SEO Belfast

Saturday 13 November 2010

Thursday 11 February 2010

Gasta Tech Update : $2.5 Billion in Ad Spending

Social Networks to Get $2.5 Billion in Ad Spending in 2010
by Jason Hahn

Gasta.com and Gasta.es consistently the most top performing web search engines outside the big three. Online since 1997 Gasta.com has now grown into a 900 strong network regional search engines

Social media is no mirage, says Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer. Her company projects that 2010 will see continued growth of advertising spending on online social networking sites.

eMarketer forecasts that $2.5 billion will be spent on ads on online social networks worldwide in 2010, up 14 percent from the $2.2 billion spent in 2009. About $1.3 billion will be spent in the U.S. alone.

In 2008, $2.0 billion was spent on ads on these sites worldwide, a 61 percent increase from 2007. The company projects that this figure will reach $2.9 billion in 2011, which would be a 13 percent increase.

Approximately 64 percent of U.S. Internet users will interact with user-generated content in 2010, while 26 million U.S. adults will use Twitter at least once a month, according to eMarketer. Oh, and mobile social networks will reach 223 million people around the globe.

Williamson refers to eight separate surveys, with each showing that the majority of U.S. marketers are already using social media.

For example, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research indicates that 80.0 percent of marketers in the U.S. are using social media, a dramatic increase from 49.0 percent in 2008.

But with great spending comes great room for error, according to Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer. The “enormity of this opportunity leads many marketers to chase after every technique, tactic and metric that passes them by,” he said.

“Instead, marketers should focus on fewer but better-defined objectives—and remember that listening, establishing trust, adding value and projecting authenticity are among the best practices that are critical to their success with social media,” writes Williamson.

According to comScore’s “The 2009 U.S. Digital Year in Review,” Yahoo! Sites continued its reign as the top publisher of display ads from December 2008 to November 2009, with 521.2 billion impressions.

However, Fox Interactive Media, led by MySpace, was second on the list with 367.6 billion impressions, followed by Facebook with 329.6 billion impressions.

Microsoft Sites was fourth with 218.1 billion impressions, AOL was fifth with 192.2 billion impressions and Google Sites was sixth with 69.9 billion impressions.

eBay (36.4 billion), Glam Media (24.8 billion), Amazon Sites (21.7 billion) and United Online, Inc. (19.5 billion) rounded out the top 10 list, according to comScore.

Facebook recently took over the display ads on its site from Microsoft, which was a shift from their original deal in 2006. Microsoft will continue to handle text ads and is claiming that the search agreement with Facebook is being expanded.

Monday 8 February 2010

Gasta.com update: Advantage NI and UnLtd

Advantage NI and UnLtd – The Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs have come together on Social Enterprise Day to launch a £20,000 scholarship fund to support young people across Northern Ireland who have an entrepreneurial solution to a social problem.

The ‘Impact’ programme offers budding social entrepreneurs under the age of 31, the opportunity to research and develop an idea that will create social change. Training, one-to-one guidance and an attractive funding package of up to £5000 to help kick start their project is on offer. The emphasis of ‘Impact’ is on providing tailored support to the young person so that they can develop their entrepreneurial skills to set up a social venture. You can sign up at www.advantage-ni.com/impact.

Social enterprise is a model that is fast gaining recognition in Northern Ireland. Although the terminology may be new, social enterprises have actually been around for quite some time. Credit unions, housing associations and community development trusts are woven throughout our society and high profile social enterprises such as John Bird’s ‘Big Issue’ and Jamie Oliver’s ‘15’ have encouraged others to improve society by setting up their own.

Quiet simply, social enterprises are businesses that exist to address a social or environmental need. Social Entrepreneurs are the visionaries behind them. We know this programme will support the next generation of Social Entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland.

If you would like to find out more about how you can make an Impact, log on to www.advantage-ni.com/impact

Thanks

The Advantage Team

Thursday 21 January 2010

Gasta Tech News: Emerging Markets More Tech Savvy

Gasta & Europasearch.com networks
Emerging Markets More Tech Savvy Than Mature Markets

Consumers in the U.S. are utilizing more advanced technologies now than they were two years ago, but they may be lagging behind their counterparts in emerging markets.

According to a recent report conducted by Accenture, computers (desktop or laptop), mobile phones and DVD players are the most-owned devices in the U.S. in 2009.

Regular (CRT or tube) TVs are on the decline, as 77 percent of respondents owned them in 2007, 70 percent in 2008 and 66 percent in 2009. On the other hand, high-definition plasma or LCD TVs have risen from 26 percent in 2007, 39 percent in 2008 and 52 percent in 2009.

