‘Online Marketing’

The Internet Without Writers Would Be an Empty and Unorganised Space

You open the Internet browser and type a search phrase in the search box of Google or Bing. It takes a fraction of a second to bring up a host of websites relevant to your search. Have you noticed the words on the search page and then the websites you visit? Those words are not created by robots, but by writers. Most of them are invisible to the world out there – they are called ghost writers.

Websites Will Be Empty If Not for Writers

The Internet as you know and use it today would not have existed in its present form without writers. Sure there would have been content, but definitely not the quality you are used to and most certainly not in the volumes available now.

You may differ and think that every website owner populates their own web pages and simply writes the blogs and many informative articles you have seen on the Internet over the years. Indeed, some do and are not bad at it, but the majority of website content is generated by the invisible writers, the people who never get credit and sadly don’t get paid their worth.

Gain Visibility on the Internet with Writers

With the recent changes in the Google algorithms, numerous website owners have seen their rankings drop to a ridiculous level with income losses in the thousands to millions. There are two groups of people on the Internet that can help a site regain its ranking:

• Search Engine Optimizers
• Writers

Most website owners don’t have the time or resources to monitor algorithm changes and adapt their online strategies accordingly. For that purpose they hire Search Engine Optimizers or as most know them, SEO specialists. They work with the invisible writers to help a website gain visibility amongst thousands of sites on the Internet. In addition, the writers create compelling copy, sales letters, press releases, and the free information that you use to make informed decisions.

Ghost Writers and SEOs

This blog for instance, has only ADMIN as author whilst the company gets the credit, but there are two persons working on it. The one is the SEO that does uploading and optimization and the other is the very same writer that writes these posts. Copyright Law stipulates that the author of a work has a moral right to be associated with the work. It is a non-transferrable right. Even when hired to write, the author still retains that right, but in order to make others look good, you need ghost writers. In essence, the website owner or SEO company takes credit for the writer’s work. In some instances people even add their names to work when indeed someone else did the research and writing.

Without the writers willing to be kept a secret, a lot what you see on the Internet today would not have existed. It would have been dull. Let’s be even bolder. Have you seen the sponsored ads at the side of the search results? Those ads are written mostly by copywriters.

Have you ever purchased from the Internet based on the information provided at a website? You most probably would not have bought at all if it wasn’t for a writer who knew how to connect to you as the reader.

Do You Need Writers?

Depending on your writing skills, you can very well create compelling content, many bloggers succeed in such. If, however, you are not a skilled writer, the page may be filled with grammar, styling and spelling errors. One look at such a page on the Internet and the readers will leave because they will not trust you and you will lose any credibility you had with the audience.

Compelling Articles Sell Websites

Skilled copywriters can write on just about any topic. Whether it is about website marketing, veneers for dental correction, patent law or various types of forklifts, they have the ability to put knowledge into readable format that can be understood by the intended audience. Next time you visit a law site or perhaps a website about travelling to South Africa, know that although no author may be mentioned, there is in fact a skilled writer behind it all.

In-depth Research Ensures Quality and Sticky Content

The same of course, will be the case when you make use of a writer to help develop content for your site on the Internet. The very same writer that has written on Botox treatment and anti-ageing solutions can also write about the latest technologies and mobile communication. They do in-depth research and you will still be able to control the content. As such accuracy can be guaranteed because you as an expert in your field check the copy written and thus authorize publishing thereof.

Accurate Information

So before you decide never to trust any information on the Internet ever again because you think that it is not written by an expert figure,  know that the expert still checks for accuracy and you can thus trust most of the content, even sales content.

Connecting With the Audience

The skilled writer knows how do adapt the tone of the article to fit in with the rest of the website and also knows how to tone down on personalization. The writer lets the company shine and takes a background role, almost like the person creating the stunning costumes in the theatre or does the makeup. Without the teams of writers and SEO specialists working behind the scenes about 50% of what you now see on the Internet would not have been there.

What Does It All Mean?

Besides the obvious that ghost writers need to be paid more and should get more credit for their work because I am a ghost writer, it means that you don’t have to appoint staff to add content to your website. You can rely on writers and SEO specialists as available from iLead Online to do the job and ensure not only a good ranking on the Internet, but also return visits to your site, increased sales, and credibility with readers who appreciate the informative, yet, professionally styled information provided by your company.

