Arguably Facebook’s most savvy move to date was in acquiring the now defunct FriendFeed and using it to develop its own status update service. With Twitter’s increasingly popular stake in the social feed game, this was no doubt part of a wider strategy to ensure the platform’s evolution.

The trends are clear, surfers love nothing more than to tell their friends and family what they’re up to – whether through updates, photos or both. Now it’s Google’s turn with Google Buzz.

What is Google Buzz? 
That’s not to say Google hadn’t recognised social media’s potential earlier. The internet giant has tried to muscle in on the action by acquiring several failed platforms including Dodgeball, Jaiku and Orkut. This time, they’ve built one from the ground up using Gmail’s database of users as a jumping off point – a wise move.

Although at its core a social networking platform, Buzz goes one step further by analysing user preferences and introducing content based on an individual’s preferences, who they share information with and likes/ dislikes. In short, Buzz appears to be aiming for a more dynamic experience.

A Social Search Engine? 
In the first week of launch alone, tens of millions of people tried the platform out, creating over 9 million posts and comments. Of course the upshot of this is that Google were left with a veritable sea of social meta data to use, and will continue to do so at an ever-expanding rate as the platform develops.

This data is expected to be incorporated into the company’s search engine mainframe, evolving the search experience in the process. This will of course have a major knock-on effect on Search Engine results, which will become inherently more refined and personal.

Are You Following Me… 
Where Buzz really starts to differ from both Facebook and Twitter is its integration with established platforms such Gmail, Google Reader, Google Profile, Google Chat and Google Contacts. This builds on the ‘following’ feature of sites such as Twitter with data collected from these sources.

In short, if you use a large number of Google services you’ll be bombarded with content and followers from the get-go. If not, it may take some time to build your social infrastructure.

Is Social Media Paving the Way for Online Marketing? 
It’s difficult to say with any certainty what the future will bring for users of social media. Given that the platform is still within its infancy (having only really taken off within the last few years), there will no doubt be many changes to come. Having said this, even over such a short period we have seen growth at an exponential rate.

Without a doubt Buzz has generated huge potential for businesses of all sizes – the crucial factor being its tailored approach to content based on a users likes and dislikes. You don’t need to be a marketing genius to recognise the potential inherent in such targeted use of information. With so many businesses recognising Facebook pages as a savvy marketing tool, it’s only a matter of time before Buzz breaks the mould.

There is little doubt that having an online (web) presence is vital to the long-term survival of any business. Government statistics last year estimated that around 70% of all UK households have access to the internet. This means the internet represents a portal to a potential 40+ million customers in the UK alone (discounting businesses and users outside the home).

Is a Social Media Presence Enough? 
Let’s take Facebook as an example. Latest figures reflect that there are some 400 million active Facebook users (according to Facebook’s own statistics) on the phenomenally popular social networking site. Of those 400 million approximately 50% are active on any given day, and more than 1.5 million of those users account for local businesses.

When you also consider that the average user has 130 friends networked on the site, the potential of social networking as a business platform soon becomes clear.

Which way to turn? 
What would you prefer to see as a prospective client – a considered investment in an internet presence or a simple profile that makes little impact, or worse still, gives the wrong impression.

While social networking definitely has its place in a progressive online marketing strategy, there is no ownership, little or no brand imagery (for you) and few opportunities for further digital marketing such as search engine optimisation.

Best of Both Worlds 
Conventional wisdom dictates that there is simply no substitute for a well thought-out web presence. In terms of image and brand, a website says more about you and your company than any number of social networking profiles.

The ever-shifting digital landscape requires diversification and given the clear benefits to be enjoyed through both mediums, the logical answer is to combine your efforts. Social media presents a fantastic opportunity to boost your stock and attract new business. It’s another way of getting your name out there and reaching new clients.

It’s all in the message 
Ask enough experts and you will soon realise that there are a range of differing opinions on what constitutes a good approach to online marketing – too many in fact to go into here. Regardless of what form of marketing you are using, certain fundamentals remain true. Sending the right message to push the right buttons at the right time is vital.

