Ultimately it’s best to go with the dash as it acts as a seperator where underline joins the terms together, but I thought I would let Matt Cutts from Google (yes an actual Google person) explain the difference in the video below if you’re interested in knowing why.

Google is in the process of launching their new attempt at challenging Facebook, let’s hope that they have learned from their first two attempts, Wave and Buzz, which were both terrible launches and complete disasters for users.

So a client asked me what makes this one different from the rest of Google’s social media attempts? Well they are allowing you to essentially divide up your social groups, which could either be really good or a terrible idea, time will tell.

So what do I mean by divide up the social group? Google calls this “Circles”.

Just think of all the times you’ve heard people say “my mums just joined facebook and wants to be added to my friends list” who knows what stuff you don’t want your mum to see or comments from other friends she’s never meant that show the wrong side of you. Sometimes there needs to be boundaries and this is essentially what Google thinks will make them different from the rest.

In theory this is a good idea for cases like that, but will it work in the real world? Only by getting enough people on the system and actually using it will we know if it’s a hit or not.

They bring a few other things to the table that are of interest like “Hangouts”.

So a few of you are online at the same time, wouldn’t it just be easier to set up video chat with everyone, but that’s usually a one to one affair, not with Google Huddle apparently you can do more than 2, how many more? well apparently up to ten, which is quite impressive, but will it work or kill broadband connections all over the place, guess we’ll find out soon.

So what else do they bring to the table well something called “Huddle”.

Have you ever been trying to arrange a night out with 4 or more people and had trouble with everyone knowing what’s going on then plans change and you have to do the round robin nightmare again to make sure everyone knows what’s happening. Well Huddle is apparently the saviour by letting you group everyone together in one big chat room. Problem solved, everyone now gets the same information as everyone else and can contribute to the chat without messing up your profile with useless chatter. This could be very useful to many people.

Maybe not as social right away “Sparks” is the next thing on the list.

This is basically a way for Google+ to suggest things you might be interested in from your searches. either it will work really well and you’ll discover lots of great new things or it will very quickly become spam and peeve you off.

They actually have a whole load of other things like privacy settings that are both easy to set and in your control, the ability to download all your photos and Google+ profile data so that if the service ever got canned you would have all your information – this is a nice touch, but something Facebook will probably be able to add easily enough.

Google+ will also be on pretty much every smart phone out there so it won’t matter if you have Android, iOS, Win 7 Mobile, Blackberry or Nokia Symbian.

So lot’s to take in and consider there for Google+, but do we need another social network?

I think it can’t do any harm to make Facebook take notice that maybe their position isn’t fixed at number 1. They will ultimately improve themselves as a result and maybe even simplify things like their privacy policy when they see how others approach it.

The consumers always lose out when there is only one of any service, so I would say try out Google+ and see if it is a worthy alternative for your life and business, if not, Facebook aren’t exactly going to kick you out!

Of course this is a minefield of information, but because I had to limit it to just 3 I sent them the following list, I hope you benefit form it as well.

1. Build good quality content and get relevant traffic to your site
2. Encourage your visitors to explore and to return as often as possible
3. Get them to take some form of action when they are there, so get their email address or have them call you.

That’s it, if you manage that then your site should see some improvement – remember most sites are lead generators not a sales machine (unless it’s an e-commerce site of course).

Good luck!

1. A good description is key as it tells everyone in a very short time what you do or who you are so it should include the keywords you want to be found for. Here’s my twitter description: Website Design Glasgow, Websites, Content Management Systems, Search Engine Optimisation & Social Media Marketing, Branding, Flash & Mobile Applications.
2. The first 25-40 characters should contain your keywords to be effective in Google searches but make sure it still reads well for your audience.
3. Link to your own twitter profile where you can. For example if you are getting new business cards made put it in the contact details part, but only if you intend to keep it up. Otherwise a dead page won’t look good to your prospect.
4. Tweet often, but please make sure it’s relevant, don’t tweet for tweets sake, also try to be as current as possible, think daily news of your industry, client issues or resources for your prospects, not what you had for breakfast, well unless you are a celebraty and your promoting something like healthy eating.
5. The more followers you have the bigger the boost to your ranking in Google for your Twitter account, but beware of following people, you know you don’t have to follow them because they followed you. Make sure you keep the quality high on who you essentially are giving a “I like this person”. Just in case you are interested you can find my twitter account here for Alan Fair Web Design Glasgow.
6. Use a URL that’s been shortened like www.bit.ly, http://goo.gl/ or http://tinyurl.com/ this basically takes a long URL that you have and gives it a code to make it as short as possible. It also ensures you have more characters to type on your tweet with so it’s worth the extra effort.
7. Don’t spend more than 1-2 hours a week maximum. If you have a clear Twitter strategy it should only take a few minutes each tweet, so even if you do a lot it shouldn’t take a bite out your week to get on with business.
8. Here’s a secret one most people don’t know about, make sure that the image on your profile has its filename edited to include your most important keyword or two, but don’t make it too long Google probably won’t like that. For example I have web-design-glasgow-alan-fair.jpg I would say that’s about as long as it should be. Don’t foget it needs to at least be descriptive of the image, so think very carefully about what you call it and what image you put up there.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

