Yesterday I wrote a post about why your Alexa ranking is completely useless.

To confirm that, I’m going to show you a simple way to manipulate your Alexa ranking and drastically improve it without building a single link, creating or distributing any content whatsoever.

This trick will work to varying degrees (depending on how many computers you have access to).

How?

It’s actually very simple.

1) Install the Alexa Toolbar on as many computers as you can.

2) Set their homepage to your website URL.

3) Sit back and watch your Alexa rankings improve.

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So many people stress about their Alexa ranking. I’ve personally seen hundreds of forum threads asking how a webmaster can lower their Alexa Ranking (Holding the no. 1 Alexa ranking position supposedly means you’re the most popular site on the net. Supposedly ‘the lower the better’).

Well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but worrying about Alexa ranking (and trying to improve it) is a waste of your time.

Why is Alexa a Useless Metric?

OK, I’ve made another bold statement so let me explain:

Alexa calculate their ranking position based upon the traffic to the website. The only problem is that they only count visitors who have the Alexa toolbar installed.

Realistically the only people to have the Alexa toolbar installed are other webmasters, marketers & tech. types therefore the data will always be biased towards those sorts of websites.

Plus, would a lower (‘better’) Alexa ranking necessarily bring more traffic? Nope. Remember the ranking position is based on the traffic you already have.

In short, using the Alexa ranking as a metric is useless because it will never (unless a lot more people begin installing it) accurately reflect the web browsing population.

Concentrate on your search rankings, traffic numbers, feed subscribers or referrals – these are the things that will actually increase your bottom line.

There has been a great deal of speculation (and fear) about what the new Google SERPS (search engine results pages) layout means for SEO & online marketing in general.

In case you missed it, or are unaware: Google Instant is the new feature of the google search engine you’ve been seeing over the past week or so:

Now as you type a query the results refresh automatically as you type.

The new layout also provides users with much more specific query suggestions.

Two things jumped out at me within 30 seconds of playing with the new layout.

1) The longtail (highly specific) keyphrases are going to become more and more relevant as users become more savvy with search and become more comfortable with typing longer phrases to find the content they require.

2) Google Instant will make SEO not just highly important for your website, it effectively makes it essential.

That’s a bold claim, so I’ll explain my logic:

If a user can continue to type and the search results refresh quickly and automatically, then the ‘barrier’ that previously existed where they’d ‘make do’ with the results they were given for a relatively broad keyphrase, has gone. They can simply carry on typing / editing until they find a result they like.

Therefore I’d go as far as to say it really isn’t good enough to ‘just’ be on page one anymore – it’s now almost essential to be in the top 5 results.

It is worth taking into consideration another important factor of the new Google Instant layout: Personalisation.

Personalised Results

Personalised search results are nothing new. They have been around for a few years and longer for logged-in Google accounts holders. Basically Google take into consideration various factors such as geographic location, search history (and probably lots of other secret metrics) in an attempt to provide users with the most relevant search results.

Therefore if you search ‘car hire’ and you’re in London, you’re highly likely to see different results to someone typing the same thing when they’re in Newcastle.

Google Instant rolls this into their new Instant update so search modifiers such as location will become increasingly important.

So, what does Google Instant mean for SEO?

• As far as we’re concerned it now makes SEO an essential part of any business marketing strategy.
• It is also highly likely to shift focus away from search (slightly) and on to promotion methods such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. (which you should be doing already).
• Longtail (specific) keyphrases will become more important so highly relevant, useful pages & page copy will become more & more important (coupled of course with inbound links).

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Does a users choice of browser, and more specifically how compatible a site is with multiple browsers, influence Google’s PageRank algorithm (how much PageRank a website is ‘awarded’)?

The simple is no.

PageRank is based on the number of links pointing to your site & how reputable those links are (how much ‘weight’ they carry in Google’s eyes.)

In other words, PageRank is based on how many links & the quality of those links towards your website. To quote Google’s Matt Cutts “it is completely independent of the content of your site”.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t take cross-browser compatibility (ensuring your site works on multiple browsers) in to account … of course you should!