Web-enabled mobile phones/smartphones were owned by 29 percent of respondents in 2009, up from 17 percent in 2008 and just 8 percent in 2007.

GPS devices (32 percent), Blu-ray players (13 percent), netbooks (10 percent), e-books (5 percent) and 3D TVs (3 percent) were all new devices included in the 2009 study, which gleaned responses from 2,000 respondents.

Still, Accenture notes that consumers in emerging markets are twice as likely as those in mature markets to buy and use consumer technology in the next year, and are even more willing to pay a premium for “environmentally friendly” consumer electronic products.

The 2010 “Consumer Electronics Products and Services Usage Report” is based on a survey of 16,000 consumers in four “mature” countries (U.S., Germany, France, Japan) and four “emerging” countries (China, India, Malaysia, Singapore).

Among the online activities that Internet users in emerging markets participate in more than those in mature markets are listening to music online (78 percent vs. 58 percent), watching/posting videos on the Internet (74 percent vs. 59 percent), connecting with people on social networking sites (81 percent vs. 50 percent), watching videos on a mobile phone or other mobile device (48 percent vs. 23 percent) and microblogging (35 percent vs. 13 percent).

Accenture also noted that consumers in emerging markets were more than two-and-a-half times as likely to buy a smartphone during the next year (52 percent vs. 20 percent) and more than twice as likely to have purchased a smartphone in the past year (67 percent vs. 32 percent).

Mobile phones are set to overtake PCs around the globe as the most common device for Web access by 2013, according to Gartner. The company forecasts that by then, there will be 1.82 billion browser-equipped enhanced phones, more than the 1.78 billion PCs that will be in use then.

by Jason Hahn
Sources:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007465

http://newsroom.accenture.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=4921

https://microsite.accenture.com/landing_pages/consumertechnologyusage/Documents/AccentureConsumerTech2010.pdf

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120590

Wednesday 20 January 2010

Gasta SEO: Getting Social

Get on Gasta Search Network and Get Help With Your SEO by Getting Social

In today’s online market place it is important for all business and entrepreneurs to realize that the playing field has changed quite drastically over the last few years. There are many new platforms and websites that businesses can eagerly leverage to drive new exposure, traffic and eye balls than there ever has been before. Social Media Marketing technology has made it much easier to become visible online and it is up to you as a business owner to take advantage of this technology.

White Paper of the Day

Launching a blog and having an active Twitter and Facebook account go hand in hand. If you don’t understand why that is not important yet just realize that having both is the first step to building new qualified website visitors. At the very least make it a point to have both created as soon as possible and worry how to incorporate into your marketing strategy after, your audience is waiting. After you launch your blog there are many sure fire ways to build new networks of happy customers and potential clients. Twitter and Facebook will be a nice meeting place for them to join and meet but it will be the blog that gets them there. When you launch a blog and start writing new posts you will most likely have to get those blog posts out there a bit at first to start building up new loyal readers. Once you have your Facebook and Twitter accounts all built with nice little links and great profile images you can sync the Twitter account along with your Facebook fan page. What this will ultimately do is eliminate one step for yourself. As you drop your blog post link into your Facebook fan page it will automatically create a link in your Twitter account for you. This is one great and convenient way to not only drive targeted visitors to your website from a variety of Twitter users but also build up your Facebook fan page as well.

This takes time so it is important to start doing it now and be consistent with it. Online marketing takes time to grow like anything else. Over time you will slowly start to build up followers on your Twitter account and fans on your Facebook page. As the search engines evolve even more they will require an element of social interaction through all the various social platforms in order to really help your SEO efforts.
by Nick Stamoulis

Gasta News : NISP Event

“From Start-Up to Success Story; The Leadership Challenge”

This event will be hosted by subject matter specialists from Belfast based consultancy Goldblatt McGuigan (www.goldblattmcguigan.com) with a highly experienced expert panel of successful entrepreneurs including Bro McFerran of Allstate, Jayne Brady of Intune Networks and Philip Cassidy of gem.

Programme Overview:
What is your career path? Do you have the tools you need to grow and lead a successful team of talented people? Are you confined to a tech founder’s life of start-up after start up or can you play a leading role in helping to grow a business that you have founded?
Join us on 4th February for an information workshop to discuss the key challenges and opportunities facing start ups in the development of strategic leadership capabilities to help propel a business to the next level, covering:

• EQ versus IQ.
• Role evolution with organisational growth.
• Connecting with employees and followers.
• Leading growth.
• Experiences and stories from those that have made the transition.

