Latest News (126)

Tuesday, 15 February 2011 14:19

SEO Now On The Rise

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is certainly growing.  According to many experts, many people use search engines for simple navigation.  If not for SEO, the search engines would not have existed. Nearly 80% of Internet traffic today begins at a search engine. Everyone  searches their favorite and most wanted articles and information through search engines.  

SEO growth factors in the past 16 years:

  • 1993- Netscape Navigator was launched
  • 1994- Excite and Lycos launched
  • 1995- Internet Explorer, Infoseek, Yahoo’s Opentext partnership and Altavista launches.
  • 1998- MSN makes a debut in search with inktomi.
  • 1999- Altavista loses so much ground to Google that it changes tack then fades from the limelight.
  • 2000- Google Toolbar becomes available allowing SEO’s to sees their PageRank.  Google Adwords was also launched.
  • 2002-  Adwords re-launches and works much better, becoming the most popular paid search platform.
  • 2003-  Google changes its algorithm to combat web spam
  • 2005- no follow tags are created as a means to combat spam.
  • 2006- XML sitemaps allowed webmasters to display to the search engines.
  • 2009- Google released an update called “Caffeine” which improved the speed of indexing.
  • 2010-  previous factors has resulted in the quality of websites today and the Internet itself.

The overall growth of SEO along the years has affected everyone, it has made things easier for people.  It has opened up doors for Online Businesses. The Northern Office is a marketing consultancy firm specializing in innovative marketing support for SME’s.  Need help in generating more traffic to your websites? Contact TNO now.  

Wednesday, 19 January 2011 14:26

IPv4 Transition to IPv6

What is IPv6?

IPv6 or IP version 6 is the next generation Internet protocol which will eventually replace the current protocol IPv4.  The primary difference is that IPv6 uses 128 bit addresses as compared to the 32 bit addresses used with IPv4.  Among other things, this improvement is expected to make assigning addresses to wireless devices easier and accommodate the myriad smart network enabled devices that will surround us in the future.

IPv4 vs IPv6

IPv4

IPv6

Number of Addresses

2^32

2^128

Appearance of IP address

10.10.0.24

3ffe:1900:4545:3:200:f8dd:fe21:67cf

Local host

127.0.0.1

::1 or 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1

Sample Websites

http://google.com

http://ipv6.google.com

There are ways to check if you are on IPv6.  The easiest way is to attempt to browse a website using the IPv6 protocol.  IPv6 address transition will come to end users sooner or later. No matter how fast the Internet grows, it will still be one of the channels where customers can be targeted. The Northern Office provides an array of services like Online Marketing, Social Media, Content Development,etc. Contact TNO for details.
Filipinos from across income groups are now adapting to Internet and mobile usage. The Philippines became the texting capital of the world, surpassing in one day all the texting that is done in the European Community in only a year.  According to a study done by the Internet marketing research firm ComScore.com, the country is also the world’s fifth most engaged social networking community.  The study also found that Philippines is the fifth heaviest user of social networks  like Facebook, Twitter, etc. in the world, averaging 6.2 hours logged in per person.  Actually the Philippine figures could be higher, since the study did not measure traffic from busy access points, which are  Internet cafes and mobile phones. Philippines is a leader when it comes to Internet access,  Smart Communications said it served 8.3 million subscribers through its nationwide broadband and cellular networks. Also Smart Broadband, the company’s affiliate, serves over 1.3 million subscribers, while 7 million more access the Internet through Smart mobile phone subscriptions.  Reports in www.internetworldstats.com, stated that the country had close to 30 million Internet users. Another study conducted by Synovate showed an increasing percentage of Filipino users purchasing goods online.  The study also found that Filipinos access the Internet from their home for the upscale and older users or from an Internet cafe, mostly for younger and lower-income users.  The study noted that Filipinos  access the Internet mainly for communication and searching for information. The growth of Internet access in the Philippines presents a lot of marketing opportunities for local and international companies as well.  The Northern Officeis a marketing consultancy firm specializing in innovative marketing support for SME’s.  TNO provides an array of services like Sales support, Online Marketing, Social Media, etc.  The Northern Office can help you create an effective Online Marketing plan.  Contact us for details.
Thursday, 06 January 2011 08:41

