Smallbusiness.co.uk recently reported new research, which claims that small businesses should increase their use of internet blogs in order to communicate with their customers. The study, conducted by WebTrends, shows that only five per cent of companies see the blog as a valuable tool and more than three-quarters have never used the medium.

It seems that companies still prefer more traditional means of internet marketing such as direct email, used by 46 per cent of respondents and web analytics favoured by 37 per cent. Commenting on the figures, Nick Sharp at WebTrends says: “Corporate blogs can be very effective communication tools within or on behalf of a corporate community.”

In a survey conducted by email research specialists, emedia, using its RapidResearch service, it was found that only 8% of online networkers use social sites to contact clients or potential clients. However, the survey also indicates that 87% of all respondents think that social networking sites can be used for business purposes, including networking (65%), exchanging ideas (58%), getting advice (44%), recruitment (43%), research (35%) and selling (31%).

Users of social networking sites visit these sites on a regular basis and almost half of them (48%) admit using these websites at work. Nearly one in four (24%) users log in every day with half of them logging in several times a day. Up to 45% of users log in at least once a week.

In an article by Claire West, these statistics are said to show that almost two thirds (62%) of users say they are worried about the safety of their personal data held on these sites. The concern is so high that nearly one third of users (31%) have already entered false information about themselves to protect their identity.

The latest social media site to appear is Facebook – the site that, according to Freshbusinessthinking.com, could well be described as Friends-Reunited-meets-MySpace-meets-Google. But from a business perspective, the article suggests that social networking sometimes seems more like a solution in search of a problem.

LinkedIn.com, for instance, could eventually be a subscription service allowing users to input and manage their contacts and to search for connections – but it is already feeling the heat from Facebook. Will Facebook (and other forms of social media) become appropriate use for enterprise and business?

The Daily Telegraph recently reported that “More than two thirds of employers are banning or restricting the use of Facebook and similar sites over fears that staff are wasting time on them when they should be working”.

In an article by Mark Ellis in the same web magazine, he tells us that Facebook has more than 5 million users in the UK alone. “Myspace”, which is another “social networking” website, boasts 10 million UK users. Add in to the mix good old fashioned email and things like MSN messaging and you have to wonder if the good people that work for you have much time left to do any real work? Employers are right to be concerned about loss of productivity! It’s a serious issue. According to some estimates addicts of Facebook, Myspace and Bebo (that’s another social networking site) are costing UK employers more than £100 million a day in lost productivity. Defending the right of employees to surf the TUC has urged employers not to over react by banning access to such sites but to put in place policies to cover the general use of social networking sites.

However you are perfectly within your rights to put such sites off limits altogether and you might well decide to do so, continues Ellis. The TUC suggests a more pragmatic approach which would allow staff access during breaks within mutually agreed parameters. Ellis suggests a clear Internet and Email policy for all staff.

So with the fear of misuse of information and negative views from clients being publicly aired online, why is it that businesses are still seeing social networking as a viable use of their time?

Access to information is key to advancing in the workplace, and having direct access to that information creates great opportunities – in particular for women – in large corporations, especially if they are working part time, from home or are on maternity leave. Tom Crawford, head of employer brand and diversity at professional services firm Deloitte, encourages the use of Facebook whilst providing advice and guidelines on its use, rather than just banning it from the workplace like many other employers.

If you’re worried about compromising information that may already be online, Garlik.com offers a service called Data Patrol which scours the internet and then offers you advice, depending on the information that it manages to unearth.

But how can social networking work best for small businesses, who want to increase their ways of keeping in contact with new and existing clients?

In the Dow Jones White Paper “Tracking the Influence of Conversations:
A Roundtable Discussion on Social Media Metrics and Measurement”, Jeremiah Owyang and Matt Toll tell us that “The advent of social media – blogs in particular – (bring) with it at least the potential for removing the barrier between a seller and buyers who are remote – geographically, economically, culturally or otherwise.” They go onto say that “Those questioning social media’s impact on corporate marketing strategy today may well work for the same corporations that questioned whether creating a corporate Web site in the mid- and late-1990s, or allowing employees (gasp!) to access the Internet at work, was a wise move.”

Aleks Krotoski, conducting research at the University of Surrey into the psychology of online social networks, believes that social software encourages collaboration. It is the social in the software which will bring communities together, building upon the success of its technological predecessors and enhancing, rather than replacing, human interaction.

At CertainShops we are launching a social network online for the exclusive benefit of our service providers. Whether it is to share newsletter links with each other, hobbies, or favourite charities, we wish it to be a place where our growing band of professionals UK-wide will be able to get to know each other better, or just pop on occasionally to see what others are up to!

We fully understand the concerns for security that many people have regarding online networking, so only our vetted professionals will be invited by us to join the networking group, which will be sensibly moderated, to create a secure environment for our service providers to enjoy. So, for those of you who are already service providers on our site, be ready for your `invitations’ to join the networking site coming through to you very soon….!

For anyone new to Online Social Networking and Blogging, you might enjoy Blogging For Blondes…..