Online marketing is changing the way we think and like it or not Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is playing a bigger role than ever. The traditional press release now has to work that little bit harder to keep up.

Getting Press Releases Working For You 
Ultimately, the purpose of a press release is to provide information that is of interest to its readers. The following tips will look at the essential things to consider when writing a press release, in order to appeal to the search engines as well as your target audience.

1. Keywords Are Key! 
The importance of keywords must not be underestimated. In simplest terms, a keyword (or key phrase) is a specific word or term used commonly in search engines to find a particular subject, service or product. As such, before you even start writing your press release, you should have a good idea of the key words or terms you’re going to be using.

2. Spread the Word 
There are numerous conflicting arguments when it comes to ‘keyword spread’ or how many times a particular search word or term appears within the body of text on the page. Ask a range of so-called experts and you’re likely to end up with a range of answers.

The general rule of thumb is that each chosen keyword or term should not exceed around 2 – 3% of the overall word count – thus avoiding saturation and rejection by search bots.

3. Take a Look at Your Layout 
As important as knowing which keywords to use is understanding where to place them. The following guide can help you construct your press release and make the most of your chosen words:

• Title – Try to keep it concise and attention-grabbing. Ideally the title should balance keywords with an irresistibly clickable quality!
• Summary – During the first few sentences try to give an overview as an introduction, using one or two secondary keywords or phrases.
• Body – Write subjectively and in the third person. This is the main body of text and should contain the bulk of your keywords or phrases.
• About the Company – A short synopsis of your company’s services, including a link.
• Press Contact – Provide contact details of one person who will act as point of call for all enquiries. Include name, email and contact number.
• References – Don’t forget to reference your quotes and statistics. This lends the work an air of credibility.

4. Consider Your Content 
Try to choose a compelling subject with broad appeal. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes – would you take time out to read the release? Of course, this is where an attention-grabbing title comes in, but just as important is the content. If there is nothing current of note happening within the company, choose something you have done and make it fit – easily done with a little spin.

Remember, the principal aim of any press release is to draw attention to the company. Company quotes can be as self aggrandising as you want them to be, it’s your press release after all! Don’t be afraid to sell yourselves.

5. Designed for people, not just search engines 
Never, ever sacrifice content for the sake of SEO. This is an all-too common mistake and can be at the detriment of a company’s overall image. Think of it this way – the release will be worth nothing if, having found its way onto the screen, it doesn’t hold the reader’s attention long enough to drive the message home.

Fake drug scam hijacks UK college websites

The BBC recently reported that “UK academic institutions have unwittingly become the accomplices of criminals selling fake drugs online.” The article went on to state that this had happened because spammers had “exploited vulnerabilities” in the PHP scripting language. As a PHP programmer I take exception to this claim, as should website owners and web design agencies, for reasons that I will explain later.

The article reported how academic websites with the .ac.uk domain extension were unwittingly forwarding visitors to websites selling fake drugs online. Without going into much detail it was explained that spammers had injected code into the web pages, seemingly exploiting vulnerabilities in PHP, that would make Google and other search engines believe that the pages were relevant for searches related to prescription drugs such as Viagra. When a user searched for those terms and visited the website via the link on the search engine results page (SERP), the injected code would detect this and redirect them to the online pharmacy. When a user visited the website by typing in the URL directly or via a non drug0related search, the normal page is displayed.

Deliberately Targeted

This is not a random attack; the websites had been specifically targeted. Academic institutions rank very well in search engines because, put simply, they are inherently trusted and as such, the .ac.uk domain extension carries a lot of weight.

An attack like this is also clever because it doesn’t place visible links to spammers’ websites or make any obvious changes to the web page that has been compromised. Visitors only get redirected to the online pharmacies if they are actually searching for specific terms. This way the website administrator may never know that their scripts have been compromised and remove the spammers’ code!