In fact I’d argue that ensuring your site is compatible in all common browsers (and all fairly new versions of those browsers) is much more important than explicitly worrying about PageRank (see my article on why PageRank doesn’t matter).

Facebook is 500 Million Strong

Sometime this week Facebook will hit the 500 million user mark.

This makes it bigger than the combined population of the USA & Canada.

To celebrate they will be launching Facebook stories a demonstration of the way Facebook has changed people’s lives.

Each story will be limited to around 420 characters (the current limit for status updates) and if you’re story is more popular than others (has more ‘Likes’) then it’ll be visible amongst other most popular stories (think Trending Topics on Twitter).

Facebook already have a way you can submit your own story.

The question is, with Facebook continuing to grow and dominate the social networking landscape, what will it take for people to move elsewhere?



Few have heard of the company NTP yet their patented technology is used in the fundamental operation of some of the most common technologies.

NTP have launched a lawsuit against Google, Apple, Microsoft, LG, HTC & Motorola for infringing on eight of their patents relating to the delivery of email to mobile devices (over wireless communication systems).

NTP have come under widespread criticism for aggressively enforcing it’s patents even though they don’t practice them.

I understand to a point how people can think it unfair that one individual or company can own the right to a capability … but surely that’s what patents were designed for? Therefore if you had thought of it first, you’d own the patent and you’d be just a little bit annoyed if someone was using it without your permission / without paying the license fee??

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone reported in April that Twitter were serving 600 million search queries per day. Twitter is now serving 800 million searches per day. An increase of 33%

Why?

The main reason is due to the increased acceptability & uptake of Twitter in all circles, not simply personal accounts.

Another reason being that Twitter is probably the quickest, easiest & best way to find out what’s happening (with your brand, product, service or competitors) right now.

So the question is, if you’re not utilising Twitter in your marketing strategy you certainly should be thinking about it!

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Nowadays social media marketing is touted as the holy grail of internet marketing & exposure. “Crack the social networks” they say, “and you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank”.

Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but it’s not that simple.

True, if you design & implement a well thought out social media strategy it can pay dividends. You’ll have a steady stream of targeted traffic just itching to buy your product or try out your service.

Get it wrong though and you’ll not only be back to square one, you could find yourself even worse off with a damaged reputation & trust in your brand at an all time low.

Here are some of the most common things I hear when dealing with enquiries relating to social media marketing:

It’s Free

While it is true that most social networks will allow you to create an account or page and access all / the majority of their features for free, people commonly forget what is arguably their most important asset in business: time. A well thought-out & delivered social media marketing strategy takes time to plan, time to create content & time to deliver that content. Then it all takes more time to correctly analyse the results & evaluate if / where you went wrong & how to fix it.

If you do have the time, by all means go for it but I bet you’d rather (and you’d be well advised to) stick with what you know and let the experts handle it.

It’s Quick

The simple answer is that it can be as quick or take as long as you wish. My honest advise would be to spend as much time as possible to make sure you’ve got it right. You wouldn’t want someone to build your house quickly would you, because it’d probably fall down sooner or later.

The same is true with social media marketing. Don’t forget that you’re pitching and marketing you product or service to a human being. They’ll see through a cheap attempt to get them onto your site or youtube video for no reason, in an instant. Once that happens you rarely get a chance to redeem yourself.

It’s Easy

Again, it’s as easy or difficult as you choose to make it. Often the best plans start simple and build over time as they evolve and the owners learn what works & what doesn’t.

Once again though, if you throw a few links up without any real effort or thought as to who your targeting and why then you’re not likely to gain anything from it anyway.

This article is meant to serve as a reference so that you can check to see if you’re falling into any of these common traps. This list is by no mean exhaustive & my best advice is to always remember that with social media you’re marketing directly to a human. In the same way that you don’t want male enhancement pill emails ever 5 minutes or somebody telling you to obey something to get thin … users don’t appreciate being blindly battered with links.

One last thought for social media marketing – don’t bite off more than you can chew, simply because you can … there’s nothing worse than seeing an empty facebook group or blog which hasn’t been updated in months ….. sometimes less is more.