Google Instant Goes Mobile

The Google Instant Mobile update was initially released on November 4th,  allowing English language users to access the instant search features released for the web earlier this year from their mobile devices.  The thirty-five day globalization of the product added twenty-seven languages, and access from more than thirty new countries.  No one expected that the release of this product would be so soon. Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type.  The most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because you do not have to finish typing your full search term, or even press “search”.  Another shift is that seeing results as you type helps you formulate a better search term by providing instant feedback.  You can now adapt your search on the fly until the results match exactly what you want. The update is automatically integrated into Google search features that are accessed via any Android web browser, and is available for Android OS version 2.2 and up. It has also been released for the iOS4 (Apple’s latest iPhone operating system). Benefits:
  • Faster Searches: Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search. By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing.
  • Smarter Predictions:  You might not know what you are looking for exactly at times, but predictions help guide your search.  There is a top prediction shown in grey text directly in the search box,  so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.
  • Instant Results:  Just start typing and results will appear right before your eyes.
The Northern Office uses social media as an integral part of a successful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns for its clients.  TNO uses proper SEO techniques for Online Marketing and reputation management.  TNO creates websites for its clients that are search friendly and rank very well in major search engines like Google.  Need help in making your brand dominate the front page?  Click here .

If you’re not familiar about RSS feeds, an RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content.

 RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web.RSS allows you to:

*Easily stay informed – by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in and regularly follow.

*Save time – by not needing to visit each site inpidually.

*Ensure your privacy – by not needing to join each site’s email newsletter. So why are RSS feeds valuable to a marketing campaign? And how does it make a difference? When it comes to Online Marketing strategies, it is essential that a company conducting business over the internet reaches the maximum possible audience. You may have top quality products or the best deals available, but this would be completely useless if no one sees it. An RSS can be used as a tool by websites to increase their chances of getting noticed by its target market.  

By using RSS feeds, the content of one site is also visible on another website.  Whenever new information is added in to the feed, a notification is sent to the user and news readers to easily monitor the feeds they’ve subscribed to. The online business world is basically revolving around the need of getting “quality traffic.” As difficult as it is to acquire quality traffic, RSS can be one of the most effective tools in promoting your website.

One way of getting more traffic and more importantly making the traffic come back to your site over again, is by having your own blog with an RSS feed.  RSS feeds can be used for articles, news updates, even ezines. An addition of RSS feed to your blog or website enables you to add theme related content.  This will help increase the level of popularity of your website with the search engines.  

You can also increase your page ranking by driving more traffic to your page by regularly updating the website page content. Making use of a feed gives an article better chances of being read, rather than if it was sent through email which is subject to how often they open their emails, spamming filters, and virus threats.

The Northern Office - innovative marketing support uses proper search engine optimization techniques when it comes to online marketing and reputation management. TNO creates websites for its clients that are search friendly and rank very well in major search engines.

TNO also provides an array of services like Content development, Social Media and many more. If you need help in making your brand dominate the front page or If you need an assessment of your SEO efforts for your website , click here.

What is Marketing?, Marketing is often considered as something that you do to generate revenue. It involves creating new products and spreading information about that product to your potential customers. It deals about selling maintaining that good relationship that you have with them which benefits both the customer and the marketer. But most of all its all about making money. Some say that marketing is EASY- that is you could instantly make a sale, but in reality IT’S NOT. Marketing involves a lot of work. As they say “patience is a virtue”, well you would have to agree with that specially if you are a marketer. Work hard and you get better results. Here are some tips to help you along the way: · Remember, You can not always please everyone, so be ready for anything that could happen. Learn to keep in touch with your clients it might make things better. · Be ready to mingle around with people that you might not like, but when you are a marketer you have to keep and get new clients even if you have to fake a smile or so sometimes. · Make sure that you like the people you work with, this is very important, how do you expect to come up with good output at work if you cannot even discuss details about your marketing plan with your colleagues. Misunderstandings happen but when you are working with people that you are comfortable with, you can freely share your ideas. You marketing is not for you if you do not know how to deal with different kinds of people everyday. Also, a little humor does not hurt, Laugh and go with the flow. · In Marketing it does not really matter how good you were in school, what matters is that you have what it takes to make your customers happy. · Having a background in Marketing would be great only if you knew how to apply it in the market. You could be the king of kings when it comes to knowing every technical thing in Marketing, but know this, you WILL make a mistake, and when you do, dust yourself off and learn from it. · Change is fast and inevitable. You have to always be in tune with what’s new and what’s innovative! but make sure not to jump on everything too quick. Think first! Research and be creative. Having a complete marketing plan is the key to be able to generate revenue and to develop a working two-way communication between you and your target market. · Finally, Do not market anything that you do not like! Try out and get to know the products of your clients. If you know how good the product is then you could market it easily.
The Northern Office is an innovative marketing consultancy firm in the Philippines, and we are always on the lookout for aggressive and confident marketers! Could you be one of them? Send us your resume with a cover letter via email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Northern Office can help companies in the Philippines and abroad develop and convey the perfect marketing message to specific target markets.  Contact us today for a free marketing consultation and get your marketing plan on the right track!Telephone No: (+63) 45 499-1082 SMS No: 0928-552-5957
Wednesday, 01 December 2010 09:09