One such website that has been affected is Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication. Amazingly, four days after the BBC reported that their website had been compromised (and presumably even longer since they found out), the injection in still in place! If you visit www.rave.ac.uk you will see the college’s official website. If you search for the college and follow the link in the SERP you will also see the college’s official website. However, if you search for Viagra and follow the link in the SERP you will not end up on the college’s website at all, but at a “Canadian online pharmacy”!

What Cost?

This is all very unfortunate for the college. The negative publicity alone would be bad enough, but they will also have to spend time and money removing the injected code and then plugging the holes that allowed an exploit of this type to happen in the first place.

I mentioned earlier that I would object to the reporting of this a PHP exploit. I believe that this is inaccurate and could lead people to believe that PHP is inherently less secure than other scripting languages. In fact I would not call this a PHP exploit at all – it’s slack coding that could have resulted in the same thing happening no matter what scripting language the website was developed in.

From the scant technical details offered in the original article it would appear that the affected websites do not properly validate and filter user input. Of course a website developed in PHP would be vulnerable to rogue code injection attacks if user input is not validated correctly. But for that matter so would any other scripting language!

Aside from my personal objections to the labelling of this incident as a vulnerability within PHP, website owners and web design agencies should also consider the effects of the media when reporting stories like this. If a potential client reads the article and takes from it that “PHP is not secure” or “PHP websites get hacked easily” and then you pitch a PHP-based website to them, how will that affect your chances of winning the contract? And to a lesser extent, how do stories like this affect the public’s perception of your current website? Would they feel safe buying from you online when such high-profile PHP websites fall victim to hacking?

Conclusion

But what can we in the IT community do? It’s not realistic to expect journalists to understand that this was poor coding rather than an insecure scripting language. The best that we can do is be aware of what stories are floating around in the news and be sure that we understand and can explain the real issues!

Comparing your site to others in your industry

Although nobody wants their website to be a carbon copy of a competitor’s, it is important to check your competitors to make sure you’re offering at least as much information on your site as they offer on theirs.

Things customers might expect from your site, especially if your competitors provide it:

• Do you clearly display opening hours (if applicable) and contact details?
• Do you offer an e-mail address or a contact form?
• Do you show prices, a menu, services or a stock list if applicable?
• Do you show what payment options you accept, either on your site or in your store?
• Do you provide directions or a map?

What your potential customers might be saying about you

Social media – forums, blogs and networking sites – can also have a significant effect on your business. In the case of this particular shop, the majority of their online advertising has been done by word of mouth and user recommendations – and this has been a factor in their growth as a business.

But the negative reviews of the company’s newly launched website on a well-used forum with high natural rankings may have a long term effect – particularly when comparisons have been made and links provided to other industry standard websites that do contain the information that the site users want to see.

What could this company do?

A competitor analysis would provide an overview of other sites in the industry, either UK-wide or targeted to their region. This could provide an insight into the expectations of users based on their experience of other companies’ websites.

Performing a WebScan on their site would help ensure that the site is optimised, search-engine friendly and compliant with W3C standards.

And lastly, social media monitoring would highlight issues like the discussion of the current website, so that appropriate action – whether that be revising the website to meet expectations or responding to the discussion to explain the reasoning behind the current site’s design – can be taken.

PHP’s MySQL Extension

PHP’s mysql extension is the original extension that was designed to allow you to develop PHP applications that interact with your MySQL database. The mysql extension was introduced prior to PHP version 3 and provides a procedural interface only. This extension is intended for use only with MySQL versions older than 4.1.3. It can be used with newer versions of MySQL, but not all of the latest MySQL server features will be available.

PHP’s mysqli Extension

PHP also offers a more recent mysqli extension, sometimes known as the MySQL improved extension. The mysqli extension is included with PHP versions 5 and later and was developed to take advantage of new features found in MySQL versions 4.1.3 and newer. mysqli provides both an object-oriented and a procedural interface.