If you need help setting up or creating a twitter strategy give us a call on 07793 544 852 or 0141 246 5743 or email us info@cmmc.co.uk

Check out the link below for the full story.

Mobile Donations for Charities

Well I was trying to think of a way to solve this issue as I’ve been meaning to arrange many one to ones with people and some phone calls, but trying to work out when and who I can tell for what time or date it’s always a pain to do. Never mind the worrying that comes with double booking a meeting.

After a bit of research I was glad to see that someone else thought this was something that needed to be fixed, BEHOLD you new best online friend http://tungle.me it’s hassle free takes about 15-20 mins to setup properly, but will save you endless time in back and forth emails or calls, OH did I mention it’s completely FREE! It syncs with almost anything and there is even an iPhone app to make sure you never double book.

If you would like to arrange a one to one meeting with me, I’m giving a free 30 min session to analyse your website or online marketing strategy http://tungle.me/contactmultimedia this can be in person in Glasgow or on the phone (Skype soon when I get it all setup) for the people that are a bit further out.

Alan

Hackers have flooded the Internet with virus-tainted spam that targets Facebook’s estimated 400 million users in an effort to steal banking passwords and gather other sensitive information.

for the rest of the article go here http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100317/ttc-uk-facebook-virus-fe50bdd.html

A. There are a number of areas that really help an e-commerce site.

The main one you should focus on is really concentrate on the shopping basket experience as this is where you can lose most of your customers. Don’t make it too complicated or have too many steps, make it simple and easy to create an account, so minimum information and let them fill out the rest later.

If you look at one of the most successful e-commerce sites (Amazon) they have got it down to a fine art. 1 click purchasing, people who bought this also bought these items, customer feedback with ratings.

Sometimes they could do with simplifying a page mainly because if you’re not used to the layout there is a lot that hits you all at once, but they make a lot of money as they have really perfected the art of reducing shopping cart abandonment.

Other 10 key areas are:

1. Really understand who your customers are and what details they want to see in the descriptions.
2. Have large and many images of items being sold, customers like to be able to see the detail of the thing they are buying. This helps convince them that the quality or value is as advertised
3. Have a most popular list of items you sell and do regular special offers to people who sign up to your newsletter.
4. Have an FAQ and update it as much as possible, if you get a complaint or a question put it up there, show your customers that you are trustworthy and fair to deal with.
5. Make sure that the site is secure with SSL (the little padlock you see on secure sites) and has logos or information easily accessible proving this.
6. Have a good support system to deal with customers quickly, this will help your reputation and make sure you have multiple ways for them to get in touch.
7. Do a lot of PR to help build the trust in your brand, why should people shop with you even if you are a little bit more expensive.
8. Run loyalty schemes for your top buyers to keep them not only coming back, but recommend you to others.
9. If you have the right products you can create an affiliate program so get others to do the selling and effectively pay them a percentage of sale.
10. Measure and test often, try different headlines, look at your stats, keep trying to make your site better and easier to use for your customers.

There are many more factors, too many to mention here, but the list above are some of the main ones to consider.

I hope you find it useful.

What I hope to achieve is to highlight many things that may be within your actual power to improve on your website from Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to improving the conversion rates of your website call to actions. Most of which can be done without any specialist coding knowledge or skills, just your time and effort.

I mean what is the point in having a Content Management System (CMS) to control your website, if you don’t have the knowledge to actually get the most out of it.

What I’m looking for is to talk to people who currently have a Content Management System, but feel they aren’t getting anywhere with their site, and if all you’ve been told this phrase “All you need to do is add new fresh content to your site regularly” then please get in touch there’s a lot more to it than that and it’s not difficult to do once you know how.

I will gladly throw in a couple of hours free consultation to anyone willing to talk openly about their issues, plus I’ll give you and your business a mention in the eBook, maybe even a free copy when it’s completed

Go to our main website contact page and fill out the form and mention that you can help out with our CMS Study & eBook.

Alan

Here’s the link to enjoy the full article http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/10yearsafter/all/1