The future of my website project...

As most of you know I run a website called nowtweet.it, a free URL shortener aimed at Twitter users. The site is pretty friendly at the moment but I’m still trying to further develop it and I thought I’d share with you some of my plans for the site.

Firstly, and maybe most importantly, I want to integrate a tweet feed onto the homepage, displaying the most recent @nowtweetit post, in order to keep the site fresh and provide some new readable content for regular visitors. This is all in accordance with my brand engagement of the site to encourage loyal users.

Secondly, I want more prominent social sharing widgets on the site. A ‘follow nowtweet.it on Twitter’ button, or something along those lines, and a more obvious link to the blog. This is further to develop the social presence of the site, which most competitors have failed to do well.

There are also some small development issues to look at, an update all the site copy and titles/descriptions etc and some meta stuff. This is all to give Google something to mull over during the next few months. 

Finally, in terms of future of the site, I am thinking of bringing in a new optimisation and wbesaite auditing service for small business, but keep your eyes posted on this and it could be potential big news!

Peace out xx

The world of nowtweet.it

As most of you know, I run my own website nowtweet.it

It dawned on me today how much work I have put in around it!


The build of the site + writing the copy, testing, promoting etc
The initial Google AdWords campaign
The setting up and promotion of a Twitter page (+ ongoing tweets)
The setting up of a nowtweet.it blog (+ ongoing posts)
The revised Google Adwords campaign with multiple Ad Groups
The Facebook company page and attracting follows
The Facebook Ad promoting the fan page (focusing on impressions)
The LinkedIn Ad promoting the site (focusing on impressions)
The LinkedIn company page
Monetising the website and blog with Google Adsense
Putting Facebook 'Like' buttons onto the blog


I hope the popularity of the site goes from strength to strength after all this effort. Its been less than 3 months and the site has already created around 1250 links, with over 22,000 clicks of those links.


Nowtweet.it is the best and easiest URL Shortener around, and I hope you agree!

Brighton SEO Conference 2011

Brighton SEO took place on Friday; a full day of pure SEO geekery! (yeah, so what? :P). The event has grown over the last 3 years from what was a handful of professionals in a pub, to 160 enthusiastic SEO and digital marketing pioneers.

The proceedings kicked off early from 8.30am, where a bombardment of keen SEO's starting registering and taking their seats in the theatre.  People were pushing through the queues, eager to get in. This was typical form for an SEO, always desperate to get to number 1! :P


The day started with a debate on the future existence of SEO, which was actually great! You could see a few bodies squirming in their seats questioning their job security, but the message at the end was constructive. SEO needs to move away from a technical exercise and be treated with more of a marketing discipline. Anticipating the site users wants, needs and behaviour. Things not even Google can know.


Speakers for the day included expects in their relevant fields from Fresh Egg, iCrossing, White Hat Media, Clearleft, Leapfrogg, Propeller Net and Site Visibility. All the talks were well recieved, short and sweet at 20mins a piece, they packed punch, content and some humour. The day was smoothly run by Site Visibility and Kelvin Newman deserves a lot of credit for keeping the day running so smoothly!


What were my highlights? I found the Social Media metrics that Fresh Egg demonstrated early in the day fascinating. It's good to see that social media is starting to become more measurable. Another highlight was from Clearleft, a Brighton based UI company. Harry spoke about Dark Patterns and bad practice in terms of user experience and site design.


It was a great day and there's very positive feedback across the board. It was a great place to network and i really did discover the digital marketing scene is full of nice guys, it isn't cliquey or arrogant. The next Brighton SEO will surely be another great conference.


Twitter:


@FreshEgg
@SiteVisibility
@LeapFrogg
@WhiteHatMedia
@ClearLeft
@iCrossingUK
@PropellerNet
@KelvinNewman


Check the stream out too @ #BrightonSEO

My new Twitter URL Shortening Service :)

Last week I launched my own URL shortener to compete against giants such as ow.ly, bit.ly, TinyUrl and others.


I never had the intention of become as big as those, but i wanted to offer an alternative to the big ones, which I don't think come across that friendly. I wanted the most simple user experience possible, with a great, friendly interface, and a nice brand and copywriting. I decided to specifically target Twitter users, as there are a lack of URL shorteners specifically designed for Twitter, probably the most used social platform of URL shorteners.


Now tweet it!


It's been live for 5 days, and has generated well over 100 uses, with an average of 14 clicks on each link produced. Coupled with a basic Google Ads campaign, nowtweet.it has created over 25,000 impressions on search.
I'm really optimistic about the site, and I've had some great feedback. If you haven't checked it out yet, take it a little peak! ;)


nowtweet.it