Twitter has taken the bold step to say what everyone is thinking – Google promotes it own social network Google+ at the expense of other social networks.

Twitter has not been tactful about it as well. The company outright complained that users and news organizations will all be disadvantaged if there are no tweets in the Google search results. Since news of important events often appear first on Twitter, then the news networks, and finally in search results, it goes without saying that the tweets are the most relevant when it comes to up to date reports on events.

The Google+ centred approach has been criticized widely, with Twitter being the most prominent of the complainers.  The company loves the traffic from the search giant, but with no direct advantage for Google to send traffic to tweets, one can understand the shift in focus to promote their own struggling social network.

Twitter’s Perspective on Google+

Google can still index the tweets which are public and most of them are. Twitter feels that people rely on the search giant to deliver accurate search results including breaking news and events. With Twitter being a major source of information fitting the profile, it goes without saying that the results should include searches in their 250 million or so daily tweets covering just about any given topic.

Twitter boasts about a 100 million users and as such their input should not be ignored. With the changes in Google’s focus and subsequent search results, the users and publishers definitely are at a disadvantage and the results cannot be given as the most accurate or relevant to the user.

Google hasn’t included any public Facebook content in its search results up to now and Twitter has thus just joined the low search results ranks together with other social networks.

Google’s Perspective on Social Networks

Google’s response is that they don’t have access to crawl the content of certain sites including social networks. They can thus only provide results on information not hidden behind password protection and pay-walls.

Google has also announced that they are surprised by Twitter’s outrage since the company chose not to renew the pay agreement and since then the search giant has simply observed the no follow instructions.

Review of the Twitter versus Google+ War

If one has to be completely objective then Google certainly has the right to promote Google+ more than any of the other social networks and if Twitter has not renewed their agreement, there is certainly no reason for the search engine giant to send traffic their way. Google also has the right to get others to play nice and open up their networks for crawling, but look closer and you will be able to see that the exclusion of such results and pushing sites down the rank, influence the accuracy and relevancy of results.

Even though a user with a Google+ account now has a more relevant search experience when taken into consideration that search results are adapted to the user’s past searches and profile, essential results don’t show up. For Google, it may seem relevant, but the user is suffering because of their policies. With that then the giant engine shouldn’t proclaim the best results when indeed they are self-promoting and then demoting others at the same time.

Google+ is struggling and with all its excellent privacy features, little circles and clean lay-out, it cannot compete with Facebook and Twitter following. The search engine wants access to Twitter and Facebook to crawl, but then one also has to look even deeper. Google doesn’t make ad revenue from Facebook accounts and being excluded from revenue on Twitter, it seems like another ploy to downsize competition.

One must appreciate Google’s effort to get all information accessible under one umbrella. Currently you will search your Facebook page, do a Twitter search and a Google one if you want to get up to date and really relevant results. But, Google has also been accused of bullying Android and Motorola has complained that they don’t have freedom of decision. It does seem that Google pressures every other network, platform, mobile provider and site into submission to fit their own agenda.

Does this Tug of War Hurt the User or the Company the Most?

Undoubtedly the ongoing monopoly tugging does hurt the Internet user. One should, however, ask whether another social network is needed. Does anyone have the time to login at Facebook and Google+, make your way to Twitter for some tweeting, chat at Skype and then move onto searching? Indeed, Google surely doesn’t have in mind to just add another social network, it is more an issue of taking down the one network where it doesn’t get an income from and then if they succeed in pushing tweets down the results far enough, they may even take the market there as well.

The search giant, cannot however, be criticized for being so large and marketing itself since they do give a lot of free stuff. If many of their competitors would have done the same, they may also have flooded the market. They certainly also have the right to put pressure on companies to use their products.

Twitter’s complaint against Google is somewhat legitimate and resembles how many of the smaller companies also feel. With the constant changes made by Google, several thousands of little AdSense publishers have seen their income dwindle and their sites pushed down far on the search results.

One must ask whether Google has become so big that they have lost touch with their users in the quest to promote their Google+ and other products. One must also ask whether ad income from the large companies have become more important than accurate information as search results have become focused on the large sites recently. The Twitter versus Google+ war is far from over and one can expect to see more complaints surface in future.

