Serif News

Timing your tweet

Friday 29th June 2012 11:13 AM

Timing your Penalty shot is as crucial as the timing of your post or tweet!

Recently as a nation we have seen evidence of this fact or at least heard about it when the so called best of our country's footballers got it wrong and were shamefully knocked out of the Euro 2012 by Italy on penalties. This has happened 5 times in major tournaments in the last 22 years. There was a glimmer of hope the tide had turned when in the Euro 96 campaign we beat Spain on penalties - BUT this clearly turned out to be the last time.

Any way as this isn't a football review nor a historic re-cap of England's football failures I'll get back on topic. A recent survey by Buddy Media analysed the engagement levels throughout December 2011 & February 2012 for more than 320 accounts associated with some of the world's biggest brands.

So if you want to make sure you're timing it right you should read on, or go to the full report by Buddy Media.

Unfortunately there are no specific times released, but remember habits change like the wind so it would be foolish to rethink your whole strategy due to the report. Also the levels do differ from one industry to another however on average the weekend proved to be the best time for engagement, but before you tweepers feel all your hard work has not been reaching its full potential during the week or you mention to your boss that your hours during the week need to be changed so you can make up for the time spent 'working' at the weekend, there are hot spots during the week.

The working week was split into 2 categories, busy hours (8am - 7pm) & non-busy hours (8pm-7am) where as the results from the split neglects to highlight actual times it does provide an interesting finding. The results stated that 'tweeting' during the 'busy hours' drove a higher engagement rate as opposed to Facebook posts, in fact 24 percent more than those posted in the 'non-busy' hours. On the flip side Facebook saw a 17 percent higher engagement rate on posts shared within the 'non-busy' hours.

I think this tells us that if you're not already tailoring your tweets & posts to suit the medium you're sharing on you will be even less likely to encourage engagement, which ultimately will affect the bank balance. So focus on spreading out your tweets/posts (obviously urgent and 'HOT POTATOES' need to be shared immediately still) and aim to have them released at the weekend - however, this will be fruitless and increase the risk of you not picking up on the engagement if you are not equipped to deal with it out of the office (buy an iPhone if you're not).
Thursdays showed to be the busiest day for tweets but this is shown to be the worst day for engagement particularly for the big brands. The optimum number of tweets per day is 4, after that the results dip off, although you may get away with 6 but definitely after this you enter the realm of negative engagement likelihood.

So Saturday & Sunday is where the engagement party for the tweets is at - try it and check your results, let us know how you get on, mean while here's a few more findings :-
Using hashtags gets twice the engagement of tweets without-also you don't want to use more than 2 hashtags per tweet
Images shared have twice the engagement of those without
If you ask to be RT'd you are 12x more likely to be RT'd BUT if you spell RETWEET you are 23x more likely to be retweeted

Posted 11:13 AM | Permalink

Internet Security Or Common Sense

Thursday 28th June 2012 1:11 PM

Internet security

We are still hearing stories of how someone has been duped yet again in an online fraud & virus' still being downloaded. I recently read a story on the BBC website of how a girl was moving to London to go to university and found a flat to rent with 2 bedrooms for £85 pw in a nice safe area of London. The girl didn't make the time to view the property, as she lived in Birmingham and fell victim to what has become an increasingly popular scam.

The scam

The fraudster places ads online for properties to rent. Once a prospective tenant gets in touch it quickly becomes apparent that the keys are not with an agency due to a bad experience of some sort (or a similarly tall tale). The keys will be posted from the USA or an African country upon receipt of proof (via email) of a transfer to a bank of the fraudster's choice (Western Union in this case) for the rent and deposit. Any further requests to gain access and view are generally ignored followed by sympathy tale of how they have had an accident of some sort and presses for the payment to be made. In this case as the girl was in a hurry to find somewhere so she paid £400 into the account, after transferring the girl was having second thoughts about passing on the transfer details to the so called 'landlord' - but she did as she was in need of finding a place to stay in a hurry. Needless to say the money and flat had gone, with a hole in her pocket and still nowhere to stay she had learnt a costly lesson. If it sounds too good to be true, it generally is!

We must ensure we make all possible checks, and if you aren't in a position to do your homework on XYZ ltd or Mr Swipeit then you need to ask if it is worth the risk and remind yourself of the horror stories. Would you lend your phone to a stranger in the street? Yet with something far more valuable credit card details & personal information etc we don't show the same restraint. The internet brought about the faceless transactions and stress free shopping from the comfort of our armchairs so is this the cause of our complacency, well in short no. I feel that there is always someone looking for a free meal and so if you make it easy for them to take something of yours OR worse, let them talk you into giving it to them - more fool you!

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to online fraudsters and their tricks, they will continue to develop new ways of lightening your bank balance so we must re-educate ourselves and protect what we work hard for.

Trading Standards do urge websites to do more to stop these crimes from happening and are rightly concerned at the scale of these scams.

If you feel you have been scammed ripped off or conned you should contact Action Fraud by visiting their website or calling on 0300 123 2040

Posted 1:11 PM | Permalink

SEO, Keep your content fresh

Monday 25th June 2012 3:25 PM

SEO - Keeping your content fresh with news & updates

When a business is concerned about how high their website is on Google Rankings, choosing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is recommended. Not only will this contribute towards greater traffic heading in a websites' direction, but the website will stay one step ahead of competitors. If a business wants to compose stories/articles themselves, there are numerous tips which should be followed.

1. Consider your audience. The tone of your articles should be similar to what the rest of your website is like, also try to keep shouts about your company to a minimum and aim the content towards your audiences' interests.

2. Be aware of keywords. As potential customers will want to know about a particular service or product which a company offers, and equally you will want customers to know about a service/product you offer. Including relevant search terms at regular intervals is recommended, although it's worth while keeping in mind that 'stuffing' your article with keywords could have the opposite effect to increasing your Google ranking.

3. Add links. If there are subpages on a website which details a specific product or service, the person reading your article should have the opportunity to view that particular page. By adding a hyperlink (which takes a few seconds) to a keyword, will help to drive traffic to that page & product.

However, composing these articles/stories can be very time-consuming. If the amount of free time which you have is minimal, finding a leading copy writing company in order to do this will enable you to concentrate more on other tasks. As copywriters are able to utilise all of their experience in order to compose articles which will help a business to climb up Google Rankings, the results that are achieved when asking for such assistance could be remarkable

There are obviously more aspects to consider when deciding on content, however they are linked to what you are aiming to achieve from your customers once they have read your news.
If you are wanting to know more please feel free to contact us.

Posted 3:25 PM | Permalink

What is SEO

Thursday 21st June 2012 1:58 PM

WHAT IS SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a technique used to ensure that all the aspects of a website are adjusted to gain a higher ranking in various search engine sites like Google etc
It is applied to both the internal and external aspects of a website and focuses on the use of keywords and key phrase searches to attract traffic. Web searches are driven by several search engine sites that include Google, Yahoo, and Bing, the results returned are often referred to as 'organic' or natural traffic.

Google is currently the leading search engine as it drives approximately 900,000,000 monthly searches. Bing comes next with 165,000,000 & closely followed by Yahoo with 160,000,000.
As such, search engine rankings are critical, the statistics say approximately 78 percent of users tend to end their search after the third results page when seeking products, services or an answer to a question. I personally rarely go beyond the 2nd.
Generating a high volume of traffic is essential to the success of a website as it can directly increase sales & brand awareness.
Search Engine Optimisation will allow you to increase your 'organic' returns, thus generating better results.
Search Engine Optimisation is constantly changing and evolving, as all the internal and external aspects of a website are being considered.
You should however keep in mind that the highest rank is always a moving target and can only be achieved through use of effective SEO practices and strategies, and so planning and your strategy is also important in any kind of Search Engine Optimisation campaign.

Keywords and key phrases are important because they are the set of terms that best represent and identify your business. This is critical as these are the words/phrases that a user typically enters into their web browser when searching for a particular topic or product.
Careful selection of the proper and best keywords will enable you to effectively attract your target audience and successfully guide them to your website.
However, it's just not enough to define good keywords & phrases, it's also essential that you ensure that the structure of your site is prepared for search engines at a much more technical level.

When it comes to relevance, it's never a good idea to overload a page with too many keywords. Inserting keywords in every sentence will look and read badly and will become irritating to the reader. This may also dissuade your visitors from accessing your site again and this is the last thing that you need to happen. It's more important that you consider the quality of the page.

In order to succeed, it's vitally important that you are professional in your web development, marketing, and advertising.



Content is also essential in Search Engine Optimisation, so it's not advisable to load your page with unnecessary images, video or audio.

There is also a need for you to make certain that your page is well-organized. The most important information should have a higher rank and should be systematically organized through headings & paragraphs
Links are also important as they are considered to be one of the most important measurements in determining the rank of a certain site. Google and other search engines measure the relevance of the site through these links from other external sites. Google actually prefers that various links are coming from a variety of external sites.
This is why it can be helpful to utilize various press releases, blogs and online directories. Do not become affiliated to 'Link Farms'. A recent update to Google's algorithm was to punish BAD & irrelevant links.
Organic Search Engine Optimisation is a dynamic and on-going process so it is essential that you take all of the factors into consideration. This is important to help increase your internet presence so that more visitors will continue to access your site.

Posted 1:58 PM | Permalink

Google Places, Why do I need it

Monday 18th June 2012 11:16 AM

Google Places, Why do I need to set this up?

Achieving a top spot within Google, or even the first page is proving to be more & more difficult with each update to Google's algorithm. However they have provided a section on the first page above the fold that is reserved for .... yep you guessed it Google Places. Google are now concentrating on a user's specific geographical location when they provide results for our searches, after all what would be the point of being provided results for driving instructors in Manchester, when you live in Leeds? Google have long since understood the relevance of this approach and created this product for us to take advantage of. Still confused ? Basically if you are from Leeds & want a plumber based in Leeds Google want to provide you with a list of plumbers who are based in Leeds and not from London & Manchester etc etc. Therefore this brilliant product is the online directory for businesses and will place you at the TOP (or near enough) of PAGE 1 ! - If this isn't reason enough for you to get involved then maybe the fact that it is FOC ! (Free Of Charge) will.

Google Places & SEO

With 97% of searches for a local business being done online, coupled with the priority and placing given to businesses with a Google Places account, you should be more than willing to put your business on the map. Plus they also provide you with the opportunity to add photo's to stand out and add regular news and promotions to your listing, allowing you to keep the data fresh and up to date.
Google are generally the people who we have to impress when it comes to SEO - so let's play ball! It's their game& their rules - Utilize their tools to your advantage, get a Google Places account today!

You can have a read of our step by step guide to setting up Google Places to highlight how easy it is.

Posted 11:16 AM | Permalink