Interpreting Google’s Updated Privacy Policy

Posted: Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 by | Filed under: , , ,

As of March 1, 2012, Google will be replacing its 60+ privacy policies with one. In an effort to try and simplify terms for users to better understand, all the Google services’ policies will be combined into one. Google’s new, shorter privacy policy will allow them to share users data across their applications (YouTube, Gmail, etc).

Google users are still able to control their personal information, can edit ad preferences and can also control whom their information is shared with. Google has been collecting user data for some time now, that aspect isn’t new. When you sign up for a Google account, Google asks for personal information, such as your name, email address and phone number. From there, they give you an option for whether or not to create a public profile and upload a photo of yourself.

Some other information Google will collect is: Read more …

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Social Media and Branding

Posted: Monday, January 30th, 2012 by | Filed under: , ,
Online branding

Online branding

Since social media now has such a strong presence on the internet, search engines have been including and incorporating them into search results. Google, as well as other search engines, now pull data feeds from social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. For SEO experts, traffic is important and since social sharing yield website visits, social media sites can’t be ignored.

Social media can fall into any type of marketing campaign, including SEO. It’s an important strategy to build into an SEO campaign, but social media is much more than helping your business appear in search results. Social media is all about engagement and interaction. Aside from appearing in search results, social media can help your brand become more recognized. By engaging with customers, employees and others you can build your audience and in turn, your brand.

What’s important to remember about social media and SEO though is it’s more than just automatic status updates. Keywords are important and so is interaction. If you have experience with SEO and social media, it’s very beneficial for your business to work these together. Read more …

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Social Media Marketing Basics

Posted: Thursday, January 26th, 2012 by | Filed under: , ,

 

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Social media has become an important aspect of marketing, public relations and SEO campaigns over the past few years. With the growing integration of marketing and SEO, it’s important to optimize your website (and brand) by influencing Google and other search engines in as many ways possible.

Social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook now hold high credibility in search engine results. By sharing your website and blog content on your social media feeds, you are adding to additional “backlinks” to your content, but it doesn’t end there. The whole idea behind social media is to interact with clients, friends, customers and other experts in your industry by being social.  The more “shares” and interaction around your content triggers the search engines to look at your social media feeds and eventually your website, giving it higher rank.

There’s a lot more behind social media than just sharing content on Facebook and Twitter. Interacting and joining conversation is a large part of social media, but in terms of helping your website and business rank in search engines, combining SEO and social media can be very beneficial for you. Here are a few SEO tips to keep in mind when posting to social media feeds and networking with others. Read more …

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What are SOPA and PIPA?

Posted: Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 by | Filed under: , , ,

If you’ve never heard of SOPA before, you probably did today after trying to access one of your daily go-to websites, just as Wikipedia or even Google’s homepage. These websites, as well as many others have come together and blacked out their websites for 24 hours in protest to SOPA and PIPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are getting negative attention across the internet, today.

So what are SOPA and PIPA? 

Right now, federal law enforcement has the ability to shut down any US-based website that offers pirated content. What they can’t do, is shut down any foreign sites, like well-known torrent site, Pirate Bay. If these new bills pass, U.S. Internet providers will be able to block access for foreign pirated sites as well as any funds, advertising or partnered sites. The overall purpose of the two bills is to make it harder for websites (including foreign websites) to sell or distribute pirated movies, music and other media content.

What does that mean for the internet? Read more …

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Black Hat SEO vs. White Hat SEO

Posted: Saturday, January 14th, 2012 by | Filed under: , ,

White Hat SEO is what is considered legal/acceptable techniques to reach your search engine optimization goals. Black Hat SEO would be the illegal/unethical tricks used to cut corners and increase your site’s ranking on search engine results pages.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat

Black Hat

Examples of black hat SEO are link buying, keyword stuffing, and invisible text, to name a few. Link buying is exactly what it sounds like. Buying backlinks to your site so that you can increase your search engine ranking is unethical

The field of web marketing keeps evolving, and as search engines continue to improve on their algorithms to better meet the search needs of their users, the definition of what is white hat SEO and black hat SEO continues to change as well. Read more …

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