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Google announced recently that it has improved the way sitelinks appear. The newer version is expanded and it’s presented as a column of relevant links.

Now when people search for a site they instantly see a greater idea of what your site includes.

The purpose of this update is for users to get to the information they need easier and faster. By showing them the most relevant links, they no longer need to go to the site’s homepage and then navigate through it to get to the information they’re looking for.

So, this is how sitelinks look like now:

Who can benefit more from the new sitelinks?

Aside from the user who’s saving time with searches, there are also the big brands that are benefiting from this change.  Let’s think about it – the new version of sitelinks takes up a lot of space on the first page of results, which equals to less space for its competitors or less relevant sites.

This means that users will pay more attention to the main result and less to the ones situated below. To big brands this translates to an increased number of conversions coming from organic visits and powerful keywords.

So what should be your next move?

You should focus more on optimising your content correctly and on website architecture – site structure, URLs naming, etc.

What do you think about Google’s sitelinks update?

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The rise of social media not only gives you the chance to reach a wider audience with your affiliate links, but also the chance to differentiate how you offer the products of the affiliate scheme you are signed up to compared to fellow affiliates.

It needn’t be just about re-tweeting the offers of your merchant provider. In fact the greater unique content you offer, the more likely your audience and engagement with them will grow. With that will come more click-throughs and hopefully more money.

As an affiliate you naturally have to ‘tell’ the story of your merchant and that’s something you can’t forget. Social media offers some great tools for that too. Using software such as HootSuite you can schedule pre-written tweets to go out at certain times – perfect for tweeting about the latest offers. It means you can still ‘run’ your affiliate marketing scheme in your spare time but to the world you can look busy during normal working hours and tweeting during those hours when more are online you are likely to pick up more click-throughs too.

However, social media really comes into its own in developing ways of making sure your affiliate links get clicked instead of those of a fellow affiliate. Via Twitter it is easy to offer your audience the links to the great offers provided by your merchant, but you can also mix that up with other relevant industry information. In this way you offer more reason for potential customers to follow you – pure sales tweets never entice many in, but interesting content does. Good content spreads across Twitter like wildfire and usually retains the attribution from where it came from too, so people can find you and come and see what else you are tweeting about.

Taking it to the full, that could mean setting up a website that has engaging blogs, or even expert guest bloggers alongside your affiliate links and pods. Yet, you needn’t got that far. Just engaging via Twitter; helping others where you can, tweeting useful articles and combining them with winning offers, will give you credibility and authority on your topic. That brings greater following, greater trust and more than likely, greater click-through and affiliate earnings.

If you’ve not yet tested the water with Twitter, give it a go now. The best way to find out how social media will work with the way you do business is by giving it a try and learning ‘on the job’, so don’t be shy.

Do you use social media to increase your affiliate activity? What have you found most useful?

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The Civil Service has long been respected for its career-long learning approach but in the spate of current belt-tightening it has been forced to re-consider the way courses are delivered. The resulting switch to online learning is expected to save nearly £90m per year on the Civil Service staff training budget according to government figures.

The move away from residential and classroom-based courses to e-learning and work-based training for learning and development of staff is already underway with a 76% increase in online training days in government departments already this financial year. The start of the same financial year saw the Civil Service Learning operation established as central purchasing facility based in the Home Office but covering training for the whole civil service to try to avoid duplication across departments. Part of the changes also include the National School of Government will closing in March to become a commercial traning venue under the name of Sunningdale Park.

Where governments follow, so the private sector is already leading the way. With the rise of social media as a support / networking tool and more budgets being squeezed, e-learning is set to increase in importance. If you run your own business and in-house training that could appear to be a costly set-up but there are many options out there. That includes using Moodle one of the free 123-apps that you can install on your 123-reg linux web hosting. Used and approved by Universities and Colleges across the world, it is simple to use from a teacher and student perspective and is a great way to get started with some online learning modules. There’s also networking tools like discussion forums and wikis built in so those learning need not suffer from the isolation many fear from working in a virtual learning environment.

Even if you don’t have the need to create your own in-house e-learning, you may be interested in knowing that the UK e-learning industry is thought to be worth £472 million  and rising and is the largest European market for e-learning. We all have skills we could promote and others would be delighted in benefitting from so why not set up your own training tools online to share your own knowledge.

