five (5) common mistakes, as follows:

• Bio does not match public posts – check out public posts that you have shared, sometimes public posts does not match your bio causing people not to add you to their circle of friends. One good example of this is when you try to post topics about food when your Google+ bio is all about high – tech innovations. If someone visits your page and sees that your post does not match with your interest in your bio, then people might conclude that you and your posts are irrelevant.
• Low quality of profile picture or worse… not at all – clearly choose the image you want to place unto your Google+ profile page. Make sure that the image clearly shows your face and let other people know who you are. Not doing this would cause people not to be inclined with you. Social media means socializing with other through the use of technology, therefore, do not be afraid or shy to place your picture in there.
• No photos have been shared – to greatly enhance your Google+ profile, you need to upload and share photos into your photo album, sharing posts with photos attached will also add enhancement to your Google+ posts. Take advantage of this Google+ feature in order to engage with other people through various formats.
• Google+ Profile page not properly filled – up – one of the most important thing to remember is fill – up your Google+ profile, because not filling it up properly or completely would make people think that you are not worth adding to their circles. People would ask “Why should I add this people when they have not given me indication of who they are?” Therefore, give people an indication of who you are, through this, your connections would increase.
• Unclear on answering what drives you question – people would not probably add you to their circles when the only information you have placed in your Google+ account is the job title and the company. Also do not forget to care on filling – up of what you care, hobbies, sports, etc. that you are interested and make it clearer to people.

These five (5) common mistakes encountered with Google+ accounts, makes people unsuccessful in making people add them to their circles. The above information might be useful for you to avoid making mistakes when using Google+ accounts. Read this article and clearly understand the information written.

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SEO more popular than PPC for socia media marketers

Instagram Finally On Android

A recent report from Social Media Examiner shows that social media marketers opts SEO in their internet marketing efforts than PPC (pay-per-click advertising).

The report were results from the fourth annual survey of the social media magazine, which this year had almost 4000 social media marketers around the world have responded.

Email marketing came out as the number 1 marketing channel used while search engine optimization (seo) was at the number 2 spot. Paid search or PPC was far on the list at no. 6.

65% of the social media marketers uses SEO compared to only 38% who use PPC in their marketing efforts. 67% of the B2B industry are using SEO which is slightly higher than its B2C counterpart with 62%.

More than half of the respondents are also looking forward to extend their SEO efforts and only 9% have no plans to use SEO. While on the PPC side, only 43% have shown interest in increasing their PPC budget.

Good news for all android users out there! The world famous social photo sharing application, Instagram has finally opened their doors for Android fans.

A few weeks ago, Instagram has launched a landing page where Android users can sign-up early for its release and be notified for the official roll out. Having roughly 300,000 early sign ups from thrilled android users, Instagram have doubled up their time and got their app on Google Play on Tuesday, April 3, 2011.

Instagram already boasts nearly 30 million registered iPhone users – and now with an Android portal, the figures are expected to triple up this year.

What is Instagram?

For those haven’t known this app, Instagram is a photo sharing application that turns simple snapshots into a beautiful vintage looking photo using a set of photo processing filters: vignette, cross process, etc.

Users can automatically share their photos on a number of Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare.

What took them so long?

Instagram has been up for 1 year and half but the service has been only made available for iOS. The number question for many Android fans: Why has instagram taken so long to release an Android version? Most people believed Apple has their hands on Instagram and are trying to seclude the Android market, but the truth is:  first of all, Instagram is not owned by Apple. Second of all, Instagram’s development team is only composed of a few individuals and apparently, they have known the Apple platform very well before Android. Basically, the team has to learn the new Android platform and it simply takes time. This is the main reason why it took about a year for them to roll out an Android version of Instagram.

Sample Instagram Photo from an Android Phone:

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5 Reasons Marketers Do Not Use Social Media

SEO vs Social Media: Which Is Better?

There are lots of people in the society that are trying hard to have a big social media audience, which even provoke them to advertise ads on television and promoting their Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and even Google+ accounts in televisions. Some even decided to have contests and offers freebies & goods by an exchange on following them. On websites, obviously you have seen the link “Follow me” that is screaming all around the World Wide Web.

But, despite of this obvious contest happening around the Internet, there are still people and/or businesses that are stopping themselves to engage on such process of marketing, want to know why? Here are five (5) things that are stopping those marketers from engaging to social media, as follows:

• Undefined Base Strategy – some marketers do not know on what would be their starting point in creating their own roadmap which would be the primary source on how you want your social media campaign is implemented. It is some sort of a plan which reflects your desires and achievements you want to have. It is also included in this map the entire budget you would invest to implement completely social media campaign to your site.
• Lack of understanding to their campaign’s environment – implementing social media to your own website is not as easy as it looks, it also needs a deeper understanding on what it does and on what capabilities it has that could contribute to your business. Some marketers do not engage to social media, mostly because of this reason, they do not understand what social media does and means.
• Irrelevant platforms and toolsets – some marketers’ implements social media campaigns to their websites without even knowing what set of tools and platforms are eager to use for their campaign. For them, as long as campaigns are there, that is all that matters, which is of course would not be a good starting point to gain traffic and increase profit.
• Failure on identifying offline components that will be needed to complement Online Social Marketing – the lack of knowledge and understanding on offline events also causes marketers not to engage on social media, because for them it’s a risk to take. Offline events as we know are powerful conversion tools when used in a proper and relevant way.
• Lack of Human Resource – this is the most common reason why marketers are stopping themselves in engaging to social media marketing. The lack of human resources that are capable of implementing such marketing campaigns causes them ignore the events happening on the Internet. Some of these marketers think that it would just be another cost because they need to hire another individual to do this, which is of course wrong, because they can study social media marketing by themselves, considering their intellectual capabilities on it.

These five (5) reasons that are stopping some marketers to engage in social media marketing campaign can easily be removed by letting you know the positive side of social media. Sticking yourselves to the negativity of such process would never get you in touch to social media and leaving you behind to the old way of marketing. If you want to increase your profit and boost up your audience, try getting social media marketing campaigns on your websites up and running.