Samantha MacArthur of Forty First tells us about:

The 8 Most Common Pitfalls of SEO

We don’t want to worry you, but with any marketing campaign, whether it’s online or offline, there are often going to be pitfalls. The good news, however, is that most problems you might face from your search engine optimisation can be remedied.

We reveal 8 of the most common pitfalls that people encounter with their optimisation projects and what you can do to resolve them.

Read more at Common Pitfalls

Talk to Sam McArthur about your search engine optimisation at CertainShops.



The 8 Most Common Pitfalls of SEO
We don’t want to worry you, but with any marketing campaign, whether it’s online or offline, there are often going to be pitfalls. The good news, however, is that most problems you might face from your search engine optimisation can be remedied.

Below we reveal 8 of the most common pitfalls that people encounter with their optimisation projects and what you can do to resolve them.

1. Wrong Keywords

All too often people choose the wrong keywords in their optimisation. High traffic keywords can be desirable but often they’re the ones which are also highly competitive. If you choose keywords that are too competitive then you’re going to find it difficult to gain high rankings for your website. Similarly, choosing keywords which are too niche also causes problems, not because it’s difficult to gain rankings for them, but you’ll soon find that your traffic levels aren’t increasing because nobody is searching on those words.
If either of these scenarios are the case with your optimisation project, then go back to the drawing board and re-do your keyword research. Find keywords that aren’t so niche that nobody is searching on them, but equally aren’t so competitive you’ve no chance of ever ranking highly for them. It’s a bit of an art, but trial and error should get you there. On a final note, don’t use the same keywords across your website. Unless you only sell one product or service, you should be targeting keywords according to the content of your web pages.

2. Broken Links
Broken links can cause the search engines problems when they come out to index your website. If they can’t find pages or follow bad links to pages that result in errors, then your rankings will suffer. There’s a very useful free tool available called Xenu’s Link Sleuth. Download it to your desktop and run your website’s URL through it – it will let you know of any errors and broken links. It’s probably worth doing this every so often, perhaps every 2 or 3 months, to check, perhaps more often if you have a very large site or often archive material.

3. Website Re-launch
If you’ve re-launched your website and seen all your rankings drop, this is a common problem. When re-launching a site, you need to consider your existing rankings and take measures to ensure you keep them intact, or at least try and minimise the loss of rankings in the search engines. We recently wrote an article all about what you should do when you re-launch a website, so well worth a read if you’re not sure what to do.

4.Meta Refreshes & Java Script Redirects
This is where it gets a bit technical, so please bear with us! Some websites are set up with re-directs to pages, for example, perhaps a URL has changed, or another domain name is being used so the old page re-directs to the new page / URL. However, there is a right way and a wrong way of going about re-directs, and if the wrong way is used, you could find your website doesn’t get indexed at all by the search engines.
If you need to re-direct one URL to another, and it’s a permanent change, then you must use a ‘301 redirect’ which is done on the server. Do not ever use ‘meta refresh’ tags or java script redirects. Search engines don’t like them and if you do choose to use them, expect your rankings to suffer. Your Web Developer or web hosting company should be able to implement this for you.

5. Databases & Content Management Systems
Very large websites which are driven by databases and content management systems can cause problems for search engine ‘spiders’. The ‘spiders’ are effectively software that finds and indexes your website. However, if you have many pages hidden deep into the database or CMS, then you’ll find those pages may not get indexed because it just causes too many problems. If you’re keen to get these pages indexed, then ensure they’re put onto a sitemap of the website, which is within the main navigation of the site. That way the sitemap page will be easily found and all the ‘spider’ has to do is to follow each link on that sitemap page. Also make sure your database URLs aren’t too long and don’t contain session IDs (cookies).

6. Limited Optimisation
Some companies only optimise the home page of their website. If you do this you’re limiting your success in the search engines since any page of a website is a potential entry point for visitors – they don’t all arrive on a site via the home page. It’s important that you optimise as many pages of your website as you can, however small your website is, and if you’re selling more than one product or service then you’re severely limiting yourself by only optimising the home page.

7. Dodgy SEO Tactics
We’ve written about dodgy search engine optimisation tactics several times before in Marketing Karma, and we can’t emphasise enough that it really isn’t worth using underhand tactics to try and gain high rankings quickly. The search engines are really clamping down on spammers and if you find your website removed from the search results because of spam, it’s a difficult and lengthy process to get your website re-included. To learn more about what’s acceptable, read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, which will be similar with other search engines.
If you’ve hired an agency and you’re not sure if they’re using ethical methods to promote your website online, then read our white paper on cheap SEO & some of the scams.

8. Impatience
Finally, don’t be too impatient and expect results overnight! Search engine optimisation doesn’t lead to overnight success online, and like any marketing campaigns it takes time to see results. Constantly tweaking your optimisation and making changes to your website means that the optimisation will never get a chance to work, so once you’ve optimised your web pages, leave them alone for a few months and concentrate on other activities instead, such as link building, pay per click advertising, email marketing etc. Use the whole marketing mix and don’t just rely on the search engines alone to deliver traffic and leads.

For more guidance on how to avoid the pitfalls of Search Engine Optimisation, have a chat with Sam MacArthur of Forty First:
Talk to Sam McArthur about your search engine optimisation at CertainShops.

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