We have now added Content Marketing to our Blogging Training course to create the mighty Blogging and Content Marketing Training course, so you can get a head start on your internet marketing endeavours.

It can be tough to get your brand, company or website noticed on the big World Wide Web. Fierce competition for search engine rankings and SEO dominance is rife between websites gunning for the same keywords and with the same general target audience; so what can you do to get yourself to stand out from the crowd?

Currently, one of the most effective methods of generating interest from users and building up back links to appease the search engine lords is content marketing. This form of marketing has many advantages and uses which should be explored by anyone looking to extend their website’s visibility, outreach and exposure.

Why should I do it myself?

The internet is made of content. It’s what people use it for; to find useful information, tips and entertainment. By creating your own content you can write about the topics your website, blog or company specialise in from as many angles as you can think of. Doing this not only gives you more searchable content to be found via search engines it also gives you the opportunity to stamp your authority on a subject, working your way into becoming an expert in your field that people will look to for knowledge, answers and cutting edge info.

However, if you aren’t ready to put yourself forward as an expert just yet, content marketing still has some valuable other uses which when used properly will help improve your site’s traffic and exposure to new users.

If you would like to find out more about content marketing then have to look at our post on Guest Blogging and Great Places to Post Your Content, or read on to find out more about how blogging and content marketing can benefit you. Read the rest of "Why Should You Start Content Marketing?"

Posted by Daniel Twigg in Facebook Tips and Tricks, Google+, Guest Blogs, Internet, News, SEO, Web Design, Web Design Training on January 23rd, 2012| No Comments »

In a move to provide its users with more customised and personal search results, Google have launched their new “Search Plus Your World” feature to their enormously popular search engine.

The new features, which are currently only available on google.com in English but are being rolled out globally, takes a far more social stance on the search, offering custom search results which displays content from your Google+ network as well as global results. You can use Google Search Plus Your World by logging into your Google+ account and clicking ‘go to Google.com’ link at the bottom of the search page if you are not in America. You then see a personalised results page (shown below) and can switch between personal and global results using the toggle switch at the top right of the page.  This is a dramatic update that potentially could change the face of Search Engine Optimisation and the way we receive our search results.

Find out what Search plus Your World means for internet marketing and SEO. This move has Twitter hot under the collar but Google says it is Twitter who don’t want to play.

Personal Results

Through deeper integration with Google’s social network, Google+, the new search feature will allow you to discover your own information, photos and content as well as content that has been shared and +1′d with you within your network, all within the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). These results aim to give you far more personal results based on:

• posts from your friends on Google+
• private/limited content which has been shared with you on Google+
• full web listings
• full web listings which have been modified through your personal behaviour
• fell web listings which have been modified due to your social network connections

The implications of these changes are that you can receive more meaningful results which match what’s going on in your life, giving you more of an indication of what the members of your online world are sharing, doing and saying. Read the rest of "The Google Update – Search Plus Your World"

Posted by Daniel Twigg in News, SEO on January 11th, 2012| No Comments »

Look into my crystal ball...

2012 has historically been a hot year for predictions. The finishing of the Mayans cryptic calendar has been touted as a sign of the ‘end of the world’ by many a pessimist, citing Nostradamus’ prophecies as the evidence they need that the end is nigh.

Luckily, not all predictions for next year have to be so gloomy; there are plenty of developments yet to come out in the tech world. here are our top SEO predictions for the new year.

Google service integration

Now the most used browser on the web, Google Chrome has always offered more than just a smooth and seamless web browsing experience. With Google having their fingers in a lot of pies, many of their services are becoming integrated with the browser.

Google services such as Google Docs, which is already proving itself as an excellent file sharing facility, and Google+ (which is covered as part of our Social Media training course), the rival to Facebook which is picking up steam, will find themselves more embedded with Google’s software, encouraging a growth in collaboration and sharing.

The ability to install a wide variety of apps and extensions to your browser not only gives you a tailored browsing experience it also opens the platform up to being more than just a browser. Expect to see these built upon, with Chrome borrowing from Google’s Android mobile operating system’s seamlessly customisable app and widget based set up.

The new social sharing revolution

While Facebook is still the daddy of the Social Media world, Google+ Business profile pages still have a lot to offer. Using these pages to share content will become a vital tool in your SEO tool box, especially with the potential of Google+ having more of a stronger bearing on Google’s search results in the near future. Read the rest of "SEO Predictions for 2012"

Posted by Daniel Twigg in Mobile App Development, News, SEO, Social Media on December 21st, 2011| 3 Comments »

As usual Silicon Beach Training develops training to meet industry demands, providing the new media industry with the tools required to compete in a constantly evolving market. Don’t get left behind – enrol on one of our mobile development training courses with iPhone App Training and Android Training now available.

As each day passes smart phones integrate themselves deeper and deeper into the lives of people all over the world. Long gone are the days of just making calls on your phone, now web browsing, emailing, social networking and navigation are all key features used by today’s modern phone user.

Customisation is a key advantage to owning a smart phone, with thousands of downloadable apps, both free and for purchase, available to tailor your phone to your life. There’s an app for almost everything!

