If you are just embarking upon developing your social media optimization then there are some guidelines to help you to success. Social media optimization can be extremely effective in helping develop a strong brand and is an integral part of search engine optimization. However it can have adverse effects if approached badly so take care:

1. Be consistent in communication. When you receive negative comments it is just as important to reply to them as it is to acknowledge a positive comment. To win your audience over you need to prove that you have an interest in their thoughts and opinions. They want to know that they have a direct route into your business so don’t disappoint them.

2. Have a listening ear. There are many online businesses that fail to listen to what their users are saying and stubbornly continue to put their own interests first. However this is a fast track to losing your audience. Listen carefully to what users have to say as you will gain invaluable insights into what they want from your business.

3. Keep up-to-date. If things start to look outdated users will lose interest and respect. Add unique and interesting content ongoing to attract people to your site again and again. Turn your site into a source of interesting information so people keep coming back for more.

4. Keep adding content. In SEO and social media optimization content is king. Use images, blogs, news articles, PR, articles and discussion boards to keep things fresh and interesting.

At www.searchengineoptimization.co.uk we have a wealth of knowledge in social media optimization.

For a lot of business owners, search engine optimisation is quite an intimidating and challenging subject. If you are new to this type of internet marketing, there is a vast amount of information to learn, a lot of hard work to do and the possibility of making many mistakes along the way. This can often leave site owners feeling like they have little control or influence over their SEO campaigns and that they should just leave everything to the SEO experts.

Whilst it is of course most beneficial for an online business to have professional SEO consultants create and run its SEO campaign, this doesn’t mean that site owners can’t be involved and that they don’t actually have a great amount to offer.

Business owners have the knowledge and expertise within their business market and sharing this with others is an incredibly important part of search engine optimisation. For SEO to work effectively, it is not just the appropriate SEO techniques that must be identified and used but it is also the sharing of business knowledge and the demonstrating of expertise using these methods that must be achieved.

If you are running your own business, you will have a wide knowledge of many important areas within your market and will be experienced in many different areas. Let your SEO consultants know you want to be involved in your SEO campaign and they will be able to help you to understand how you can be of assistance.

The knowledge and experience you have can be used in the majority of SEO activities. It can play a significant role in blogging, article writing, forum posting, social networking, link building and the development and improvement of your website. Your SEO consultants may be the experts in SEO but you are the expert in your business and your contribution is needed if your SEO campaign is really going to be successful.

Be ready to share your information and demonstrate your expertise in your search engine optimisation efforts because this will help to show those internet users you target that your business is genuine and competent and will also help you to develop trust and respect for your business too. A lot of site owners choose not to get involved in SEO and this is a great shame because all they have to offer remains ignored when it could actually be making their SEO campaign even better. Don’t let this happen to you and instead try to get involved as much as you can and be ready not only to learn about SEO from your consultants but also to show just how knowledgeable you are within your business market.

A huge number of online businesses now have profiles within social networking websites such as Facebook and the reason for this is search engine optimisation. Research has revealed websites such as Facebook can help businesses considerably when trying to develop their brands within the online community and direct relevant traffic to their websites. A lot of website owners are familiar with Facebook from personal use and so using the site for business has become common and is making a big difference to some.

However, if you are going to use Facebook for the benefit of your SEO campaign and your business you have to attract followers, and this can be challenging. With so many different businesses and users within the Facebook community, it can be difficult to stand out and make others interested in what you say and do. Many businesses do achieve this though and build up a sound number of followers with which they communicate and share information with on a regular basis.

If you are one of those business owners that has created an appropriate profile within Facebook and now has a number of followers this is highly encouraging. It is likely you are spreading the word about your business effectively and sparking new interest in your website.

However, you must not get carried away at this point and become complacent. You have to be sure you are actually giving your followers what they want and expect from you and this is where many site owners go wrong. They feel content with the number of followers they have obtained and then share relevant information with this audience on a regular basis as part of the development of their SEO campaigns. What they do not think about though is what those following them are getting from this association and how they can benefit too.

Studies have shown a huge number of those following businesses within Facebook are doing so for special opportunities. They are hoping to receive information on sales or deals first, expect special offers and discounts and believe by following a business they will be entitled to special treatment. These are not unrealistic expectations and if they mean you can increase your exposure and presence within the Facebook community, should be offered as much as possible.

Provide those following you with special discount codes, with early access to sales or promotions, with free prizes or giveaways and with other special rewards. Not only will you find these bonds you make with Facebook users beneficial but they will too and this will help you to gain even more followers in the future.

When using Facebook, you have to think about what others are getting from being associated with you and how you can make it even more tempting and satisfying for them to be a follower of your business.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this! MySpace’s redesign was supposed to herald the dawn of a new era for one of the world’s first and most popular social networking sites – instead, figures released by comScore show that MySpace is haemorrhaging unique users. In fact, between January and February of this year over 10 million uniques have deserted MySpace. MySpace has also announced that it has to shed staff worldwide – things aren’t looking so good for MySpace as the years roll on…

Approximately half of its staff globally are being cut – a real fall from grace as it used to be the one and only place on the internet for new artists to launch their music careers. It’s looking less likely though that those heights will ever be hit again as people desert MySpace on a year-by-year basis. Almost 50 million are leaving the site annually – that figure may be even higher this year if 10 million people have already left in the first two months of 2011.

