In case you haven’t already heard, top SEO experts from around the world collectively say that the top 5 ranking factors for global websites are:

1. Keyword focused anchor text from external links
2. External link popularity (quantity/quality of external links)
3. Diversity of link sources (links from many unique root domains)
4. Keyword use anywhere in the title tag
5. Trustworthiness of the domain based on link distance from trusted domains

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It is quite easy to get advice on how to write a decent press release, from what to do with the first 100 words to best practices for your boilerplate.

It is harder however, to find the secrets to optimising your press releases for online distribution.

So we decided to share 10 suggestions from our experience in advising clients on how to get greater mileage from their PR efforts here: (more…)

Awards in general, bring accolades and recognition. They are also a great tool for branding.

Website awards in particular, can bring online traffic to your website. Here are some other arguments to participate in them.

Winning website awards can a great morale (and internal credibility) builder for the team involved. They not only offer an internet marketing opportunity, but also provide a benchmark and valuable feedback for your website development efforts. They can also help generate publicity and incoming links as winners are announced to the media and listed on awards websites.

Now let’s say you’ve spent months on developing a new website for your B2B company and would like to submit your work to some website awards. What are some of the more credible awards programmes out there in the worldwide web?  Which ones are appropriate for professional services firms (PSF)?

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Augmented Reality, or AR in short, has been around for years. Think of sports programmes on television for instance: those larger-than-life logos that appear ‘imprinted’ onto rugby fields or the digital ‘time markers’ inside each lane during the swimming competitions at the 2008 Olympics.

Augmented Reality on mobile devices on the other hand, has just started taking off, particularly as the way people interact with their mobile phones continues to evolve. We believe the implications for location-based mobile marketing are exciting, particularly for consumer brands.

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The media has been abuzz about the Twitter phenomenon, especially after it announced its plans to monetize its platform.  Just last week, CNBC did a story on the announcement and talked about some ways in which large companies use Twitter. Its website gives some interesting (but unfortunately old) examples of consumer brands using Twitter for customer service, direct marketing,  customer engagement, and the like.

Unfortunately, B2B brands were missing from CNBC’s list of examples. Are professional services firms going to catch up?

We decided to take a look at how B2B firms use Twitter, by picking a small sample group and conducting a quick comparison online. Do they tweet as a corporate brand or as individual people representing the corporate brand? Do they have separate Twitter accounts for their thought leadership? Do they have dedicated Twitter accounts for different industry groups or for recruitment? Here are the results (see chart). (more…)