Do you already use e-learning tools? Have you used Moodle? Do you have any tips to pass on to thise just making the switch?

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With so many people using a mobile device to surf the net, it’s important to know how to write and organise the content on your site so it’s user-friendly.

When was the last time you checked how your site looks and reads on a mobile device? This is not something to be ignored as the number of users getting their daily dose of web information on the move is constantly increasing.

This article aims to help you do a better job at writing content for mobile. It’s not scientific, just a few tips that can really make a difference.

What do mobile users really need?

Most people believe that the mobile version of your site should just condense all the information from your current site. In my opinion, that’s totally false! Why? Because condensing so much content in an effort to make it look better on a mobile device can actually act against you. Users might have an even harder time finding what they’re looking for.

The purpose is to keep it simple and give your visitors exactly what they need. You might need to do some research and determine what exactly these mobile users are looking for on your site. Instead of just copy and pasting the content you currently have, work around it and only include the information that’s relevant to mobile users. Focus on their needs rather than on a good-looking site.

Remove the unnecessary

For mobile users, time is of the essence. They need to find information fast, so be sure they won’t have time to read the About page if all they want to do is buy a train ticket, or check if there’s a delay on their flight. Instead of including redundant content and using a small font so it all fits in, focus on filling that little space with useful information.

Don’t overlook SEO

It might be a mobile device they’re using to access your site, but search engines work the same regardless. This means that you shouldn’t forget about optimising the content on your mobile site with strong and relevant keywords.

Make links visible

With so many accessing the web using a touchscreen device, it’s important to make it easy for them to just tap on a link to get on a page. Work with your designer so that links are visible and can easily be clicked.

In conclusion, when writing for mobile always think about your visitor’s needs and find ways to make their stay on your mobile site as enjoyable as possible.

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FourSquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places: What you are doing when and where is what smartphones appear to have been designed for. Even Twitter lets you search for tweets sent locally – location is a big feature of social media and still much under-used by businesses.

Most Smartphones now come with geo-location and if you’ve not used or don’t really know what it is all about you are missing out. Basically it is similar to tracking or positioning that you may be used to if you use a GPS sat nav. The location of a place or user is identified either by using the IP address of their computer or the radio-frequency identification (RFID) of the user’s smartphone. With the increase in uptake of the smartphone there it is a marketing tool with growing potential for the for small businesses.

The first to use it for marketing have been the bar / restaurants and retail sector. Networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla combine gamification with check-in at new places and by encouraging visitors to check in, the business can use that information to track trends and even target specific campaigns to the users checking in. You can even encourage new people on the networks to sign in by offering special offers when they are in the vicinity. Once customers choose to engage in this way you can almost guarantee they are more likely to be better engaged than your average ‘casual’ customer so it is well worth the investment into looking after them.

What’s more location-based social networks like FourSquare and Gowalla now offer integration into other networks like Twitter and Facebook so you can encourage your check-in customers to re-tweet or post to their wider audiences on the bigger networks too, spreading your brand.

Geo-location is still in its infancy and many even with smartphones don’t yet fully grasp it, either as a business or end-user. However, the integration and possibilities seem endless and are only likely to improve, so if you invest time and effort now you could see yourself several leaps above your competitors in an area of marketing that will become commonplace in a matter of months.

Do you already use location-based marketing? How? With what effect? We’d love to feature any innovative ideas.

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Keep it simple, stupid, so the acronym goes and the same applies if you want to find success in your social media. Here’s four tips to making Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn et al work, following the K-I-S-S principles:

Klout – There’s still debate about the accuracy of social media measurement tools and there’s certainly some frailties in every one we’ve seen, but Klout is fast becoming one of the must have tools to measure by. If there are doubts as to the  accuracies of ‘Scores’, the free to use system at least provides some great analysis tools to work out what is working for you and where you need to focus more. The sphere of influence is also a great indicator as to whether you are hitting the right audiences.

