I never really glance to the right of my screen on Twitter to take a quick look at what Twitters trending topics are as I am much more interested in what articles my peers and influencers are tweeting and I feel that if I want information on Inception or Lindsay Lohan I will look at an online review guide or a gossip column. I must admit, some days when I do glance over at the trending topics, I am baffled that I do not know what some of them are about

Indeed there is a need that is being served by having trending topics and it does reflect on the mantra of giving the public what they want and letting them air their views on world topics, politics and celebrities. (I use these three examples because they seem to stand out the most for me)

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The seasoned SEO consultant is bound to know all the tricks of the trade, but those new to the search engine optimisation industry can improve their success rates by following a few simple SEO tips:

Know your Niche
Successful SEO marketing services always start with careful analysis of the client. Before you rush ahead and start reading up on SEO copywriting tips, do your homework thoroughly. Get to know and understand the client, as well as the product or service they are offering their target audience. Think about who your client will be competing with in the market and what sets them apart from their competitors.

Most sources offering SEO tips will also advise you to know the strengths and weaknesses of your client, as well as their level of establishment online, thereby helping you to strategically promote them in the appropriate niche.

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Search marketing specialists will tell you that the social network has become an incredibly useful and important tool for making and maintaining contacts, or keeping up-to-date with the latest information in your field. Whether you’re looking to boost your profits with social network advertising, get the latest news on world events or simply annoy your friends with random messages, the social network provides the ideal platform for online interaction.

The rise of the social network is set to reach a milestone when social networking platform Facebook announces the joining of their 500 millionth user. With 8 percent of the world’s population now active on Facebook, it’s hardly surprising that a Hollywood producer would want to tell the story of the social network giant. That’s right – David Fincher’s movie The Social Network is in post-production and will be opening the annual New York film Festival in September.

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As an online professional who browses the web day in and day out, I’m not a massive fan of completing pop-up surveys. However; but if I’m approached in a non-evasive way such is the case with 4Q survey software, I tend to not mind doing it for certain websites. I recently managed to get one of my clients to implement a 4Q survey on their website and the results have been extremely insightful and have resulted in some large scale changes by the client.

The 4Q survey revolves around the four most important questions that should be addressed to all visitors of a website:

1. What are my visitors at my website to do?
2. Are they completing what they set out to do?
3. If not, why not?
4. How satisfied are my visitors?

Now, the answers to these 4Q survey questions might not always be what a website owner wants to hear, but remember that all feedback, positive or negative, can be used constructively.

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Earlier this year I made my 2010 predictions for search engines mainly Bing & Google challenging the conversions through search. Since then a lot has come to pass, the new Google layout was implemented and was shortly followed by the controversial “Mayday update” and finally Caffeine going live across all Google data centres.

The new Google layout gave rise to concerns of traffic decreases to websites both in through organic and paid results. Whether or not this was the result of the new layout or simply the adjustments Google made in how they crawl and rank websites and pages that occurred during the same period, was uncertain. Simply put, Google’s “copy” of the Bing layout is not working. As we all know in the internet marketing world, copy and paste solutions do not work and Bing is definitely doing something right in search to drive such large scale changes by Google in an effort to keep up in the search race.

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Once thought of as a time waster for young tech savvy and gaming enthusiasts, augmented reality and social media have now been placed in the same bucket of ideas, and this is no coincidence. Augmented reality (using technology to potray a different visual environment)is nothing new and brands are using augmented reality to bring their customers closer to their brand and as we have said before, brand engagement is on the up and up. The question is, can all brands use augmented reality to provide the public with engaging activities that will make them remember what they are eating, wearing or using?

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Facebook – there’s no better way to catch up with your friends online and squeeze a few minutes’ Internet gaming into your lunch break. MySpace is so 2006 and who’s even on Friendster these days? Facebook is certainly the most popular social networking platform of our time – but Google search could be changing all that in the near future. The gargantuan Google search engine company may be developing their own social network to compete with sites like Facebook.

There’s no denying that Google web search is huge. The multi-coloured text logo is instantly recognisable around the globe, Google marketing can send a company’s popularity and profits skyrocketing and the Google search engine is so dominant that the verb “Google” has even been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. If you want the low-down on anything, anyone or anywhere… just Google it! Google search tools like Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Product Search are all you need to find comprehensive information online. American company Google Inc. owns 160 domain names internationally, and the search engine remains the go-to search option for Internet users worldwide. And of course… can any of us honestly say we haven’t performed Google searches on ourselves?

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At 12 noon on the 9th of June, traffic around South Africa came to a standstill as citizens everywhere spent five minutes producing a joyful racket, celebrating the approach of the soccer World Cup by blowing their vuvuzelas. The plastic soccer horns have been loved by local sports fans for many years and have become one of the most talked-about features of the 2010 soccer World Cup.

Those involved in search marketing services noticed the immediate effect of the “vuvuzela moment” on social networking platforms, particularly Twitter, as the vuvuzela suddenly became the focus of attention throughout South Africa. Hundreds of local fans anticipating the soccer World Cup changed their tweets to “PAAaaAaAaaArrRRrP” and “BzZzzZZbzZZbzzZ” as they joined in the vuvuzela moment. Others tweeted more coherently about welcoming the soccer World Cup and being proudly South African.

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So if you haven’t already heard, Twitter has recently bought over and now has the rights to their very own web analytics company, Smallthought Systems. Through this, it is likely that Twitter will soon offer their own analytics service and this recent business move has brought the issue of Twitter analytics to the forefront.

There has been an ongoing debate as to whether acquiring a Twitter analytics package or system is worth it as many feel that free tools and general knowledge will let you do your own analytics for free. There is however a few Twitter analytics packages that will help you track as well as store and save all your related Twitter information under one roof.

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Ok, so finally Google Caffeine is up and at ‘em and in the few days there has been numerous posts on the effect that Google Caffeine will have on search. We know what Google Caffeine will mean for consumers, but what will it mean for the other side of the coin, SEO’s who produce content for individuals who require their current information to be as up to date as possible?

Basically, the most obvious benefit that will affect consumers, SEO’s and content owners is that documents will be able to be found seconds after they have been crawled. Google Caffeine is now offering a real time indexing system which is said to be “fresher” than ever before.

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