And although a part of me still thinks that, I can’t help but to see how twitter is invaluable to a company, especially an online company.

This is because Twitter is essentially a free way to do market research and in a fraction of the time.

Let me explain.

When a person ‘tweets’ they are essentially making their thoughts public and letting anyone use that information to get a scope on what twitter users world-wide are thinking.

This is possible because there are web-based applications that allow you to monitor trends or monitor how often a particular topic is discussed on twitter.

For example, one such website is trendistic.com. By using this site you can see how popular a particular topic is in a given time period.

So imagine you were to search for ‘Wimbledon’ then Trendistic would tell you that it stopped being a hot topic on the 5th of July, which means if you are selling a tennis related product then after the 5th you are likely to see a drop in sales.

This is great because it can let you know, a head of the curve, what your sales figures are likely to be and you can then take the necessary steps to counter the effects.

Another site is tweetstats.com, which gives you the top 10 tweeted topics at the moment.

All of this is great for a web site as it gives you a few pointers as what to write about (at the moment it would be Inception and in a week or two Toy Story), which from a SEO point of view makes your site more ‘visible’ and ‘findable’.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Now, instinctively I’d say “no” but recently I’ve been unable to choose what film to watch of an evening and I’m pretty sure it’s all because I’ve got too much choice.

It has to be that because I’ve got some amazing films like The Godfather, Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, The 40 year old virgin, Scent of a woman, Amelie, Jurassic Park, to name but a few. So how can I not pick a film to watch?

The answer: I have so many that I don’t know where to start.

Although, choice can be a good thing too much of it can create indifference, apathy and even boredom. In fact, unless choice is dished out in the right amounts and in the right places it can turn people into spoilt children screaming, ‘I want it all, and I want it now”, “if I don’t get the things I am after I’m going to scream!” or even “Don’t care how I want it now!”.

Take for instance a web site selling a particular product, now customers want choice but if you give them an endless amount of choice then once that choice is taken away they become dissatisfied.

Choice makes people think in new ways, so that as soon as they hit a brick wall they cannot cope and all they can think about is what if the wall wasn’t there.

So for me this means wanting to watch every film ever made except the ones that I own but for a company it might mean that customers feel compelled to go to a competitor, which is something we all want to avoid.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Instead I’m going to discuss Google Caffeine – because that’s been a major factor in keeping me going this weekend (caffeine I mean, not Google).

Officially announced on the 8th June, Google Caffeine is a new web indexing system that will show 50% fresher results for searches, with a greater focus on real-time searches and the ability to find content far sooner after it has been published.

Think of it like a small child who has had too much lemonade zipping around picking up things relevant to you whilst Google sorts through them efficiently and brings you their best perceived results.

Caffeine analyses the web in small portions and processes new pages every second – apparently, if it were a pile of paper it would grow 3 miles taller every second. That’s just crazy.

What does this mean for us? Probably a lot – all I know is that it will make our job more keyword-focused and place more importance on fresher articles.

I’m sure a techie will be able to explain it better than my puny, fragile mind, but it’s certainly something to think about.

Supposedly, every Tuesday and Thursday morning, their search engineers meet to talk about the engine’s algorithm and how it could be improved. With Google starting to update its index every 10 seconds, SEO is more important now than ever.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

And also because it has a single message, ‘No man is an Island’.

Which means, we can’t live alone and unconnected from our fellow man (sorry I went a bit Dickens there) but instead we must  live together, form relationships and just connect with other human beings.

And the same is true for websites.

Hugh Grant, or Will as he is called in the film, says, “In my opinion, all men are islands. And what’s more, now’s the time to be one. This is an island age.”

But throughout the film he comes to realise that this is all wrong and that in fact by becoming an Island he has actually become ‘a blank’ and a nothing, who is completely shallow and meaningless.

And, like I said above, this is also true for websites.

Websites have to have links so that people find the site and so that they think the site is useful. If it is just an opinion or a meaningless sentence then people will come to think the site lacks depth.

And I’m not a techie but I imagine there is a technical reason why links make a site better as well, i.e. Google likes sites that have links on them, or something like that.

So as much as you may want your site to be an island, to be ‘Bloody Ibiza’ as Hugh Grant says, it won’t help your website. So instead become a continent or an island chain with loads of connections and links.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

So, its here, we have to ‘deal’ with it.  This will be the view of many SEO companies.

Is it something to be embraced or is it a chore?  How will SEO companies manage to take social media and actually make it a beneficial service for their clients?  They have a few options, of which some are here:

1. Pass on the work to genuine social media experts, admitting that its not their core service
2. Pretend that they know what they are doing and sell it anyway
3. Bury their head in the sand and ignore it
4. Get learning fast and become a premium service provider of social media marketing

One thing is for sure, if ever we at redsauce.com can feel smug about something, its that content is – and always will be – the cornerstone of any successful site.  Why do I say that?  Well, social media marketing, or social media optimization, however you want to describe it (even tho its two different things), HAS to have behind it some great content.

Are you listening, SEO agency employees?  Attempts at swaying social media is futile unless there is something genuinely of interest which is referred to, or linked to.

So not only does it mean that SEO companies will have to pull up their socks regarding social media optimization methods and practices, but also with the production of great content, which most SEO companies are not exactly famous for.

In the next few months and years, we will see the social media world have thrown at it hundreds if not thousands of ways to try and game the system, much like the early days of search, and this particular author is hopeful that it will be interpreted correctly by Google, with the slant very much focussed on rewarding great content, rather than automated twitter accounts and various other social media account automation.

Time will tell of course, but we are definitely moving in to the age of content, of a humanisation of search engine results, whether you use Google to search, or whether you use other means.

