Today I almost forgot to write my Twitter Friday column. Why? I was so preoccupied with the new relaunched StumbleUpon version. To make it short: SU attempts to compete directly with Twitter and Google. This might sound ridiculous but they really do. Theoretically it would be possible: SU exists for several years and has collected tens of millions of web pages in its “index” together with millions of reviews with new sites being added very quickly. Isn’t this the ideal social search engine? Isn’t this the perfect way to determine which websites really do matter in real time? Sadly, no.

Now this is the Twitter column so I won’t compare the new StumbleUpon to Google. Let me explain though why

StumbleUpon is not Twitter and can’t compete with Twitter.

StumbleUpon does not allow business usage of its site. Yes, you can get banned solely for submitting your SEO company website to SU. Continue Reading »

To be or not to be

A recent statistic has opened my eyes. While I still somehow assumed to be an early adopter of social media in its still early days a Forrester Research study has shown that 80% of US Internet users use social media in one or more ways. While most of them are lurkers which is no surprise a large amount of the people actually contribute in an active manner. Social media in Europe is not as popular yet but the trend is clear.

While pondering the results it dawned on me that most of the businesses I encounter are far behind.
Continue Reading »

This week Twitter has officially embraced business users by providing a set of guidelines for proper and profitable business use of its service. It’s called Twitter 101 for Business. Most of us marketers knew already that Twitter is business friendly in stark contrast to many other social sites that are either staunchly anti-business (Digg e.g.) or solely allowing it as an advertiser (StumbleUpon).

Upon reading the official Twitter 101 for Business I couldn’t find much that was new to me, with one exception, the Twitter for business case studies.
Continue Reading »

Update July, 3rd 2009: Added 12 local SEO & search resources suggested by readers in the comment section and on Sphinn + some newly researched links.

The most obvious trend when it comes to SEO is “going local”. Ever since Google introduced Google Maps and Local Business Center and later added local search results to Universal Search displaying them on top of everything else businesses everywhere strive to be there. Additionally the proliferation of smartphones and netbooks accelerates this development even more.

You have to perform in local search and on sites that enable users to find local businesses in their respective area. Classic SEO is just not enough anymore for small business owners and location based big business.

Continue Reading »

This Twitter Friday I won’t write something myself as the sheer numbers of Twitter posts are overwhelming right now. This will be a guide into the Twitter buzz of last week.

Creative Commons image by Andy Castro.

I’ve collected some must read Twitter posts that are useful for all those interested in a broad SEO, marketing and business perspective. Continue Reading »

Creative Commons Image by striatic.

While microblogging and foremost Twitter is booming many people still oppose the service, that is, do not understand the use of it. Most of these people just don’t get it, others just want to get some attention for “thinking different”. Continue Reading »

Last time I promised a post about the 10 Twitter tools you need for using Twitter for business and in a professional manner.

I used Twitter just for fun, testing and finding out what it is about for a while and decided to professionalize it myself. You can’t even follow tweets about you right unless you use some special tools. You will miss opportunities due to overlooking important tweets in a mess of info overload.

In the Twitter optimization series overview post I wrote about 5 tools you’ll need, this time I’ll add another 5: Continue Reading »

Getting, convincing, keeping and dealing with clients is an art for itself. Whether you’re a freelancer or part of a company, whether you’re a SEO, web designer, programmer or writer you will encounter the same issues again and again. You might argue that everybody is different and no client matches another one. This is true. Nonetheless the situations you will go through often match. So you can prepare yourself for those recurring situations.

After 11 years of web working as web developer, blogger and SEO both in agencies and freelance I have collected a list of 30 timeless tips to get, convince, keep and deal with clients.

Continue Reading »

With Twitter the phase of “do we really need it?” is over. The “how do we use it?” phase is right now. There are numerous ways of using Twitter for everything from business to bull**** and even clients come up to me and ask me about Twitter after reading one of those Twitter articles in the main stream media.

So what are the Twitter tools that really make a difference for SEO and overall business users? Continue Reading »