MySpace was, of course, bought out by News Corp in 2005 for a grand total of £330 million. Today’s valuation of MySpace would no doubt be much much lower. And the reality of it is that it’s no surprise as MySpace has failed to capitalise on its social position, and has been overtaken by social behemoths such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

MySpace’s problems are that it is now purely an entertainment destination, and that it decided to stay in the music niche it carved out for itself all those years ago. MySpace still attracts a huge amount of organic users, and though that number is receding on an almost daily basis, all is not lost. But is there anyone at News Corp with a vision clear and ambitious enough to turn MySpace around?

The French National Commission for Computing and Liberties (CNIL) has fined Google €100,000 for collecting private data without users’ knowledge.

Google has had a lot of troubles in and around Europe for a while now in regard to privacy issues and how they collect data, and the French authorities have decided that Google’s collection of data through their Street View service was wrong.

Google has admitted as much in the past, claiming a programming error saw their vehicles collecting private data from unsecure networks. The French Data Protection Agency is the first to fine Google for the error however, with secretary-general of the independent regulator, Yann Padova, saying: “The way they collected the data were unfair. CNIL also considers there was a lack of co-operation from Google in terms of the information given about the software within the Google cars.”

In short, the French weren’t happy at all over the episode, and have let Google know all about it in no uncertain terms. Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel took up the role of spokesperson in response, apologising profusely for the error. “As soon as we realised what had happened, we stopped collecting all WiFi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities,” he says.

Though it’s being viewed as Google’s first offence, the fine is still a hefty one, and is the largest the French regulator has ever imposed. New York-based internet privacy expert, Joel Reidenberg, says: “By imposing one of the largest fines ever issued in France, the CNIL is also sending a signal to its counterparts in Europe that data protection authorities should step up their enforcement activities since the same activity occurred elsewhere in Europe.

“This is a significant case because it sends a powerful message that the CNIL is serious about enforcement and is willing to use its enhanced authority.”

A lot of site owners avoid the Meta robots tag and their robots.txt files, simply because they don’t understand either of them. As a part of code, both can be shrouded in mystery to the average non-tech business owner. They really aren’t all that much of a mystery, though, and they can be used to assist your site’s search engine optimisation.

First things first: what is the Meta robots tag? The Meta robots tag is a part of your code that communicates with the search engines. Just as it says on the box, it is an HTML Meta tag that communicates with robots. Robots don’t always do what it says, notably malware robots that ignore it to get on with their malicious deeds, but it’s an important part of your site’s communication with the non-human forces on the net. The robots.txt file, on the other hand, is a file in your root directory. It does pretty much the same thing, and is effective on all robots.

Issue 1: Meta robots tag vs. robots.txt

Both of these communicate with robots, and are practically the same. The differences are significant, though. Some webmasters recommend the Meta robots tag because you don’t have to access the root directory to alter it. This makes it helpful if you don’t have access. On the other hand, many recommend using robots.txt because it is more reliable, and prevents crawling by search engines as well as preventing indexing. If you’re using one, you don’t need to use the other.

Issue 2: Why would you need to use either the Meta robots tag or robots.txt?

A lot of sites choose to leave these alone, but both the Meta robots tag and robots.txt can be used to sculpt the search engines’ communication with your site. For example, if you have pages you don’t want Google to bother about, then a simple instruction not to index will mean the page is left alone. If you do this in your robots.txt file, the search engine spiders will leave it alone permanently, whereas if this command is in your Meta robots tag they will come back to check whether you’ve changed your mind.

Other things that can be handy in terms of search engine optimisation include the use of the nofollow tag, the instruction not to archive, which prevents a cached version appearing in the SERPs, and the instruction not to take snippets. When you have an instruction specific for Google in your Meta robots tag, you can address it to Googlebot.

Issue 3: Seriously? Using ‘nofollow’ in my own pages??

Using nofollows can help you to sculpt the search engines’ experience of your site, for example when you want more attention paid to a particular internal link. The Meta robots tag and your robots.txt file can help your site, and they can hinder it. If you’re at all uncertain about what effect the changes you’re making to your code are going to have, it’s best to consult your SEO company.

Competition in business is always tough, but on the net it’s even tougher. With so much information freely available to consumers, the internet presents many challenges for businesses to step up to the mark. When everything you do and say can be scrutinised by potential customers and compared against your competition, you really need to be on the ball.