First Weekly Roundup

It is important to make sure your online press release efforts help boost your company’s search engines rankings, it is also essential to consider what happens after people stumble upon your news releases. Do not forget that you are not just writing for search engines. Effective press releases are targeted toward both search engines and readers. Here are some tips:

  • Make headlines convincing. Press release headlines should be short and catchy. Make each word count.
  • Hook the reader with the first paragraph. The first line should be enticing, concise and direct to the point. It should summarize the five W’s: who, what, where, when and why.
  • Use anchor text links. Hyperlink your keywords to pages on your blog that are optimized for the same keywords to ensure that when press release syndication network distributes the content, your keywords are still hyperlinked to the content that you are promoting.
  • Put a strong invitation for action. You have caught your reader’s attention, now you should invite them to take action. This could be for them to visit the blog, subscribe via RSS or sign up for email alerts on new posts.
  • Choose an interesting press release topic. You should publish a release about your most popular posts. Focus your release on the trend.
The Northern Office is a marketing consultancy firm specializing in innovative marketing support for SME’s.  TNO provides an array of services Online Marketing, Content Development, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing etc.    Other marketing activities are also being utilized to further reach and interact with the online audience, like press releases, news letters, forums and sales support.  Contact us now for a marketing consultancy.

MSNBot is about to retire and its predecessor, BingBot, is taking over. To make the technicalities clearer, below is a list of what to expect from this new crawler:

 

Name change in user agent name: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0 +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)

HTTP header form: bingbot(at)microsoft.com

Important reminders:

1. Implementation will start on October 1st. Shortly thereafter, other MSNBot crawlers will be phased out. No change will be seen in its performance.

2. Review server configurations in case adjustments are needed.

3. BingBot will still recognize all applicable robots.txt directives, including those of MSNBot. On the date of implementation, BingBot will take precedence on detection of separate sets of custom directives for both MSNBot and BingBot robots.txt.

4. Bing is now powering Yahoo! so it is important for it to have the same access to your site as given to MSNBot.

5. No changes done for IP addresses.

6. Crawl rate is not affected.

7. Use standard search engine optimization (SEO) methods.

This new spider is an opportunity to maximize your online presence. Check your web logs now to see the new crawler.

Need help in assessing your online presence? Click here.

 

 

 

 

Google recently announced the completion of a new indexing system called Caffeine.  Caffeine provides 50% fresher results for web searches and it’s the largest collection of web content. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.  (source) Online content has become more valuable when it comes to indexing your website. Unique, relevant and viral content is KING! The Northern Office (TNO) – innovative marketing support – has always impressed upon our clients the importance of their content for the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of their websites. For example, Oasis Park Hotel is a budget friendly business and tourist hotel in Manilawhose online presence was limited. TNO researched and developed their website’s content to include topics relevant or within the scope of their industry. With the proper SEO techniques in place, the website, steadily increased in ranking and now appears in top search results right beside other leading hotels in Manila. [caption id="attachment_80" align="aligncenter" width="300"]Oasis Park Hotel Manila Oasis Park Hotel Manila Website[/caption] Another example is the work we’ve done for High Performance Floors Inc (HPFI)the leading supplier and installer of flooring systems in the Philippines. Content development also covers niche topics where in keyword density is very low. These are great opportunities to rank in search engines and also gain solid sales leads. General industry keywords and niche keywords are now ranking in top results for HPFI which includes “vinyl flooring in the Philippines,” “Flotex Philippines,” “airport flooring solutions,” “Stonhard Philippines,” etc. [caption id="attachment_81" align="aligncenter" width="311"]High Performance Floors Inc High Performance Floors Inc Website[/caption] TNO continually conductscontent research and developmentfor clients in order to further expand and update content for websites, blogs and other online communication channels. Existing content must also be re-evaluated regularly to better target changing keyword trends. Social Media is also an important aspect in today’s marketing mix. Content – text, images and videos – also play and integral part in Social Media and is considered by Google when it comes to ranking. Is your content search engine optimized? Help Google Caffeine index your content and increase your search engine results ranking. Contact TNO for a free assessment of SEO efforts for your website!

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