Why to Use the mysqli Extension

The PHP development team strongly recommends that if you are using MySQL versions 4.1.3 or later you should use the mysqli extension rather than the original mysql extension. The key reasons for using mysqli over mysql are:

• Object-oriented interface
• Support for Prepared Statements
• Support for Stored Procedures
• Support for Multiple Statements
• Support for Transactions
• Enhanced debugging capabilities
• Embedded server support

Additionally the mysql extension is no longer being actively developed by the MySQL development team, whilst the mysqli extension under active development. It also supports multiple statements and character sets, whereas the mysql extension does not.

But…

Although the PHP development team strongly recommend that you use the mysqli extension if you’re using MySQL versions 4.1.3 or later, there is a debate about speeds differences between the two extensions. There is evidence (example) to suggest that although under certain circumstances mysqli is faster, for everyday use mysql actually performs better in terms of speed than its more modern counterpart!

However, the tiny speed advantage to using mysql rather than mysqli is probably outweighed by the newer extension’s benefits.

Conclusion

Although it might be true that mysql is ever so slightly faster than mysqli, it’s still worth following the PHP development team’s advice and using the newer extension. mysqli gives you access to the features available in MySQL versions 4.1.3 or later and it’s more flexible than the mysql extension. In addition to that, as the mysql extension is no longer under active development by the MySQL team there is no guarantee that it will be included in future PHP releases.

Hold on just one moment… how much does your client know about CSS – and how long is the site content going to retain the look and feel they’re so pleased with if they’re not confident with HTML?

Clients aren’t coders.

Most of them, anyway – most clients know how to use Microsoft Word, but that might well be the extent of their design knowledge. And, if you’ve worked with Content Management Systems, you know that copying text from a Microsoft Word document into the CMS can cause some unexpected design complications, and can result in accessibility issues, including loss of W3C compliance. Inserting plain text into the editor helps, but what happens to the formatting?

Using inline formatting is certainly an option, and many clients will opt for this. It’s quite easy to highlight a segment of text, apply a font size and colour, then set the text alignment. This has the advantage of being truly WYSIWYG, as all changes will show up exactly as the user wants them to in the CMS editor window. There’s just one small problem.

If your client doesn’t know exactly what font sizes, colours and alignments are used in the content you set up for them – not to mention image spacing, table cell padding and other more advanced settings – it will be very difficult for them to replicate this when they upload their own content. An area of text that looks just about right in the content editor might not look like the rest of the page content when it’s saved and viewed on the front end.

But they can apply CSS styles and classes, right?

Of course, you could supply them with a list of the correct inline style codes or even classes to add for each formatted segment of text… it adds another page or two in the user manual, but it would ensure that they could produce new pages that look like the content you uploaded for them.  Some clients are quite happy to click on that little HTML button and enter an instruction like class=”blah” in the correct part of the page for the content they’re uploading.

But many content managers don’t have any web design experience – they’re working with the content editor on the basis of a “Microsoft Word-like” interface. Looking at the HTML version of a page can be daunting. Those <p> and </tr> and <a class=”sausage” style=”margin: 5px; float: left; clear: both;” href=”/overthere.htm”> tags don’t make sense to anyone who doesn’t know that they’re looking at the start of a paragraph, the close of a table row or a styled link to a page.  In that respect, it may not be reasonable to expect your clients to be able to add classes or inline styling.

What’s the solution?

I use a combination of two approaches.

First,  in every CMS user guide that WSI Huddersfield produces, we include any applicable inline styling, particularly where <div> sections have been used to create columns or floating text areas, as standard CMS software doesn’t include an insert-DIV option. This is done by providing a block of code in the user manual with “your text goes here” sections in it.

Secondly, in the site creation process, we use CSS to define the appearance of a number of basic functions on the site, like paragraphs, headings and lists. Once this is done the customer can then use your styles with just a click or two to format their text and retain the same look and feel as the content you have uploaded.