Back to the question of whether Twitter’s complaint against Google for promoting their own social network while pushing others down should be supported – it depends on whether you still benefit from Google’s traffic and whether you want your searches and social network to be an integrated experience.

The new YouTube design has been met with mixed reactions. There are those who embrace change and accept that it normally requires a bit of getting used to and then there are those who outright reject such. It has been high time for a new look and since Google as well as Facebook have made some rather radical changes over the last couple of months, can anyone blame YouTube for wanting to be with the trendsetters?

The beta version of the new YouTube design was at first kept under the blankets, but some people willingly shared their knowledge of how to see the new face of the largest video sharing online site. YouTube has at least explained the changes although the number of dislikes must be a bit disheartening for the designers.

Public Outrage over New Design

One would have expected some type of negative reaction, but the outrage on forums could not have been foreseen even by seasoned forecasters. Even though the YouTube site has never really been clean and easy to navigate, people have commented that it is now a far cry from the familiar look and feel. Strange though, as it has certainly cleaned up well. The only real drawback is that with all the images and videos it does take a while to load. It shouldn’t be a problem overseas, but in South Africa where broadband is rather like a single lane information road than a bandwidth highway, it does take some time.

Indeed, nobody enjoys house cleaning, especially when done unexpectedly, leaving you wondering where you have placed items before. It is perhaps how most users must have felt when they landed on the newly designed YouTube site after a few days away from the Internet.

Whether or not you are upset because it seems that your favourite tools have been misplaced, the lay-out is neat and professional. It is in line with the latest trends and with the incorporation of Google+ and Facebook features, it should ring some bells of familiarity.

Brand Focussed

YouTube has shown with its new design that the previous ways of random uploads of funny and freaky movies are over. It has become more commercialized and as with all things worth enjoying, it is about earnings and attracting interest from advertisers. It does remind a bit of all the web TV channels and as speculation goes, it was the plan from the beginning.

It will be more difficult in future to locate random user generated content as the choices for viewers will be more focussed. The idea behind the changes, obviously inspired by YouTube owner, Google, is to steer viewers towards web TV channels driven to make money. The question is whether the supporters will fall for this or whether it opens up room for others to create sites similar to the old YouTube and thus again, get the users in the driving seat of the content.

Better Quality

The quality of the content will no doubt improve with contracts in place with large media giants, but with few places where the user can still be in control, the content levels may dwindle and so also usage. It will certainly make it harder to market through YouTube videos as a way to drive website traffic.

Perhaps the choices will be fewer in terms of sheer content volume, but videos will still be uploaded, with the difference being that such will receive less attention in the new YouTube design.

The lay-out is now rather similar to that of Facebook, something that users have grown  accustomed to although most are still upset with the ticker feed on the right side of the page and more so because of sponsored content popping up as well.

Challenge for Video Marketers

Whereas you only had to ensure that your video reached the top viewed list of the day to get tons of visits, you will now find that users will have to first click on the Popular button to view them. It may mean more SEO adjustments. It almost feels like a constant battle where Google tries to prevent any small website owner and now video marketer of getting attention. Perhaps if the viewers paid the same as the big sponsors they too would have a say and maybe then the small website owner or aspiring musical star at YouTube would stand a chance in competing with the big guns.

The Add Channels button is more prominent although it will most probably not make the headlines when you upload something to your channel. With the newly completed YouTube design, it will be difficult to get others outside your immediate circle to subscribe since the focus of viewers are now channelled to the brands that pay and not the average guy trying to get some views for his latest song.

Profit Driven Decisions

Despite all that has been said, YouTube is not out to get you, but has made it clear that they want to get a polished TV type of appearance. It could be related to the recent introduction of the Google & Sony Internet TV concept or just that the site wants to become an online television. You can rent videos and watch them directly on your computer, provided you have Internet connectivity. In South Africa, it could be a problem for users who have slow bandwidth. Some traffic will be lost, but YouTube should be able to make up for that with the income generated from the large brands and rentals.

 

 

YouTube has also announced that it will become more prominent in the classroom, which could also account for the streamlined look and refocusing of attention to channels other than the user generated ones. At the bottom of it all is profit and users will simply have to get used to the new YouTube lay-out, design and channels for the lack of an alternative. The company is focused on the audience of television. With more money to be made from predictable audience viewing, one can understand their move as purely business orientated.

