Boost Internet Marketing

Google Social Search Feature Begins

Brian Austin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:40:43 +0000

This is Googles first step in an ongoing effort to make Google Search as social as the web itself, Google social search is an new feature that surfaces public web content from your friends and online contacts. It is currently available on google.com for all signed-in users.

We think the beta rollout to all English searchers is more significant than the initial labs feature, as it exposes the contextual search results to a mainstream search audience. While it’s officially a beta product today, the Google Social Search rollout will occur over the next few days. If you don’t have Social Search already, you can expect to start seeing the social results fairly soon.

For a demonstration of Google Social Search check out the video below:

Top 11 Web Design Trends In 2010 For Small Business

Brian Austin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:13:45 +0000

A website is a great branding and marketing tool for any small business. It is also essential for a business strategy to ensure its brand, location and products are found in search engine listings.

In 2009 it became easier to design your website. Businesses had the choice of do-it-yourself website builder’ tools or open source software like WordPress etc. The open source software may require some initial setup help unless the business owner is technically savvy. In 2009 ready-to-use templates also got more sophisticated in the appearance of the finished product, i.e, the published web site, and at the same time got easier to use for the end user. Another new trend for 2009 was getting a design for your website or logo as a contest through “crowdsourcing” with sites like 99 Designs, CrowdSpring and Genius Rocket.

For businesses that do not yet have a website, their goal for having a website in 2010 should be:

Discovery: Make sure your business can be found on the internet by users searching online for a business in search engines, maps and local
Engagement: Save your customers time by providing them an easy way to get information on your business.
Sales: Get sales and leads from engaged visitors
Service: provide information and tools for website visitors who have already made the purchase

2010 will be the year of both the website owner and website visitor. Businesses will rediscover the marketing power of their websites. Users with an extensive choice of information on the internet will give their blessings to simply designed sites with easy to find information. Search engines will bless sites that are updated more frequently with ranking blessing. Social media integration will help websites spread their information far and wide and savvy website owners will use analytics to continuously tweak their websites based on visitor behavior. Entry pages, bounce rate, click paths will become easier lingo to follow and use for business purposes.

2010 will be a call to action to those business owners who used the build –it-and-forget it policy for their websites to wake up and get the online marketing and brand engine going. If you don’t believe me, search Google for your competition or look how your customers are reviewing you on social sites like Yelp.

2010 Trends for web design

Find me on the Internet: Year of the Web presence

As 2009 comes to an end and small businesses look to 2010, and an online presence will become important. Highly competitive businesses use technology like websites, online marketing tools etc to succeed (Small Business Success Index June 2009). With over 47% of small business not online 2010 will be an important year to get their business online and have a web site.

Low cost or no cost ways to get a web site increase

With the enormous variety of web site tools available for small business, it may be easy to start a web presence for almost no money at all. Hosting providers offering free websites tools, blogging software providers like Blogger, Wordpress etc also let you start a web presence easily. Small businesses could try these free tools to experiment and then advance to a customized hosted option. A hosted option with your own domain name would be more credible and more brand friendly for your business.

Updating frequently. Realizing the power of a Blog as a business tool

In the previous years Small businesses had set up websites and did not update them often. Even if they are not online businesses in 2010 these businesses will pay attention and update the content of their websites more frequently.

More businesses will add Blogs to their existing websites. This will give them an additional way to interact with customers. Customers can comment and give feed back on the blog. An added bonus is that these businesses have a better chance to be in search engine results as blogs are updated more frequently and search engines like blogs. Customers will like this as they get a chance to comment and also get to know the business in a very friendly and conversational way. See Lisa Barone’s tips on cleaning up your website.

Flashy out; practical in

2010 will be the year of simplicity. Information on the internet is already overwhelming for users. Websites that quickly provide the information without too many flashy promotions will get more visitors. Of course the exception is if you are in the entertainment business.

Personalized experience

Greeting your visitors when they visit your website will become expected in 2010. Giving them a personalized experience based on their interests will make them WOW your business. No longer just limited to sites alike Amazon, show visitors what they looked at and recommend products they may like or content that is related.

Are you for real?

Security is increasingly a concern and the importance to establish credibility will continue to be important. Visitors will look for security seals, ssl certificates, secure forms (using https:) and also validation seals. This is even more important if you are selling products online and collecting information.

You should make sure you add your website to the web master tools of Google, Bing and Yahoo. Security of your website will be very important against hackers and malware. To prevent this keep your website software always updated.