For example, you may need a specific format for a Call-to-Action button. Trying to show a client how to do the Call-to-Action buttons with standard text and inline scripting could be quite problematic, even if you explain to your client exactly where to paste the appropriate styling text. But if you have set up the CSS so that using the Heading 5 option in the CMS will automatically make the text appear as a button with a fixed width, floated right and showing a background image and border, it simplifies things considerably.  A client could then enter their normal text, highlight it, and click “Heading 5″ in the settings.

Style test pages

There is one down side to using the CSS styling in this way – the CMS is no longer quite so WYSIWYG if you’re using external style sheets, which do not show in the editor window. That formatted H5 wouldn’t have the styling applied to it, so it would simply appear as plain bold text in the CMS. This is why creating a Style Test page is important, so that a client can refer to what something looks like on the front end of the site, and click the right option in the CMS. This test page should show:

• Headings 1 –  6
• Standard paragraph text
• Links
• Bullet and numbered lists
• Any other formats applied to standard functions

This way, your client can see what they need to do to replicate the style of pages already on the site. And helping your client to do that will also help you – so that the site you are so pleased about will remain a showcase piece once your clients are maintaining their content themselves.

Five Website Tips for Engaging Consumers Today
The web is not a static medium: as technologies improve, user expectations increase. As they do, meeting customers’ expectations will mean developing your marketing to be more appropriate, timely and relevant to what consumers want.

Here are five steps to develop your website to engage more effectively with your customers:

1. Study Customers’ Online Behaviour
Use your website analytics to learn from your intended audience – your customers – and give them what they want. Identify website hot spots that attract the most attention; understand when your email marketing messages will be best received; discover which social platforms are leading them to you.

If used well, your web analytics are a key component in understanding and fulfilling your customers’ expectations.

2. Consider Your Content Presentation
The first step in engaging customers is not only the quality of your content, but also the ease with which it can be read and its user-friendliness. A professional web design and carefully thought out content arrangement will help you make a great first impression – and draw your website visitors in.

3. Creative Content Formats
The web is no longer a text-based medium, and hasn’t been for a while. Even the less frequent web user will be used to animated imagery and video content. Be creative with your content to engage your visitors’ senses and get your message across dynamically, but ensure the technology doesn’t distract visitors from your pitch.

4. Emphasise Social Media Connections
Make it easy to share your content across multiple social networks, such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and many more. Including an easy-to-use ‘Share’ widget with your content makes content sharing a breeze and demonstrates your intention to be engaging.

5. Make it Easy to Correspond – No Jumping Through Hoops
If you want to encourage correspondence, show it. Make it a simple process for site visitors to leave comments or get in touch to take ’social conversation’ to the next level. Streamline your forms and have multiple points of contact through which visitors can leave comments.

Finally, with all the above, adapt your marketing mix to incorporate a coordinated, consistent approach. Developing a coherent online marketing campaign can be done very effectively at a fraction of the cost of traditional promotional activities.

Think of your website as an additional member of your sales team – always available and ready to win new sales. Just as you might invest in training for such an employee to hone his or her skills, your website can be a great instrument for converting more online leads by putting the right tools in place together with some tried-and-tested lead conversion techniques.

Simple but Clever Lead Conversion Tactics
Influencing your website visitors to take the next step in becoming your customers can take many forms. It could be to:

• Fill in an online form in return for a free White Paper, industry report or discount coupon.
• Sign up to a newsletter or stay updated with your blog via RSS feed.
• Follow your social media updates on sites such as Facebook or Twitter, for example.
• Register to gain access to exclusive areas of your website, such as video tutorials or a webcast.
  Buy a product, request a meeting or make a booking.

Once you are clear on what the desired outcome should be, you can start crafting an appropriate online conversion strategy. While the desired end results may vary, the following key conversion techniques will mostly apply.

1. Attract the Right Audience
Consider this your foundation. It may take longer to get up and running in order to research the market and identify the best ways to attract targeted web traffic, but your conversion rate and advertising budget will thank you for it. The scatter-gun approach may get you started quicker, but it will also drain your resources, with little return.