The two key players in the smart phone OS market are undoubtedly Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, with Android overtaking iPhone sales by 2 to 1 over the summer. Android also has the new smart phone owners market pinned down, being purchased by 56% of first timers. One of the main points which has caused this surge surpassing the iPhone is down to Androids open source format, allowing it to be used by a wide variety of manufactures, thus offering a wide selection of handsets to the consumer at different price points making them more affordable compared to Apple’s iconic alternative. Read the rest of "Demand for Android training soars as Google pip Apple"

Posted by Daniel Twigg in Android Training, Brighton, iPhone Training, Mobile App Development, News, Web Design Training on December 7th, 2011| 1 Comment »

Location based services are not new, some, such as Loopt have been around since 2005 but 2010 is the year that they’re really taking off.  Loopt has around 3 million users in the US (its not available anywhere else) but it differs greatly from the current trend in location based services, that of moving away from “always on” location to that of “checking in” at specific locations.

Foursquare and Gowalla are leading the charge of the ‘Geosocial‘ location based mobile services, with Foursquare having recently had 370k “check ins” in one day. With only 500k registered users the leader, Foursquare, is still relatively small compared to other, traditional, social networks (Facebook, with 400m users is by far the biggest social network but doesn’t yet have a Geosocial aspect) but it is growing fast.

Arguably 2010 will be the year of location based social and business networks, especially with services such as simpleGeo offering location infrastructure to startups. This lowers the barrier to entry significantly allowing start ups, such as stickybits, to provide geotagging in its unique offerings.

So is it all hype? From a business point of view are they worth engaging with like other social media?

Read the rest of "Geotagging the Future with Foursquare, Gowalla and Twitter"

Posted by Daniel Twigg in News, Social Media on March 15th, 2010| No Comments »

KeePass Review – Store passwords securely

To start with I have about twelve different passwords just for social media, about seven for different websites that I manage, three for different forums…you get the message I have a lot of passwords to remember!

It gets even worse if you are a business engaging in social media, you want to protect your passwords but also want employees to use your social accounts.

So how do I keep track of all these online passwords?

Read the rest of "Online Password Management with KeePass"

Posted by Daniel Twigg in New Free Resources, News on March 10th, 2010| No Comments »

Image by Steven Depolo

It seems there’s always a technology or service threatening to revolutionize the internet. Promising to change the way we access information and how we use it.

In the past it was “web 2.0″, “web 3.0″, “crowd sourcing”; the list goes on!

Silicon Beach Training offer programming training including Python Training and Ruby on the Rails Training in Brighton, Sussex.

Recently, “Real Time Web” has entered the arena, it sounds great but in practice, few people have a clue what it is. Simply put it means web resources are published and consumed in real time.

Real Time Web

As as soon as “stuff” is published, a blog post or any other user generated content, it is syndicated around the web and indexed immediately. The most obvious example is google search including up to the second results from twitter. Social media is all about real time, streams of information created constantly and consumed almost instantly (find out more with out social media course).  Broadcasting your location in foursquare is pretty useless if people only find out a few hours/days later! Real time web can be thought of as another paradigm of the social web experience.

For a while only the big boys, Google, Facebook and Twitter and others have made use of these real time data streams, with us peons only able to use RSS and ATOM to get our content out there. Recent developments by both Google and WordPress have put this real time power at the disposal of every blogger and content creator on the web. If you are thinking of using WordPress and need help check out our WordPress Training and our Advanced WordPress Training courses.

You’re probably thinking how does this differ from RSS and ATOM? Well it doesn’t, its an extension to both those protocols to allow for real time publishing, but how exactly have they done this?

What is PuSH or PUbSubHub?

The very definition of “Real Time Web” is to have content consumed in real time. PuSH or PSHB (many names and acronyms have been used in discussions but from here on out I’ll only use PuSH as it best describes what it does) is a protocol that allows RSS and ATOM feeds to change something that you need to ask for into something that is given to you. Read the rest of "Real Time Web and the PubSubHubBub"

Posted by Daniel Twigg in News, Social Media, Web Design on March 8th, 2010| 2 Comments »

If you haven’t already heard, Google released a new Social Media offering called Buzz, a hybrid love child of Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter.

Buzz is still in its infancy, one of the easiest ways of jumping on the Buzz wagon is to have your tweets buzzed automatically, which is fairly straightforward. Buzz supports all the same# tags and @ mentions, so your twitter tweets work the same in Buzz.

But in my opinion this is a total waste of time. Buzz is many different things and it may seem similar to twitter but its not! Buzz should be used in a way that plays to its different strengths. I see it as a new tool in the social media armory of the local business (find out how your business can benefit from Social Media training here). The targeting of your local market is also great for SEO – see our new Search Engine Optimisation Course in Brighton, Sussex, to learn more.

Buzz is many things to a small business, read on and find out what…

Read the rest of "Why Google Buzz is Great for Local Business"

Posted by Daniel Twigg in Sales & Marketing, SEO, Social Media on March 1st, 2010| 1 Comment »