Do you know who is knocking on your web site door; Web Analytics are a crucial tool

Websites without analytics is like running a business without accounting. Websites will focus on using web analytics tools to learn which content is more popular, who is visiting and from where. Tools like Google Webmaster tools will be important to find stats for indexing. Read Clate Mask’s article on using Web Analytics tools.

Widgets and Apps

Widgets showing collaboration between your website and other properties will become expected for websites. Some examples of using widgets is adding your latest Twitter comments, best selling products, most popular articles. This will extend to the ability to share the content using widgets like Share This, Add this allowing the website content to be shared by the visitors to their own networks.

Some great info on Lisa Barone’s post here.

Can I call you now? Adding Interactivity to your website

Chat and calling buttons on your website will be back. If people find something interesting on the website, features like ‘Click to Call “and chat or send a message will reemerge. This will also be an important analytical tool so as to track where the lead came from by using different incoming phone numbers. Earlier, these tools were only affordable by large corporations in 2010 these tools will become affordable by more small businesses. More website owners will start using Skype , Google Voice or several commercially available options.

More Multi-media will be added to web sites

Videos and photo galleries will form part of websites . Small business will use cheaper and convenient options like FLIP HD cameras to tell the behind the scenes stories of their business and products. Uploading them to video sites like YouTube, Blip.tv etc for videos, and Flickr for Photos and embedding them in their own website and will have the advantage of being seen in both the website and the photo or video network.

In 2010 using websites like BlogTalk Radio businesses will show their thought leadership through podcasts and even their own live TV show using web sites like Livestream.

Links links links

Websites home pages will morph into portals to cater to a wide audience visiting them. Links between websites and other local community websites, events, news will be part of the website content strategy. Media rooms i.e sections of the website where small business owners can showcase coverage of their business will be an essential part of the website. Business websites will show their support to local and community causes. Content will include links to industry trends and news.

In summary if you are a small business owner you should be prepared in 2010 to show personality in your business by using your website and multi media tools to tell your story to your customers and prospects. Keeping an ear to the ground to learn about the conversations about your business like product reviews etc will become very important. You may get media and press attention by exposure of your business in social media channels. Any effort in 2010 you invest in your website will be highways to your getting more traffic customers and a better bottom line. 2010 is the year of the small business web site.

From Small Business Trends

Top Web Design Trends For Small Business In 2010

A website is a great branding and marketing tool for any small business. It is also essential for a business strategy to ensure its brand, location and products are found in search engine listings.

For businesses that do not yet have a website, their goal for having a website in 2010 should be:

Discovery: Make sure your business can be found on the internet by users searching online for a business in search engines, maps and local
Engagement: Save your customers time by providing them an easy way to get information on your business.
Sales: Get sales and leads from engaged visitors
Service: provide information and tools for website visitors who have already made the purchase

2010 Trends for web design

Find me on the Internet: Year of the Web presence

Low cost or no cost ways to get a web site increase

With the enormous variety of web site tools available for small business, it may be easy to start a web presence for almost no money at all. Hosting providers offering free websites tools, blogging software providers like Blogger, Wordpress etc also let you start a web presence easily. Small businesses could try these free tools to experiment and then advance to a customized hosted option. A hosted option with your own domain name would be more credible and more brand friendly for your business.

Updating frequently. Realizing the power of a Blog as a business tool

Flashy out; practical in

Personalized experience

Are you for real?

You should make sure you add your website to the web master tools of Google, Bing and Yahoo. Security of your website will be very important against hackers and malware. To prevent this keep your website software always updated.

Do you know who is knocking on your web site door; Web Analytics are a crucial tool

Websites without analytics is like running a business without accounting. Websites will focus on using web analytics tools to learn which content is more popular, who is visiting and from where. Tools like Google Webmaster tools will be important to find stats for indexing. Read Clate Mask’s article on using Web Analytics tools.

Widgets and Apps

Some great info on Lisa Barone’s post here.

Can I call you now? Adding Interactivity to your website

Chat and calling buttons on your website will be back. If people find something interesting on the website, features like ‘Click to Call “and chat or send a message will reemerge. This will also be an important analytical tool so as to track where the lead came from by using different incoming phone numbers. Earlier, these tools were only affordable by large corporations in 2010 these tools will become affordable by more small businesses. More website owners will start using Skype , Google Voice or several commercially available options.

More Multi-media will be added to web sites

Videos and photo galleries will form part of websites . Small business will use cheaper and convenient options like FLIP HD cameras to tell the behind the scenes stories of their business and products. Uploading them to video sites like YouTube, Blip.tv etc for videos, and Flickr for Photos and embedding them in their own website and will have the advantage of being seen in both the website and the photo or video network.

