Punit explains “Today we announced Google Buzz, a new product that integrates with your Gmail inbox and makes it easy to start rich conversations about the things you find interesting. Google Buzz lets you share web links, photos, videos, and more with those who are important to you.

Rather than simply creating a mobile version of Buzz, we decided to take advantage of the unique features of a mobile device - in particular, location.

We go through many experiences when we’re on the go, and while there are lots of ways to share these experiences with your friends or even the world, there isn’t always an easy way to let your audience know where you are when you post.

Your location brings valuable context to the information you share. For example, does “Delicious dinner!” mean you’re at a great restaurant, or that you had a wonderful home-cooked meal? Your mobile phone, which is with you almost all the time, can help answer these questions.

There are several ways to use Google Buzz on your mobile phone:

* Buzz.google.com: This web app provides access to Buzz from your iPhone or Android phone’s browser, allowing you to view and create buzz messages. It has two different views: ‘Following’ view shows buzz from the people you follow, just like Google Buzz in your Gmail; ‘Nearby’ view shows public buzz that has been tagged with a location near you, and might be from people you don’t follow.

* Buzz on Google Maps for mobile: The new Buzz layer allows you to see buzz near you or anywhere on the map. You can post public buzz directly from the layer, and even attach a photo from your phone. Also, try visiting a mobile Place Page to read recent comments or to post buzz about that place.

* Buzz Shortcut from Google.com: You will see the buzz icon in the top right corner of the google.com homepage. Just tap on the icon to trigger the posting box.

* Voice Shortcut: The voice shortcut, which is available in the quick search widget on Android and in Google Mobile App on iPhone, allows you to post buzz without typing anything. Just say ‘post buzz,’ followed by whatever you’d like to post.

We have come up with five new and fresh approaches to look at your digital strategy and squeeze out extra performance. Spring Cleaning has never been so profitable!

(1) Twitter Marketing
Firstly if you have don’t have a Twitter account for your brand set one up and actively engage with your customers. This not only provides great awareness of your product to a new audience but the process of active communication with your existing base will give a fresh look at your business. If you are a large company and have an established Twitter campaign, re-evaluate the returns on a regular basis. Firstly from actual visitors that arrive via this medium and secondly the brand uplift your investment has archived.

(2) Adwords PPC Campaign
Are you measuring to RIO/ROAS at a keyword level on your AdWords campaign? If not why not? no excuse the quicker your campaign gets to this level the more effective your overall marketing campaign will become.

(3) On-Page Website Optimisation
Spring is great time to review the very foundations of a website, aspects such as navigation, footer text and old code are things that sometimes get overlooked throughout the course of a business year. TIP: Get an outside agency (friend/ business associate) to review your website and provide you with good honest feedback.

(4) Linking Strategy
Relevancy and effectiveness are the watchwords of the day with linking; if a website doesn’t look relevant to your product range OR it doesn’t look like it would generate much traffic - Then spring clean away! try and remove the link if it is under your control.

(5) PR
How do you measure the effectiveness of your PR efforts? Brand uplift? Sales? or actual visitors? With press its important to measure its impact over a wider time frame i.e. weeks rather than hours.

That’s the findings of a recent survey carried out amongst firms in both Britain and the US.

Online marketing network site Econsultancy found that digital marketing would account for almost a quarter of total marketing budgets in 2010.

Of all the firms that participated in the study, 46 per cent said they were planning to increase their overall marketing budget for 2010, while over 50 per cent of companies are planning to increase their mobile marketing budgets.

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are set to come into their own in 2010, with 70 per cent of businesses looking to increase their spending on these areas of marketing in the next 12 months.

Linus Gregoriadis, research director at Econsultancy, said: “Digital evangelists have long been trying to get the big brands to spend more on online marketing (especially display advertising), and social media is now helping to give impetus to a second wave of marketers who are moving budgets online.

“Why? Because they see digital as crucial to brand reputation, and they’re right.”

Meanwhile, another survey released this week claimed that online spending on business to business marketing will grow by 8 per cent during the coming year, followed by a 14 per cent rise in 2012.

Ref: HSLP0101AA207

•    High keyword prices will force marketers to try new strategies

According to research carried out in the US, two-thirds of marketers see their biggest challenge in the paid search market as high prices for keywords. Despite the growth of paid searches beginning to slow down, advertisers are continually pumping more money into the industry, and as a result, keyword prices are becoming more expensive.

Because of this, marketers will need to focus on careful keyword management, testing, and targeting, in order to increase the ROI on their campaigns. Quality Score optimising will become a priority; this will bring costs down whilst simultaneously driving conversions up.

Geographic and demographic targeting will also be more widely used this year, with these strategies reaching out to national advertisers and retailers.

•    Paid search will be more integrated

Although search marketing accounts for more than half of digital marketing budgets (representing tens of millions of pounds for the larger companies), most search marketing programmes are still managed separately from traditional marketing departments. This year, organisations will look to integrate their paid search operations more tightly into the business, rather than running them as a standalone unit.