If you haven’t seen the new YouTube lay-out and design, visit the site immediately and let us know what you think.

The average user of Google services such as Google Plus, the search engine, Gmail and Maps may not even be aware of the applications and services to be cut in the near future. For most, relatively little will change in their day to day lives, but for a few the cutting of Google services such as Knol, Bookmarks List, Wave and Friends Connect may come as something not planned for.

 

Why The Cutting Of Google Services?

The US based company is in a process of streamlining the services and products offered. As with any growing company, house cleanup may be needed every once in a while, and that is exactly what Google is doing. The idea is to offer more focused products and services and to put more emphasis in beating the social media giant Facebook with the new Google+ social network, which would have been better off, if named Google Circle.

Although the company has seen tremendous growth in Google Plus, usage of the service is still not on par with that of Facebook. Unless users migrate from Facebook to Google+, one should not expect the social network to overtake Facebook or even be a real threat to it in the near future.

Failing Products And Services To Get The Boot

The cutting of some of the Google services is aimed at products or services which have failed to get off the ground or achieve what the company has hoped such would. Some users have expressed concern that more services may be cut and they are thus a bit sceptical in signing on for new services.

The company wants to integrate such services and products with their successful products and thus ensure a more streamlined and easier to use Google. Users accordingly have nothing to fear, most of the useful services stay intact.

Which Products Will Be Cut?

The cutting of Wave as a Google product comes as no surprise. The service combined online collaboration and instant messaging. Development on it has already stopped a while ago and it is now recommended that users opt for the open source projects such as Apache to replace it if they still want to make use of the Wave technology.

Google Gears, the offline browser functionality delivered less than expected and users are no longer able to download it. Applications such as Gmail offline will be incorporated into Chrome allowing for access to it and other applications such as Google Docs through Chrome.

The next item on the list of Google services to be cut is the Search Timeline. Graphs of historical search trends can in future be found by means of the google.com/trends.  Friends Connect also gets the boot. It is a service that allows webmasters the ability to enrich the user experiences through the addition of social media type characteristics to the sites by means of snippet embedding. Webmasters are encouraged to promote Google+ instead.

Bookmarks List, allowing the sharing of bookmarks among friends is perhaps one of the services which will be least missed. Knol, launched as far back as 2007 never really took off. It was designed as a Google service allowing for collaboration amongst experts in the creation of articles. The company has, however,  indicated that Knol will still be working until the end of September 2012.  Google has also indicated the cutting of Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal known better as RE<C.  According to the company other companies are now better positioned to continue research in driving the price of renewable energy down. They have published their results to help other companies in their research.

 

Caution Regarding Announcements Of New Products

The company has also indicated that their future announcements of new services and products may not be so hyped up since expectations may be more than can be delivered. They will only announce a few projects every year following the example of rival firm Apple. Most people, however, speculate that Google is cutting services in order to put more resources into Google+ in order to beat Facebook.

New Products & Services Launched

While the cutting of Google services such as Knol, Friends Connect and RE<C may come as no surprise, the addition of services such as the online music store, at present only available in the USA, is expected to keep the company solidly in the run. Users with Android based devices will be able to purchase MP3 files from a library of more than 13 million music pieces. With Sony Music Entertainment, Universal, and EMI also supporting the library, it is expected to give Apple a run for their money. The music store is integrated with Google+ allowing for sharing of music pieces amongst Circles.

Google MAPS – Extending Views Indoors

The company has taken its technology indoors as well, allowing for indoor viewing of some museums and other places of interest. The project is operational in several cities such as Paris and London. Unfortunately, it is not yet available in South Africa. Places to be viewed will include restaurants, repair shops, gyms and shops. Businesses have been invited to join, but have been asked to warn their clients of the photo shoots before filming starts. Users will be able to get 360 degree fish eye views of the locations.

Large scale usage of the MAPS feature will be charged from January 2012. Travel agencies and booking firms making extensive use of the MAPS will have to cough up if their map hits are in excess of 25 000 hits in a given day.

Data Crunching

Another service announced not for cutting by Google, but as something new to help companies identify and analyse large data sets with tools available from the company is that of data crunching. The BigQuery is seen as revolutionary in the sense that it can process a tremendous amount of data within only a few seconds.

Although cutting of Google services is thus eminent, new services are added and more streamlining is done. As such users can also expect more integration of existing services, whilst all the extras not delivering will be dropped.