In 2010 using websites like BlogTalk Radio businesses will show their thought leadership through podcasts and even their own live TV show using web sites like Livestream.

Links links links

From Small Business Trends

Top Web Design Trends For Small Business In 2010

Facebook Top Topics of 2009 – Facebook Memology

Brian Austin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:30:42 +0000

Facebook data team released its year-end list, named “Facebook Memology“.

Facebook explains:

“To generate the list, we started by looking at how many times each phrase with length from one-to-four words occurred in U.S. Facebook status updates, then we computed the rate at which each phrase occurred in 2009 compared to 2008. Using some data-mining methods detailed here, we analyzed important bursts in activity around words and series of words to find the key trends for the year. All personally identifiable information was removed from the status updates to conduct this analysis, and no one at Facebook read the individual status updates.”

Facebooks Top Topics for 2009

Facebook provides a very detailed analysis of their top 15 Facebook status trends, but most are self-explanatory.

Facebook Privacy Settings

Brian Austin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:01:42 +0000

Keep your eye out this morning for the NEW Privacy Changes from Facebook today. We’ve known that a major privacy overhaul has been in the works for some time. Today, Facebook plans to start asking all 350 million of its users to review and update their settings as they roll out the new simplified privacy interface. Below is a embedded a copy of the new transition tool video below. It will walk you through the entire process of moving over to the new privacy settings. You should be prompted about the new privacy settings at some point today.

Facebook is ranked 2nd on Google Zeitgeist Year End Report for 2009

Brian Austin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:06:44 +0000

Google released their annual Zeitgeist yesterday, which measures the fastest growing search terms on the web for the year. Facebook was for the second year in a round one of the top search turn for the year.The word “facebook” ended up second behind “Michael Jackson” as the largest keyword search globally for the year.

Facebook is the most trafficked social networking site in the world and ranked 2nd most trafficked website in the world next to Google by Alexa. Currently facebook has over 325+ million active members with 50% of these active members log in on the platform at any given day.

With all this growth the only question is whether “facebook” can continue to remain at the top of Google’s annual Zeitgeist report.

Facebook Profile Image Explained

Brian Austin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:01:28 +0000

You can set yourself apart from the rest of the profiles on Facebook by doing a simple change to your profile image. This simple customized change to your profile is simple but very effective to draw fans to your page.

The Facebook profile will accept pictures as large as 200×600. The profile image extents into the light blue area (#EFF0F5) 52 pixels above the Gray line (#D8DFEA) allowing you to blend your profile image seamlessly into Facebook as we have done for Boost Internet Marketing fanpage.

A few of things to keep in mind when traying to make your image look semmless on Facebook:

The position of the photo is dependent on how many lines your status message occupies. The image isn’t pushed down with the rest of the page content, so the more lines your status occupies the more of the upper gray needs to be added to the image.
The position of the photo is dependent on the text size of your status message, which is a similar issue to above, but actually a much bigger problem. This is to do with how the browser chooses to render that font, so it is a platform and browser problem. We have already noticed differences from Mac to Windows to Safari – each one was a pixel off even though we used Firefox to test on all three platforms.
The thumbnail that accompanies your Facebook feed items is only 50 x 50 pixels so if you have long and larger picture it will not fit. Facebook has a nice thumbnail feature that allows you to pick an area of a smaller version of your profile picture so you will need to create a thumbnail of your image for you posting profile .

Examples of some profile image across Facebook below, be creative and express yourself. If you have addition examples please post below.

The Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch in 2010

Brian Austin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:04:04 +0000

Evan Carmichae has just published its 2010 list of Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch. The list could open the door to the best marketing tips and strategies to help you and your business stand out.

This is year 3 for the list covering categories such as :

Search Marketing Blogs
Small Business Marketing Blogs
Marketing Trends Blogs
Social Media Marketing Blogs
Marketing & Advertising Blogs
Online Marketing Blogs
Marketing & Public Relations Blogs
Affiliate Marketing Blogs
Marketing & Technology Blogs
Brand Marketing Blogs

For the 3 year running Search Engine Land (one of my fav sites) has been listed along with the site provided by Brian Solis which focuses on strategy within integrated marketing communications. can be your “hot knife” and reveal the best marketing tips and strategies to help you and your business stand out.

Here are the links to 2008 and 2009 Top Marketing Blogs to watch list.

Google Wave- What is it? A simple Video to help explain the hype.

Brian Austin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:07:27 +0000

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave combines e-mail, instant messaging, social networking, browsing, open-sourcing and project management into one integrated communications tool. Its concept: to unify communication on the Web.