Integrating systems will make search marketers change the way they report and organise their KPI’s, leading to a big shift in how this information is communicated upwards in the business. Search marketers will therefore need to adjust to new processes, using dashboards and proposals for investment. In return, they will be looking to see more executive support and therefore larger budgets.

•    Paid search will go multichannel

Google recently found that over half of online shoppers research their purchases on the internet before eventually buying the products in-store. On this basis, search marketers are currently missing out on credit for half of the revenues their campaigns are driving.

However, the tools for measuring across channels are now much more accessible to businesses, whether it’s linking phone numbers to keywords, or taking in-store surveys to see how the customer learnt about the products they’ve purchased.

These tools will make it much easier for firms to make properly informed decisions on the allocation of their search budgets, and also make sure that they are driving both online and offline conversions. Learning how offline buyers are researching their needs will allow multichannel traders to find new, low cost keywords to drive profitable expansion of their paid-search programs.

•    Facebook and Twitter Will Give Google a Run for Its Money

Social networking sites like Facebook, which currently has over a billion queries on its site every month, will extend their own search technology to allow users the ability to query the content in their news feeds. This will make it much easier for users to get recommendations from their friends on anything from restaurants and mobile phones, to films and TV programmes.

Advertising money for keyword placements is sure to follow suit, therefore search marketers will need to alter their campaigns to account for a more social set of keywords. This will enable them to catch consumers earlier in the consideration process than they could on traditional search engines like Google or Yahoo! And since these users will still in the research phase of purchasing a product (ie, placing a lot of value in word-of-mouth recommendations) these clicks could be very valuable.

While it will be difficult to incorporate all of these changes into campaigns, those marketers who can capitalise on some of these trends will most likely be a step ahead of the competition.

Ref: HSLP0101AA206

As part of our planned expansion programme Hit Search are now looking to add to their already highly successful new business acquisition team.

Your role will encompass all elements of the sales process from initial market research to cold calling to face to face presentations.

Knowledge of the online marketing sector is a prerequisite; experience of selling SEO or PPC solutions is a significant advantage. You must have a demonstrable track record of success combined with the ability to sell to a diverse range of clients often at board level.

If you feel you can make a major contribution to this exciting and dynamic business then call:-

Jeff Millington on 0845 643 9289 (ext:106)

This confusion does noting for customer looking for Search Engine Marketing services. When you have that all important face to face meeting with your potential new supplier of SEO services, here are 5 questions you need to ask before you put pen to paper and sign the deal.

(1) How have you established your monthly cost?
Be sure to get a detailed explanation of the monthly fee, how is worked out? What does it include and what does it exclude? Are there any additional charges? If so, then what for? Be clear about what you are getting for your money

(2) What is your account management structure?
Make sure that you know how you account is going to be handled and by who. It’s always important to establish who is going to be working on your site and how it is going to be managed.

There is nothing worse than having a faceless contact at the end of a phone. You should establish a good working relationship as the account manager can have a dramatic effect on your online sales.

(3) How many accounts does each account manager deal with?
It is crucial to establish how much time is being allocated to your account each month, as a major factor in an SEO campaign is TIME SPENT WORKING ON THE SITE.

If you are one of 30 or 40 accounts allocated to your account manager as with some organisations, then you can quickly establish that with an average of a 40 hrs working week you may only receive around 1 hrs work per week…. a recipe for failure.

(4) What is the reporting structure?
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it “is a well establish business mantra, never truer than is SEO. It is vital to establish key targets, milestones and goals for you campaigns and to agree a method and frequency of report delivery.

Many companies offer an “online dashboard” approach to reports or send out endless reams of data with little or no explanation. You need to be 100% clear that you are receiving relevant information on a regular basis, delivered to you in a clear and concise manner.

(5) Do they guarantee keyword placement on the search engines?
If the answer is YES…BEWARE

There is not a professional SEO provide anywhere who will make this offer, why? Because it can’t be done. We can all point to past performance and indicate possible future success, but to guarantee a keyword placement on page 1 ……Be warned.

The guys commented “Starting today, you can try this yourself by going to Google.com in your iPhone or Android browser and clicking on “Near me now” once your location has been provided by your phone.

“Near me now” was designed to address two user problems. First, we wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity, whether you’re standing right in front of a business or if it’s just a short walk away.

For example, you may want to know what other customers think about a restaurant before you go inside (see quick video below) or what they have been raving about on the menu before you order. By selecting the “Explore right here” option, you can find out more about a place “right here” with just a few clicks

Second, we wanted to make searching for popular categories of nearby places really simple. Imagine that you emerge from the subway station and you want to grab a coffee, but you don’t see a coffee shop around you. You can simply search for all nearby coffee shops by using “Near me now”.

To search other categories of places not shown, “Browse more categories” provides access to our local search product with more category choices.

“Near me now” is currently available in the US for iPhone (OS 3.x) or Android-powered devices with version 2.0.1 or later. You must first enable location in order for “Near me now” to appear, and “Explore right here” works only if the phone provides location accuracy within approximately a city block.

Would you like to know more about these subjects? Contact Hit Search on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world, make sure you become visible.