Facebook introduced sponsored ads in the ticker. Many users complained about the ticker, but when the sponsored ads came along, they were already familiar with the constant feed and some didn’t even realise that they now also receive ad updates. For others the whole experience has been just one long annoying ad.

Sponsored Stories Appear In Your Home Page And The Ticker Feed

Facebook considers the sponsored ads as part of the News Feed and as such doesn’t consider it to be annoying when the ads also form part of the ticker. The ticker feature first appeared a couple of months ago and displays on the right side of the page, listing comments, updates, and likes of friends and contacts. If the feeds are not important enough to appear on your home page, they will only appear in the feed.

The main feed on the home page features status updates and comments on your updates as well as some sponsored ads. The idea is to clean up the home page of the user without the user losing out on feeds.  In addition, the user receives notifications of actions such as User X uploaded a photo while the friends now friends with so and so are displayed in the ticker feed on the right side of the page.

One can now automatically share what you like or listen to via the ticker feed. Some Facebook users have responded in anger while others have simply taken steps to reduce the amount of spam appearing in their home page. Users have shown that they don’t like the bar on the right side, never mind all the sponsored stories also now featuring.

Why Has Facebook Added The Ticker?

Facebook obviously needed space for more sponsored ads and with the ticker feed, they get the additional space. Taking into consideration that Facebook is a free social network platform, users don’t really have grounds to complain. The service provider needs to make money and must thus think of innovative ways to do so.

One cannot opt out of seeing sponsored stories, but can hide a specific update, all updates from the sponsor or report the story as spam. Guess Facebook gets many spam reports. Be careful what you like in your profile such as movies and music as well as any likes at sponsored pages since the more you LIKE the more sponsored ads you are likely to see in your ticker feeds and at your home page.

Not So Unfamiliar Concept

If you are already a Twitter or Digg user, you will be familiar with the sponsored feeds, but for the average Facebook user, getting used to it may take some time. One will need to get use to it if you plan on using any type of social media now and in future. Users may want to see the sponsored posts separate from the other updates, but then the ads will be less effective and Facebook will lose ad revenue as sponsors pay to get their ads viewed by as many users as possible and as many times as can be stomached by the users. Most of the social media services mark the sponsored ads as such. Facebook is thus no different to any of the other service providers.

What Is So Annoying About The Newsfeed?

The constant feed features any minute detail. As such it is live and ticking. If you are concerned about bandwidth usage, it will be freak you out, but considering how easy we as humans adapt, it will not be annoying for long. Once the human eye gets used to the ticker on the right side, the feeds can be ignored. Just as you don’t register an ad that has been displayed for more than three weeks, the feeds become part of the page lay-out.

Positives

Although the sponsored stories in the ticker can be annoying, the top news is better organised in the home page. Everything is there to see if you want and as such the user doesn’t have to take any actions. Facebook has become the ideal place for the person with lazy fingers.

Privacy Issues

Users have complained that they can now see conversations between friends and as such must be even more careful when commenting on a post. Considering that a typical user can have several groups of friends which do not normally share the same language, social structure and ideas, it may become difficult to separate work, religion, and social life. For people who want to stay up to date with everything their friends do and chat about, the feature of course, is excellent.

What is less impressive is that you can also see what a complete stranger has said if that person commented at a friend’s post. With possible identity theft and lurking criminals one will want a bit more control. If your friends, however, pay attention to the privacy settings, you will be less inclined to see all their conversations.

Whenever you post, you have the option of displaying the post as public, for friends only or for a custom group of friends. The smart user will thus post updates for friends or a custom list only. If the setting is public all threads on the post will also be displayed in the ticker feed. Simple consideration can help prevent the world from knowing private conversations. For the more private chats use the live chat or the messaging option.

How To Get Rid Of Sponsored Ads In The Ticker

First, be careful of what you LIKE and then also what you SHARE. Then if an ad appears in your home page that you don’t want to see, hide and if you don’t want any of it, hide all. If it is exceptionally annoying, report it as spam.

Consider Others

Take time to set up lists and start using such for posting updates. This will help to limit what your friends and then some strangers see in the ticker feed. Only play games and use apps that are really worth it to limit the amount of feeds your friends will get. Encourage others to also move away from the PUPLIC settings.