Here is a video from Google Wave:

According to Mashable, who was able to test the new platform, Google Wave’s interface looks like an incredibly enhanced version of G-mail. The chat function is real-time, character-by-character that allows you to add and reply anywhere within a conversation (wave). Instead of the traditional way of attaching documents to e-mails, you can simply drag and drop a file from your desktop to Google Wave, where anyone that is invited can see it.

Google Wave also allows you to run outside applications (APIs) – Facebook, Twitter or even video games – inside of Google Wave, allowing it to function as an “all-in-one” communication platform tool. You can also embed these threaded conversations (Waves) onto a Web site or blog, allowing you to share real-time conversations with the rest of the internet. Users can also recreate/rebrand their own versions of Google Wave, as the system is completely open-sourced.

Social Media 10 Commandments

Brian Austin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:24:46 +0000

A very common question that is asked is “What do I need to do for my company, my products, and myself in social media?” The answer is easy: participate. If you aren’t in the game, you can’t win. Here’s a list of things you need to be doing to get in the game and start winning with social media.

Commandments 1. Thou Shalt Blog (like crazy)
Blog. Please. That’s the first priority. Set up a blog, a personal blog, a business blog. It’s easier than you think. Use an existing blogging site such as Blogger.com or GOingOn.com or install your own branded blogging site right on your own server by using WordPress. And, WordPress is free.

Commandments 2. Thou Shalt Create Profiles (everywhere)
Create your profiles; do it now before someone else takes them. Once they are gone, they are gone forever. That’s called cyber squatting. So get out there. Use Open Social to make filling in your profiles as easy as a click of a button.

Commandments 3. Thou Shalt Upload Photos (lots of them)
Upload photographs. You’ve got them. Don’t upload the one with you with a lampshade on your head…counterproductive; but other photographs? Absolutely. Customers want to see and participate. You want to give people a face to go with your company.

Commandments 4. Thou Shalt Upload Videos (all you can find)
Videos. You all have got videos. I don’t care whether it’s training videos or customer videos, grab your video camera and go interview some of your customers. What’s better than seeing your customer’s smiley face on your Web site? And it doesn’t cost anything.

Commandments 5. Thou Shalt Podcast (often)
Podcast. If you’re too cheap to get a camera, use the free audio software that’s in your computer. That’s what I did. I created 48 audio podcasts. If you take the podcasts I did for my book and played them back-to-back, they run 24 continuous hours of interviews. You can do that. It’s free. It just takes time.

Commandments 6. Thou Shalt Set Alerts (immediately)
Set alerts. People are talking about you. You probably need to know what they are saying and you want to participate.

Commandments 7. Thou Shalt Comment (on a multitude of blogs)
Comment. Commenting is like going to a cocktail party. You wouldn’t walk into a networking event, walk up to a group of people talking, and tell them your name and what you do in your business. That would be rude and unacceptable. Listen first. Read the blogs and add comments. You can be controversial, that’s okay. But participate. Get involved.

Commandments 8. Thou Shalt Get Connected (with everyone)
Get LinkedIn. Put it in your email that you have a LinkedIn account, you have a FaceBook account, and that you have a Twitter account. Make it a part of your heading on your letterhead, because that’s how you propagate. That’s how you sell it.

Commandments 9. Thou Shalt Explore Social Media (30 minutes per week)
Explore social media. Give me thirty minutes a week, that’s all I’m asking. Friday morning grab your coffee, lock yourself in your office, and give me thirty minutes. Just Google something. I promise you within the first 30 days you will be excited. You’ll be as excited as I am. You will get excited because of the ROI.

Commandments 10. Thou Shalt Be Creative (go forth and create creatively)
And the most important commandment is creativity. That’s all. It’s just creativity and having fun. But you know what, that’s what your customers want. They want to see transparency. They want to see authenticity. They want to see you having fun. They want to be able to relate and communicate.

Article Info from: www.fastcompany.com Author: Lon Safko

Social Media vs. Social Networking: What’s the difference?

Brian Austin — Sat, 23 May 2009 04:48:20 +0000

At first glance, there seems to be a fairly obvious distinction between Social Media and Social Networking. And given that I consider myself fairly web savvy – I blog, I tweet, I ‘friend‘, etc. – I didn’t think I’d have a hard time nailing down the definitive characteristics of each term. But like many things in the rapidly evolving online world, sometimes the apparently obvious can be the most complex. Read More

Here are some great videos on each of these topics:

For more info: Social Networking in Plain English (video)
For more info: Social Media in Plain English (video)