One of the more helpful things about search engine optimization is that it helps a business out generally, as well as fulfilling the specific task of getting better rankings. Search engines are a very visible representation of the online markets. Because of this, SEO ends up teaching a lot of lessons about how to operate a business online. Here are just a few of them:

•    Staying ahead is really a way to guard against being behind. As any site owner who’s obsessively watched their listings in the SERPs knows, things change swiftly on the net and it’s very easy to be overwhelmed. The only way to guard against this is to stay ahead. Many search engine optimization strategies encourage this, and you can talk to us at www.searchengineoptimization.co.uk about such things as ongoing link building and content provision.

•    Checking in on competition is more important than ever, as your competition will define your own success. If you don’t know how your competition is performing online, you don’t know what benchmark you have to meet.

•    It is not sufficient to tell consumers of your virtues: you need to demonstrate. So much information is available on the net that simple marketing measures are no longer sufficient. Demonstrate your authority through informative articles, testimonials and other useful devices.

Your competition comes into play here. If competing businesses have more information about themselves on their site, your site will inevitably look bad in comparison. Keeping ahead is important.

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) has been given new powers that allow it to police the world of online marketing. Something they’ve never been able to do before – apparently ASA has received over 4,500 complaints about online advertising since 2008, but hasn’t had the power to do anything about practices that may breach their guidelines.

As of today (March 1) the ASA has new powers to censure misleading advertisements through social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. ASA, before today, has only had the power to scold advertisements shown on the television and paid-for online advertisements. But its reach is growing ever further, and this move is a stark reminder to those who use social media to promote their business to be professional at all times.

Chairman of the Committee of Advertising Practice, Andrew Brown, said recently: “Extending the online remit of the ASA has been a top priority for UK industry over the last couple of years.

“Our aim has been to extend further in the online world the principles that are already well established in our system, namely those of effective consumer protection and fair competition.”

What do we mean by professional? We mean being trustworthy and honest, never exaggerating your products and services, communicating with your consumers whenever they ask a question and conducting yourselves in an appropriate manner at all times. It’s tempting when you create a Facebook or Twitter profile for your business to fall into an overly-personal way of doing things, and forget that you’re actually running a company!

ASA has the power to name and shame businesses that they do not feel comply with their guidelines, and can make them withdraw their online marketing habits as soon as possible. When using social media as part of your SEO campaign, remember that you’re running a business, and try to keep it as professional as possible at all times.

The London Underground is enormous. And, what’s more, it’s going to get pretty cramped by the time the Olympic Games roll around in 2012. A Chinese telecoms firm called Huawei has planned ahead, and has offered to provide a network across the Underground so commuters can enjoy some more mobile time when they travel.

Except that that’s not what Britons want, according to a poll conducted by the folks over at GoodMobilePhones.co.uk. Their research shows that a staggering three quarters of the British public are opposed to the Tube becoming mobile-friendly, citing annoyance more than anything! Due to the cramped nature of the Underground, those questioned said they don’t want to hear ringtones or people’s conversations, and were worried about the safety implications of having their mobile phone on show in such a public area.

Which must be something of a kick in the teeth to mobile operators, who would love nothing more than to have customers sit on the Underground and use up more of their minutes! The amount of people who pass through the Underground on a daily basis, and the volume of those people who have access to a mobile phone could make this an incredibly lucrative area.

Mobile browsing is a medium that’s on the verge of explosion, and many companies are optimising their web presence to include sites and applications so as mobile searchers can access their business on the go. Again – especially for those businesses in the London area – wouldn’t it be fantastic if people could take a seat on the Tube and browse their website…

Opinion’s divided though, and we’re still waiting for an official stance on what the mobile plan will be during 2012. For those who have spent a lot of time on a search engine optimisation campaign around London, and have invested a lot of time and money into mobile SEO, they’ll be waiting with bated breath…

If you’ve kept your ear to the ground over the past week or so, then you’ll know that rumours of either Google or Facebook buying Twitter have reached fever pitch. But while reports are emerging saying initial negotiations have been held and that waters are being tested, Twitter chief executive, Dick Costolo, has recently said that that’s all they are at the moment – rumours.

Mr. Costolo was speaking in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress. He said, “”People write that stuff all the time… I don’t know where these things come from, it’s just a rumour.” What’s telling is that there were no denials or aggressive dismissals. With Twitter thought to be making losses because of staff additions and purchasing new data centres, Dick also suggested that the microblogging kings are looking at new ways of generating revenue, though there were no indications of what those methods may be.

Also, to provide an insight into just why Twitter is being valued at upwards of $10 billion, Dick also highlighted statistics collected during this year’s Superbowl. “At the end of this year’s Superbowl we saw 4,000 tweets per second. During the game there were sustained periods when it was 3,000 tweets per second. Just to give you some contrast, during the 2008 Superbowl we served 28 tweets per second.”

We can’t help but wonder what the implications would be if Google purchased Twitter and what it’d mean for SEO. It’d be a large social statement of intent from the search giants, and show they’re serious about moving into such a lucrative field. Facebook and Twitter together, though? What a social hub that would be!

From what Dick says, though, it doesn’t look to be happening anytime soon. But we’ve heard coy business denials before. Can Twitter really stand on its own two feet from a financial point of view? The next few months will be very telling indeed…