Internet Marketing News
When Victoria, B.C. consumers abd customers search for local businesses services, how important is a geographic marker?
Huge.
According to a recent survey by PEW Internet, 1,087 adults (age 18 and older) were interviewed about their habits when searching for local businesses and restaurants. They were asked about both their online and offline searches and which they were more likely to do.
Approximately 60% of respondents say they get news and information about local businesses other than restaurants and bars. When they use the Internet, 47% say they rely most on search engines (36%), specialty websites (16%), and social network sites like Twitter (1%).
Other respondents relied on newspapers (31%), word of mouth from family and friends (22%), local TV broadcasts or the websites of local stations (8%) and local radio (5%).
As users move away from traditional media and resources such as phone directories they require clear and concise information on location and local availability.
It is important to market your business to every local citation site available, including Google Place, Yelp, Yellow Pages, City Search, and many other sites will help boost your rankings.
Also, be sure that when listing on local Google Places like sites, you are listing everything exactly the same. So, if you have a Victoria website, ensure that your address, phone number, and all information is the SAME in all Victoria, B.C. indexes. This will help you rank better and come up above your competitors. If anything is different, it will not help you as much as if everything is exactly the same on all local listing sites and indexes.
Internet Explorer update procrastinators look out!
Come January, Microsoft will start forcing users to update from older versions of Internet Explorer. But don’t fret: if you have Automatic Updates enabled in Windows Update, the update will occur seamlessly and worry free.
Microsoft already provides security updates to Internet Explorer through Windows Update. However, under the forced update, legacy browser users will see a full-browser upgrade. This means Windows XP users on Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 will be upgraded to version 8, and Windows Vista users will be upgraded to Internet Explorer 9.
According to Microsoft, a big motivating factor to introduce the forced upgrades is security risks. The latest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report indicates that malware is an enormous threat facing computer user as malware often goes after security holes in browsers.
According to Microsoft, forced updates will first be introduced to Windows users in Brazil and Australia because people there use a broad spread of IE6, IE7, and IE8.
According to Reuters, Facebook has launched a new suicide-prevention tool that's meant to give users a direct link to an online chat with counsellors who can help.
Friends are able to report suicidal behaviour by clicking a report option next to any piece of content on the site and choosing suicidal content under the harmful behavior option, Facebook spokesman Frederic Wolens said.
Facebook will then email the user in distress a direct link for a private online chat with a crisis representative from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline as well as the group's phone number.
The new tool gives people who may not be comfortable picking up the phone a direct avenue to seek help.
""This was a natural progression from something we've been working on for a long time," Wolens said.
Users also have the ability to report suicidal behavior by going to the site's Help Center or search for suicide reporting forms. They can also use reporting links around the site.
Worried friends who reported the behavior will also receive a message to say it is being addressed, Wolens said.
Facebook, the most popular Web-based social networking site, has more than 800 million active users worldwide. The Palo Alto, California-based company was co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004.
The new suicide reporting tool will be made available to people who use Facebook in the United States and Canada.
Wolens said that all reporting on the site is done anonymously and so a distressed user will not know who reported the suicidal content.