The latest in the line of social media hubs has arrived from search engine giant Google and it’s called The Buzz. It was heavily criticised after the launch last week for the lack of privacy features but Facebook has been criticised in the past for security features and yet people still use the social networking site.

By automatically connecting you with your gmail contacts, the Buzz provides the ability to share web links, photos, videos with those people that are important to you. You can also connect your Flickr, Twitter and other networking sites to your Buzz account allowing everything to be displayed in one place.

Google Buzz is also available via mobile technology and through any gmail account making it more accessible.  And with most people checking their email daily it is a way in which Buzz may attract large numbers of users. Facebook recently indicated that 25 percent of its users - or roughly 100 million - primarily access Facebook via mobile methods. By using your location, Google Buzz can also help to identify your updates. If you are in a nice restaurant having a meal for instance and you update your status with “having a lovely steak with…” you can actually pinpoint where you are eating. You can also read what other people have written about the places in close proximity to your current location.

With Google Buzz a user can also email people outside of Buzz within the same window which isn’t currently available on Twitter or Facebook.

Since the release, there have been 160,000 new posts per hour and with 38 million gmail users in the US alone (8 million more than the whole of Twitter), this may just be a reason for Twitter and Facebook to take Google Buzz seriously.

At Cite we’ve been specialising in this field for some time and have therefore decided to create a micro-site of our own to promote the work we can do in these areas.

Cite recently developed our first Facebook application for a major international credit card company, we can’t show you explicit screen shots for contractual reasons, but please feel free to call us on 0116 2549888 to find out more.

The new site can be found at www.facebook-designers.com - have a look and let us know what you think.

If sorting out the corporate website is your ambition for 2010, it can be pretty difficult to know where to start and what to prioritise. After all, you’re bound to have a budget to stick to. So where should you start? Christmas indulgence is over and we’re all racing back to the office filled with positivity, enthusiasm and hopefully fading hangovers.

If you’re planning to plough this positivity into your website then great. You’re not too late to increase your customer base through the internet and, thanks to localised search and long-tail keywords, you can still compete with companies that have been online since the start.

So, if you’re one of the millions of companies with a static, dated website that barely brings you a customer a week, where should you begin?

Read on for my five top pointers, but remember that there are hundreds of other ways to enhance your website if you do have a bigger budget. I’m sure some of my fellow online marketers will add their preferred priorities in the comments below, so take the time to read them.

Rewrite your site

Before making sure people can find your site, make sure you’re proud of the content they will find.

I sometimes hear companies bemoaning the uselessness of the web at attracting visitors, and then I see their websites, which are often useless, static pages written without any understanding of keywords, often filled with poor spelling and grammar. They should be relieved no one is finding their site to see how rubbish it is!

So, work on your words. Rewrite your whole website and employ a copywriter if you’re not too skilled at creating appealing marketing text.

Redesign with SEO in mind

If you’ve written your pages without considering SEO, the chances are your website’s design is not up to scratch either.

You may well benefit from bringing in some outside help if you’re not hugely techie – and make it good help. Getting the receptionist’s teenage son to put a few pages together for £50 is unlikely to result in a Google-mastering website.

Speaking from experience, it’s very frustrating to be called in to work on a website’s optimisation just after a (completely useless) redesign. If you can’t do it, get help.

What kind of things should you or your agency be considering? Use keywords in your page names, optimise your website’s meta description tags, fill your pages with internal links. There are many small but useful ways to incorporate SEO into your web design.

Keywords, keywords, keywords

Of course, before you rewrite your website, make sure you know and understand the keywords you intend to use.

It’s really not all about stuffing your sentences with the most commonly searched for term. If you sell car insurance then you don’t need to stuff car insurance into every sentence you write about car insurance.

In fact, you’re likely to have more success with so-called long-tail keywords, more specialised phrases that are particularly relevant to your niche business. You can research your keywords using free resources like Google Adwords.

Understand your paid placement

Once your site is fit to be seen, you will want to start attracting visitors as quickly as possible. Organic search can take some time to get going, but with intelligently applied pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, you can immediately increase your visitor numbers.

Take some time to really research your keywords and then you can allocate your budget intelligently, balancing cost and popularity to ensure a steady stream of relevant customers.

Socialise online

I am not going to claim that using social media is free because, of course, it isn’t, as it requires a commitment from you or a member of your staff. Dedicating anyone’s time is undeniably an investment.

However, spending time on a relevant social platform can have excellent benefits. You’ll become a recognised name within your industry, you can answer potential customers’ questions and attract them to your website, and you can give your business a great dose of publicity.

Use forums, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, any relevant platform, and you should see an increase in interest and visitor numbers.

Of course, this can be a slow burning tactic, so it’s important to dedicate regular time on an ongoing basis. Sporadic socialising won’t work.

Merry Christmas everyone and roll on 2010!

It’s no surprise really, with the increase of Twittering and other social networking activities more people are sending shortened URLs. To keep up with the trends both Facebook and Google have launched their own URL shortening sites, Goo.gl and FB.me.

Google who have launched their version in direct competition to Bit.ly say they have done it to provide us with the 3 s’s: Stability, Security, Speed. Now call us cynical, but we’re sure it has nothing to do with knocking Bit.ly of its success perch!!

While Goo.gl is only providing this service, at present, either through their toolbar or Feedburner, Bit.ly is plodding along and quietly keeping a grip of the market.

In retaliation to Google , Bit.ly have upped their own game and releasing a new service called bit.ly Pro. As a company this holds much more allure as it allows publishers to personalise URLS and send out branded domain names such as cite.ptr. And we don’t have to take Bit.ly’s word that people are linking through because the’ve kindly added a analytics dashboard that will show realtime stats of the total number of clickthroughs, geographic location and referring sites - which is a nice flourish.

You get the feeling that the war is only just beginning, and at a time when it should be a season of goodwill and sharing the love.

If you would like a free, no-obligation demo, give us a call on 0116 254 9888

We got sneak previews of a range of Microsoft products and services, including Silverlight 4, Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9. There was a lot of talk about ‘The Cloud’ too.

Afterwards, we retired to ‘The Woolpack’ on Bermondsey Rd for an ale with New Media veteran, David Wall of Dusted

The Leicester based construction company wanted a site that would be used to direct their existing customers to, but also to be used to gain new business in a competitive market place.

Naturally, they came to Cite because they knew we’d be able to provide a classic design and more importantly, we’d ensure their site was SEO friendly.

Working with their corporate branding the site uses clean white and purple shades. Bold images illustrate the breath of their services and the range of plant hire the company has to offer. And to finish it off there’s a series of testimonials from satisfied customers.

www.dab-engineering.co.uk