On that note, have you searched for things recently using twitter?  Its now become quite a viable alternative to the mighty Google hasn’t it?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Design-wise Amazon is simple and easy to use, despite having a massive range of products it’s still easy to find what you want, all plus points on the usability here.  The fluid web design also works in any browser size from your netbook style size to your giant widescreen desktop monitor.

Cleverly Amazon also employs the ‘bundle deals’ and ‘customers who bought this item also bought’ feature that does help to keep you adding stuff to your shopping cart when really you should have clicked ‘checkout’ ages ago, damn you Amazon!.

SEO wise, Amazon once again comes out on top with its customer review system which allows each product to have consumer reviews added to its page just adding more relevant keywords into each page and making it easier for customers to make their mind up on their product choices.

Finally, Amazon has authority and recognition, which in today’s world of online scams and fake websites gives the customer a sense of security that you can’t get with more recent or less mature online purchase sites.

There are still lots of ways that Amazon can improve, but the proof really is that Amazon has so far stood the test of time in a very young market.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

We all watched Lost at the beginning of the week have been unable to talk about it as someone in the office hasn’t watched series 6 yet. It’s been very frustrating.

So I thought I’d get round this problem by writing a SEO inspired unique and coded description of what happened. And it’s got to be written in such a way that people who watched it can tell what I’m talking about but obscure enough to not give anything away.

Firstly, I can’t believe what happens to the guy who drinks out of the cup. How thought-provoking (insert appropriate emotion) but I just wish he got dry instead of staying wet. Perhaps he had to stay wet but I just wish he didn’t.

And can you believe what the other thing (a bit obscure but you should know what I mean) was? Wow. Everyone had all these theories and it didn’t even occur to me that they all made it together, just so they spend some time together, kind of like a den.

But what I’d really like to know is what did No.1 and No.2 do next and how long did they stayed for. Was it a few days? Years? Decades? Or even centuries? And does that mean it’s not really over?

Although that might be the case I think it’s best to keep it as it is, it was an amazing ending and I’ve been playing it over in mind ever since. I’ll definitely be getting the box set and starting from scratch.

I think I’ve done a very good job of saying something in a unique and completely original way, something that you should try yourself when writing web content.

And hopefully it is so obscure that spoilers will not be revealed.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I don’t think so and I’m going to tell you why.

By making content for the sake of making content you just ruin the integrity of a TV program or for us, at redsauce.com, a website.

A website or TV program has to remain top quality otherwise there’s no point and for the Simpsons I can remember the exact episode where the focus shifted from quality to quantity, and not a skilled blend of the two.

Although this is not officially recognized downfall of the Simpsons, it is the episode I think of when I consider how poor the Simpsons has become. It was season 12, episode 3 called ‘Insane Clown Poppy’ and although it may not have been that bad it just didn’t compare to earlier episodes.

This is because from then on I noticed that characters had lost their charm and just become amplified versions of their former selves. Homer was drunker, and louder and stupider and was messing up in more ridiculous ways. It was no longer about quality, it was all about quantity.

It’s not just the Simpsons though as South Park is going the same way too, with the last two seasons not being as good as they have been in the past. And perhaps this is even true for LOST, but if there is one thing I am certain of it is that it certainly isn’t true of The Wire.

Now that I’ve had my little rant here’s a top tip, when writing web content remember not to go past season 12 or your site may lose its appeal.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Leopard Websites

If your website is a leopard it’s a lean and mean website that is unique and well targeted in a niche area but also has that professional larger website look.  The leopard, much like the llama, doesn’t need a giant marketing campaign due to its niche content but will probably be loved by search engines due to its well designed site content, layout and general SEO.

How to improve your Leopard Website

• Add more content to capitalize on the websites uniqueness, snazzy layout , design and its already solid SEO.

Llama Websites

If your website is a llama it’s quirky, unique, probably has a matted mane and you might not have very many competitors due to its individualistic nature.  You won’t need a giant marketing campaign because your competition is less and your target audience will probably be willing to overlook some slight design or layout faux paus due to their inherent love of your website’s niche content.

How to improve your Llama Website

• Make sure your SEO is attended too and your site is kept in well groomed tip top condition, but don’t make it look too professional or you may scare off your target audience.

Dog Websites

If your website is a dog it’s probably in a very competitive market as dogs are popular and people do love them.  If your website is a dog it can be any kind of breed from the generic mutts, to the prize winning, well groomed Kruft’s dogs.  Either way it’s going to have to be well marketed, engineered and groomed if it wants to stand out from the crowd.

How to improve your Dog Website

• With so much competition out there you better make sure your dog website looks better than your competitors and has much better SEO, you don’t want to be winning the runner up award at Kruft’s this year!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The election and bank holiday have skewed the scene quite a bit.  Add to that a potential algorithm change and it becomes very confusing times.

I know that I could go and visit a few SEO forums, read some unconvincing messages and eventually find my way to the truth, but before I do that, I want to keep my mind pure and try to work out what I think the changes have been.

Currently, the few things going around my head are the following:

• That there has been a shift in how links are calculated – a more distributed link collection is now more important? What I mean by this that while a few authority links can beat a site with several hundred, even thousand of poor links, it now seems like the mixture of the two is even stronger than before
• That Google can read a page better now and can work out where links, and indeed content, are situated on the page.  Links and content in the bottom-right section of a page for example, will be deemed as less important than those in the middle-top of the page.
• That speed of a page helps (I know that everyone knows this and that its in Webmaster tools)
• That new sites bought, even though they were originally seen by Google years ago are now seen as new sites again.

Im sure there is something else that I have been looking at over the past few days, but I do not recall it at the moment.  These are all my own thoughts and could be skewed heavily because of the poor business scene at the moment, especially in the UK.

We will all know in a few months or so I suppose…keep watching.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites