Digital Dialogues

First off, our apologies for the delay in postings. We’re back now and ready to update you on all things digital!

Graphic courtesy of searchenginejournal.com

To begin with, let’s discuss a little SEO shall we? Since this practice has become more mainstream and crucial for marketing online, several tools have surfaced that help aid the search-engine process. Here are three recommended practices by the digital marketing beast, Hubspot.

1. Relevance: The most important thing to remember is that the more specific you are, the better. If you are a store that sells organic food, you don’t want to just use the keywords “food” or “grocery store.” You should narrow it down to “all-natural (or organic) vegetable/produce/meat/whatever distributor” or something along those lines. When someone types in specific words such as those, they know what they are looking for and don’t want to have to dig around to find it.

2. Location: Aside from finding the right store, search engine users will want to find one closest to them. Consider using location-based keywords. In the case of the organic food store, “Organic grocery stores in Atlanta, Ga.” would be relevant. If your company has more than one location, consider setting up different pages on your site for each location.

3. Keyword tools:

• Web Analytics – Tools like Google Analytics or HubSpot Software allow you to identify which organic search terms are already driving traffic to your site.
• Google AdWords Keyword Tool - Allows users to insert one keyword, multiple keywords, or even your website address, and Google will return a list of related keywords along with simple metrics to see what the competition is like and how many searches for the keywords(s) is already occuring.
• Google Insights for Search - Allows users to enter multiple keywords and filter by location, search history and category. Google then produces results that show how much web interest there is around a particular keyword, what caused the interest, where the traffic is coming from and similar keywords.
• HubSpot Keyword Grader - Helps identify best keywords for optimizing your site and also tracks results from each one.

laurasmith analytics, Internet, SEO, Uncategorized Google Analytics, Hubspot, SEO

Can you believe it’s been a year since the world saw the first tablet computer? The first iPad was introduced in April 2010, and along with it came skeptical consumers and hundreds of jokes referencing women’s hygiene products. At the iPad 2′s unveiling on Wednesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that just under 15 million iPads had been sold in the product’s first nine months on the market. Here’s some features and new capabilities you can expect to see in the iPad 2, which will be released March 11.

• The iPad 2 will be thinner and lighter, down to 1.3 pounds from 1.5.
• It will have front and rear-facing cameras designed for video chatting.
• It will be available in white as well as black.
• It can be connected to a television and mirror what’s on the tablet’s screen.
• It will include a gyroscope, a feature that will enhance gaming options.

laurasmith Apple, eBooks, Internet, iPad apple, ipad, Steve Jobs

On Thursday, it was confirmed Disney had purchased Togetherville, a social network for children under the age of 10.

Togetherville was launched last May and strives to facilitate parent-child interactions. Through the network, parents can view their children’s social network activity on the sites as well as post messages to their walls, send “virtual” gifts and allocate virtual allowances.

Togetherville is not alone under Disney’s child-friendly site umbrella, though. Disney also owns Club Penguin and Funschool.com.

laurasmith Internet, social media Club Penguin, Disney, Funschool.com, Togetherville

Thursday is the day that hundreds of thousands of eager want-to-be iPhone owners have been waiting for. The iPhone will begin selling on the Verizon network on Feb. 10 and according to a recent survey, about half of Verizon smartphone users said they plan to switch to the Verizon iPhone once it is available. Yes, I am one of these people as well. While I will not name the smartphone I have, you can be assured that I will be switching to the iPhone in the next few months. Not because I don’t like my current phone, but because I want an iPhone THAT badly.

Like I said, I’m not alone. The market research firm uSamp recorded responses of more than 700 current smartphone owners on the Verizon network. According to the survey, about 66 percent of BlackBerry users on Verizon plan to make the switch in addition to 44 percent of Android owners. Total, 54 percent of Verizon smartphone owners plan to switch to the iPhone 4.

Why are they switching? The majority said for the mobile interface (one of the main reasons I plan on switching), the memory, the camera, the media features and the web browser. In addition, uSamp said 26 percent of current AT&T iPhone users would switch to Verizon.

laurasmith iphone, mobile iphone, uSamp, Verizon

If Facebook wasn’t taking up enough of your time, now you can update your status or stalk your ex on the go even if you don’t have a smartphone. Yesterday, Facebook announced that it is bringing a mobile app to feature phones. Even without a smartphone OS, users will be able to get access to Facebook messages, events, pictures, news feeds, profiles and more. According to Facebook, the app works on more than 2,500 devices from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and others.

The app will be convenient for non-smartphone users, which as of June 2010, make up 79 percent of all mobile phone owners. The best part? Users will be able to use the app without incurring data charges.

The app is available on the following carriers in the following countries and will launch on more networks and in more countries soon: Dialog (Sri Lanka), Life (Ukraine), Play (Poland), StarhHub (Singapore), STC (Saudi Arabia), Three (Hong Kong), Tunisiana (Tunisia), Viva (Dominican Republic), Vodafone (Romania)

Other carriers and countries scheduled to be available soon are Mobilicity (Canada), Reliance (India), Telcel (Mexico), TIM (Brazil) and Vivacom (Bulgaria).

laurasmith facebook, Internet, mobile, social media, Uncategorized facebook, mobile, smartphones

On Tuesday, Trendstream released a report that suggests participation in the real-time social web is becoming more based on professional content instead of personal. The report is part of a continuous web study called the Global Web Index, which surveyed 51,000 consumers across the globe three times between July 2009 and Sept. 2010. Results showed that participation in real-time social networks and microblogs both grew by 20 percent. Blog writing declined by four percent and forum participation decreased by 11 percent. Another stat showed the percentage of consumers who said they updated their social network profiles daily was twice the percentage that said they updated their microblog.

What’s interesting about the results of this study is that it found more people are microblogging about professional and news-worthy content. The number of people who said they linked to news stories or posted updates about a particular product on their microblogs both increased by more than 10 percent this year, while people who posted updates about personal photos decreased 5 percent.

laurasmith Internet, microblogging, social media, twitter Global Web Index, microblogging, social media, Trendstream

After years of anicipation from eager Verizon customers, it looks as if they may be getting their wish. According to sources from the Wall Street Journal, the Verizon iPhone will be available by the end of January. The big announcement will be made tomorrow, January 11, and there are hints that Steve Jobs himself will be present for the unvealing along with Verizon President and COO Lowell McAdam. According to Mashable,  there are a few specualtions about new features and slight changes the Verizon version might have including a new, better-functioning antenna and no more voicemail instructions.

Stay tuned…

laurasmith mobile, Uncategorized iphone, Lowell McAdam, Steve Jobs, Verizon

Check out Caroline Morrow’s recent post on her blog where she discusses the sequence of technological events that led her to love eBooks. Read it here.

laurasmith eBooks, kindle, mobile ebooks, eReaders, ipad, kindle, Palm

Leave it up the the Pew Research Center to announce another breaking stat about how the Internet is infiltrating daily life more and more. According to Pew, The Internet is now the main national and international news source for people ages 18 to 29 as reported Tuesday.

The percentage of young adults under 30 getting their news from the Internet versus TV nearly doubled from 2007 in 2010, moving from 34 percent to 65 percent. During that time,  the number who consider television as their main news source dropped from 68 percent to 52 percent. Data was collected from a survey of 1,500 American respondents.

laurasmith Internet Internet, Pew Research Center, television

Readers familiar with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the classic science-fiction book by Douglas Adams, will recall the Babel Fish, a remarkable creature that would translate foreign languages directly into a person’s brain (once the fish had been put in their ear).  The new Word Lens iPhone app may not have directly input into one’s brain, but it has a remarkable ability to provide translation visually.

Using the iPhone’s augmented reality abilities through the camera, the app translates written text — from signs, menus, or anything else you might find while traveling.  The app itself is free, but language modules are available via in-app purchase.

Caroline Morrow iphone, mobile, tourism, travel