Interact – It sounds silly, but a recent survey revealed that brands failed to respond to 95% of Facebook wall posts! That’s a bit like advertising your opening hours then shutting the doors and keeping them closed when the customer arrives. Even those who are responded to will notice if brands are ignoring other posts and lose faith. If you are launching with Facebook, Twitter et al, make sure you have the resources to deal with it properly and that it is a part of your business day-to-day so it doesn’t risk being forgotten and be pro-active not just reactive.

Specifics work – Experts in their field gain better traction in social media than those who try to be a jack-of-all-trades. If your audience or market are specific make sure your Tweets and any social media are specifc to that audience too. The odd mention of the weather is fine but idle, irrelevant chit-chat will drive your potential customers away.

Summarise and flag – You won’t be able to get your full message out in 140 characters, nor even in a single Facebook post so use social media as a way of highlighting the main points and drive some traffic back to your main website. Even there though, don’t fill it up with pointless facts, show you are an expert by summarising and presenting the information in a compelling format. Simple and engaging works both in social media and other online content.

So remember for successful social media keep it short and simple.

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Social sharing and bookmark tool AddThis has been celebrating its 5th birthday this week and did so with a great infographic based on an analysis of the sharing data it has collated in those five years.

Facts like:  people share most on a Wednesday and that the most popular time for sharing comes at 9.30AM each day (based on Eastern Time – being a US-based service) and that 75% of all clicks occur the same day of the share, give an interesting guide to how to maximise the impact and reach of the content that you share.

Of course, the findings are only based upon the information collated via the AddThis.com service but since it is in use by 10 million websites, reaching over 1.2 billion people per month, across 300 countries and 70 languages it is probably a fairly good guide.

Have a look at the infographic here.

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Our recent blog on creating your YouTube campaign proved very popular so we thought we’d try and help with some more YouTube tips and tricks. Not many marketers are aware of how valuable YouTube is from a SEO point of view. If the videos that are uploaded to your channel are optimised correctly, you can get great results.

If you already have a YouTube channel set up, it’s important to know how to optimize your videos . The process is simple. Once you’ve uploaded your video to YouTube, include a title, a description and some tags to go with it.

For instance, on our 123-reg YouTube channel we’ve uploaded several videos explaining what is a domain name, how to choose a great domain name and so on. Let’s take for instance this video that explains how to register domain names.  The title as well as the description includes the keywords we are targeting – domain name and register a domain name.

Start the description with a link back to your website followed by a short paragraph that delineates what the video is about. For example, our description looks like this:

“http://www.123-reg.co.uk/ – To register a domain name you need to first check its availability: mysite.com. This search is done through a domain name registration company, like 123-reg.”

The description you include will appear in search results on Google and your video will show up as a result of a search using the keywords you’ve targeted.

As a last step, you have to fill in the tags for that video.  You should first include your main keywords and then variations of those. For instance, for our video here are some of the tags we used: “domain, domains, domain name, register domain names, how to register a domain, check domain availability”.

Don’t forget to check out the new 123-reg YouTube channel.

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It probably won’t come into full force until 2013 but a vote this week by the EU’s Council of Ministers to adopt the Consumer Rights Directive, will mean greater protection for consumers buying online and further burdens on those selling via the internet.

The Directive has now been approved by both the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament and will come into force once it is published in the Official Journal of the European Union, with member states including the UK then having two years before they need to formally implement the measures in to national law.

The big change in the Directive is consumers being given a longer right to return distance-sold goods. Currently they are given 7 days, this will be extended to 14 under the new law (continuing the exemption for personalised goods etc).

Traders will also have to issue online consumers with a ‘model withdrawal form’. This would be used to return the goods and will need to include a whole host of information about the contract, including details of all fees and charges.

The new law will also prohibit the increasing trend of surcharges for certain payment methods, such as credit or debit cards. Traders will be allowed to pass on what it costs them to deliver the means of payment but no more.

The UK Government already recently announced plans to implement the requirements of the Consumer Rights Directive requirements into a catch-all new statute to incorporate the current piece-meal affair that covers consumer protection.

The new ruling could have an impact on the growing number of businesses starting-up and selling online, creating greater burdens on companies and additional costs when dealing with returns based simply on the customers change of mind.

If you run an online shop, what are your thoughts on the forthcoming changed? Do you already offer a 14 money-back guarantee?

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