Social Media is in. It has overtaken the Internet and most definitely our lives. We do it anywhere, and about everything. We do it from our iPhones, feeds, tweetdecks and via countless other tools. Amidst the stream of me-former updates I receive every day from my friends, I was interested to see how effective social media is in terms of in-forming and making a difference to the marketing strategy of my online business.

The results were astonishing. Social media can significantly boost the ranking and visits to your website. But there is a very fine line between informative, heplful messages and useless spamming. It takes some skill, quite a bit of research and a lot of common sense to get it right.

The number one rule is that you should never, ever expect to be able to control the outcome of your messages online. Once the message is out there, it will work for and against you, no matter what. But with practice you can make sure it gets to the right audience, and most importantly to those who are interested and want to listen to what oyu have to say.

Social media is exactly what it claims to be: social. Develop a good plan before you begin your social media activity. You should also develop a thick skin, as social interaction means that you have to withstand criticism once in a while. See it as an opportunity rather than an offense, and never stop working on yourself and improving your web presence.

Finally, learn the rules of the game. Social media has its own terms and rules, and you will have much more success if you know how to express yourself online. Observe, listen, and imitate, but above all: don’t forget to be yourself. Individualism counts!

Search engine optimisation, or SEO for short, is defined as ‘the process of improving ranking in search engine results’, writes Berry Adams in the Belfast Telegraph.

When search engines first appeared on the scene in the 1990’s to help people make sense of the exponential growth of websites, it suddenly became important to show up first in these search engine results pages.

Savvy entrepreneurs quickly figured out how search engines worked and what a website needed to rank first, and the dark art of SEO was born.

Search Engines, and consequently the art of optimising websites for search results, have changed significantly since the first beginnings of web search, when the Internet was primarily dominated by simplistic pieces of software that crawled the world wide web and matched words found on websites to search terms entered by Internet users. Whether or not that site was actually useful and relevant for the user’s query didn’t matter too much back then.

Today, matching keywords is still important, but many other factors such as quality links, frequently updated content and (it is assumed) hundreds of other factors play a role in how well a site is ranked in the search engines. That means there are many measures you can take to show your site in a favourable light.

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Liquid Logic has just finished designing and building a community portal for Scuba divers. At Scuba Forum, divers can sign up, search for dive buddies and connect with other divers to plan diving trips and events. Dive businesses can also register their business in the online directory with free and paid listings. Continue reading “Scuba Forum community portal” »

Liquid Logic just finished the latest website design and build for Morton Branding. Morton Branding is a Packaging Design, Corporate Branding and Corporate Identity agency based in North Sydney. Continue reading “Morton Branding Website” »

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