2. Create a Great First Impression
Once you have attracted your audience, presenting them with a well-designed website that offers a first- class user experience will be a great start. But don’t stop there, use dedicated landing pages which relate specifically to your ads and which funnel your visitors into the direction of your conversion process.

3. It’s Time to KISS
Keeping it straight and simple is key to channelling your customers’ attention. Remove distractions and make the next step – your conversion goal – blindingly obvious. Other ideas for giving your most important message some focus would be:

Keep your copy short and to the point.
Try to keep your content readable without too much scrolling.
Present your strongest selling points towards the top of your page so visitors see it immediately.
If you are using an online form, make it easy to fill in. No jumping through hoops.
Use a mixture of text and images to help break up the copy and complement your message.
A well-prepared landing page will make a big difference to the effectiveness of your advertising campaign and help you gain favour with search engines that emphasize more relevant content.

4. Give a Great Incentive
Whether you are offering an industry White Paper in exchange for contact data, or selling state-of-the-art golfing attire, the starting point for completing the conversion is the same question all customers will ask: “What’s in it for me?”

Creating value-added offers not only provides potential buyers with incentives, but it also fosters loyalty and can act as a gatekeeper to qualify your customers.

5. Respond Swiftly
Research shows that customers are most responsive immediately after initiating correspondence. An automated email function will allow you to send an immediate message – perhaps with an offer – upon your visitors filling in a form, signing up to a newsletter or making an enquiry.

In conclusion, don’t leave it to chance, it may take a little testing and tweaking before you optimise your conversion process – but it is worth the effort.

Google Caffeine – Cause for Concern?
Google engineer and Quality Control Team leader Matt Cutts has described the Caffeine update as being the most fundamental change to the Google search system since its Big Daddy update of 2005. When a search engine changes its algorithm, it usually leads to a shake up of search engine rankings (as many businesses experienced in 2005). So is there reason to be concerned about the Google Caffeine update?

What is Behind Caffeine?
When asked why Google has made this update, Matt Cutts explained it as improvements being made ‘under the hood’ – with most searchers not even noticing the difference. The upgrades have been made to the way Google indexes content, by rewriting its indexing system to crawl faster, index more efficiently, and serve up fewer results much more quickly.

The huge popularity of real-time, content-sharing platforms, such as the micro-blogging website Twitter, indicates how internet users’ surfing habits are changing, demanding a more immediate web experience that includes search capabilities.

As the nickname implies, the update is about injecting more speed and a sharper focus. At the end of the day, Google, like any search engine, wants – and needs – to quickly serve up fresh, relevant and focused search results to maintain and improve its market share.

How Caffeine Might Affect You
The simple answer is: if you adhere to search engine optimisation best practices, then Caffeine will affect you very little, if at all. In fact, to genuine search marketers Caffeine is more likely to be a benefit than a disadvantage. The reason for this is that one of the update’s aims is to weed out less relevant, older content that may be in the way of better search results being served on the first few pages.

Google says the changes in search results will be subtle because it will be introducing the changes over a period of months from one data centre to another. So, as mentioned, while it may be a significant change to the way the Google engine works, it is unlikely most users will notice it.

What Can You Do?
If you already employ a well-prepared search marketing strategy, then you already have a head start on a lot of people – and probably won’t need to do an awful lot different. But without resting on your laurels, it could help to consider the following points:

Make your content easy to crawl. Help Google identify your content quickly by keeping your website code uncluttered (boring techy points), fast loading and well structured.
Is your website easy to navigate? Keep your best content easy to find, not buried under layers of unnecessary hierarchical layers.

Make sure you regularly update your content. As mentioned, searchers want fresh content – what’s being said today, yesterday, last week or month, not last year.

If you are already doing these things, then keep on keeping on. The Google Caffeine update will then be very unlikely to affect you.

In conclusion then, while the Google Caffeine update is significant, it’s not something to be unduly concerned about if you already have a good search marketing strategy in place.