The seminar will be led by Rupert Johnston and Caroline Duffy of Goldblatt McGuigan, supported by panelists including Bro McFerran, Jayne Brady and Philip Cassidy.

Who should attend?
Frameworks Entrepreneur workshops are professional development programmes, scheduled throughout the year. Attendees are generally founders, CEOs and managers involved in strategic business growth and development, or scientists or technology experts considering a business start-up.

Date: 4th February 2010

Time: 08.00am – 08.30am Registration and breakfast
08.30am – 09.30am Programme
09.30am – 10.00am Q&A

Location: Northern Ireland Science Park, Queens Island, Belfast

Cost: Free of charge

Contact: Roisin Clancy, Northern Ireland Science Park
Tel: 028 9073 7920 Email: nispconnect@nisp.co.uk

Note: Breakfast will be provided for participants

About NISP’s Frameworks Entrepreneur Workshops
NISP offers ongoing educational opportunities for entrepreneurs building and growing innovative hitech, biotech or cleantech companies and offers member companies the opportunity to provide expert content to a responsive, interactive audience.
Many of today’s business founders and future entrepreneurs have scientific and technical backgrounds but have had limited experience in industry, so they often lack exposure to critical information which is essential to leading a start-up. To fill this gap, NISP offers Frameworks Entrepreneur Workshops to provide these bright leaders with the vocabulary, foundations and framework around which they can build awareness of the many disciplines they will oversee as “C” level managers”

About NISP CONNECT
NISP CONNECT is an independent, non-profit organization fostering entrepreneurship by accelerating the growth of promising technologies and early stage companies. Our core purpose is to connect people, technology and capital to drive innovation and create wealth through building high value IP based companies in Northern Ireland. We want to help to establish a thriving entrepreneurial eco-system where innovation, vision and talent flourish.

A collaboration between Northern Ireland Science Park (NISP), the University of Ulster and Queens University, Belfast, NISP CONNECT acts as an ‘honest, neutral broker’ within the region through provision of direct delivery programmes, mentorship/coaching services, educational seminars and events geared at developing and encouraging entrepreneurial ideas, talent and leadership.

Monday 18 January 2010

Gasta tech update: Google Penalty

If Google drops your site from Rankings

This happens to website owners and business owners from time to time. If you feel that your website has been given some sort of Google penalty then the best thing you can do is to first stop any new online marketing and make a list of all your search engine optimization and internet marketing efforts that you have executed for the last year. Sometimes the problem could be one minor link sitting on a website or it can also be a much deeper rooted issue that has been building for some time. You might have been given a penalty at Google if your rankings suddenly dropped (not the normal ranking fluctuation) or visitors from Google dropped over time. In drastic situations, your website is unlisted from Google. If your SEO efforts are white hat (following Google’s webmaster guidelines) then there are places to start your hunt and discovery to solve the Google penalty problem.

Here is a short list of some suggestions to consider if your website has been given a Google Penalty:

• Google Webmaster Tools: If you don’t have Google webmaster tools installed on your website yet even without the penalty this should be the very first step you take. Google webmaster tools allows you to see what types of links are pointing directly to your site. This will be a very good and important starting point for your investigation. Once Google webmaster tools is installed take a step back and go through all your links. Make sure none are point from any spammy or irrelevant websites. If you have found any that might not be right for your website you will have to contact blog and website owners to remove the links. By installing Google webmaster tools on your site you also show the search engines that you have nothing to hide and you welcome them to look at your efforts.

• New Website Changes: If you have made any website changes over the last six to twelve months go through all those changes. Identify any new content that might have a bit too many keywords listed in it or if you have updated any links to any of your pages make sure you did not add to many links or links pointing to sites that Google does not like. Per Google guidelines a web page should not exceed fifty links. You don’t want to make too many changes backwards just yet. Make some and then wait and give it some time to see if that was the issue. Once you have a penalty it could take some time along with trial and error until you find the problem.

• Google Analytics: Check your Google analytics (or your web stats program) to see when the problem first started occurring. You will quickly be able to see where the dip in traffic occurred and allow you to associate with what possible marketing efforts where conducted at that time for the problem to occur.

In conclusion stay calm and use your analytical hat to be sure you have covered all of the bases. Also, be sure to spend time learning (before there is an issue) search engine optimization best practices and Google’s webmaster guidelines as well.