News in the world of internet marketing is filled with talk about Google’s latest venture: Google Buzz. Although I’ve heard a few negative remarks about how Google is trying to have their hand in every internet venue imaginable, word on the street is generally a tone that is interested in this development. I’m not surprised at that combination, since we all love to have the things we want to do on our computers and on the internet packaged up nice and neat, but then we tend to complain when one company provides it. Finding a happy medium in that situation is a bit of a quandary.

After reading about the features promised in Buzz, I am eager to try it out and see what I think of the experience it provides. Let’s take a quick look at some of the features of Buzz:

- Runs through Gmail
- Permits users to post status updates, photos, and links to their network
- Allows users to pull in activity from other sites, including Twitter, Flickr and Picasa
- Will have a mobile component, which can combine with wireless operating systems to include features like voice-recognition postings and a GPS-enabled ability to attach the user’s location to posts
- Enables real time comments, weighting the comments by other users similarly to Google’s search engine results in order to sort through them in a similar fashion to your Google search
- Automatically sets the people you email or chat with frequently as your friends

Despite how Buzz seems to be trying to replace some social networking sites, like Facebook and LinkedIn, while integrating other sites, like Twitter, into the usability of their latest brainchild, Google claims that they aren’t trying to edge in on anyone else’s territory and are just trying “to listen to their users”, according to Gmail product managed Todd Jackson. However, there is talk of Buzz being marketed to companies as an interoffice communication tool, which is definitely a competitive move against AOL Instant Messenger service.

Only time will tell if Buzz will be a success and to what degree. The success may hinge not on what Buzz can do at this moment, but on the potential expansions – from updating your status by phone to enabling Twitter updates through your Buzz account to linking Buzz to other emerging Google tools – and the reception Google receives in the social media arena. And the good news is that Google knows they have their work cut out for them. Spokesman Bradley Horowitz said, “We’re not launching this today because we think we’re done. We don’t think that’s how a product like this is built.”

It’s going to be interesting to watch the progress of this tool and see what kind of audience it ends up getting.

In the online marketing world, we talk a fair bit about driving traffic to your business site. Getting people there is the lion’s share of the battle, or so we all assume. But what if you are getting traffic to your site and then they leave right away? How do you get people to stay?

One thing that comes to mind is driving the right traffic to your site. If you are selling books and the people you get coming to your site are looking for vacations, the vast majority of them will not be buying what you are selling. Sure, one or two might find a book on their vacation spot of choice, but if those couple of people are your entire purchasing power out of one hundred people landing on your site, pretty soon your company will be broke. Or at the very least wondering why your website is ineffective at driving sales. So, the trick really is to get the right people coming to your site.

Carrie Hill’s article “Two Simple Rules for Fixing High Bounce Rate Pages” and assures us that with her two rules, “you can address 75% of the issues caused by high bounce rate pages”. Even if your exact number is not as high as 75%, there is a lot of ground to be gained by following her suggestions and taking a few simple steps in evaluating your website. It’s a winning situation for any business.

The first way is to check the organic phrases used to find your web pages. Determine if those phrases are really phrases that will drive your business. If a potential customer is looking for shoes and finds that you have books about shoes, that customer will just leave in a flash. Targeting your traffic will net more business. Misleading queries will only contribute to your bounce rate.

The second way to make sure that potential customers continue to browse your site and shop is making their path clear and easy once they arrive on your site. The harder it is to figure out where to go next or how to buy an item, the easier it will be for people to just go elsewhere. Make it simple, clear, and easy.

There are many ways to test the ease of use on your business’s webpage, from complex tools to hiring experienced web analysts to just having a few friends do a quick and dirty test. Your choice will depend on how web savvy your business is and how much money you have allocated to the task. Hill suggests using either Attention Wizard or Click Tale to determine where the eye and mouse are going on your page.

No matter how you go about decreasing your bounce rate, it is important to take a bit of time and allocate some resources to this aspect of your online marketing plan. The whole point of internet marketing is to get people to your site who will buy your products and services.

If you have followed me in the past month, seen my video(s), you will know that I have gone Twitter crazy. I’m not sure if it’s an obsession yet, maybe I am still in the denial process, but Twitter is a very interesting social media channel that is full of surprises. What I find most interesting about Twitter is the following: it constantly changes. I realize all the other social media sites change and grow to better suite their customers, however, Twitter just never stops surprising me. Ok, so maybe I will admit it now, sounds like I’m hooked!!

I remember a past blog post I had written on Twitter only having used it for a short period of time. I didn’t really understand it completely and I read tons of articles about it, most of them saying the exact same thing. Create an account, follow people, post interesting information that will keep people following you etc. So, taking the advice from the experts, I did exactly that. However, no one really told me to be patient that it will take a long time. When everyone spoke, it was as if this stuff occurred over night, and that it was a no-brainer. Well, it definitely didn’t occur over night, and it definitely wasn’t an easy task. At least not for me.

I remember thinking what on Earth I was doing on Twitter and how would I ever make this work. It was a slow painful process that involved me following people who weren’t as kind to follow me back. My posts felt like they were reaching no one, and that it was all a waste of time. I was about to give up on Twitter, when I wrote a post on Linkedin. I asked professionals there if they thought Twitter was a waste of time or not. The majority said that it wasn’t, and that I should pursue. So, with a little bit of steam left I stuck with it. What changed my views on Twitter were the following occurrences. An elderly lady on Linkedin had told me Twitter was a waste of time. So I asked her why and she pretty much said the same thing that I was thinking although she sounded like she hadn’t really even done the right things, like follow people. So I told her what everyone else had been telling me and I added in my thoughts and that she should be patient. I told her that we should keep each other updated on our progress. She worked with a women’s group, and it wasn’t even a month later she emailed me excitedly telling me that she had more than 200 followers and that she was thrilled with how Twitter was another means for keeping her women’s group connected outside of their usual meetings. I couldn’t believe that an elderly lady had 1. Surpassed me with followers! 2. Made it her own. She inspired me to soldier forth and I must admit I am rather pleased with my results.

For some unknown reason to me, TV shows have their characters on Twitter, posting about either their show or who knows what. The news keeps people updated on the latest news with tweets. Article sites such as Digg have created various accounts for different categories that you would specifically like to keep updated on, for example if you would just like the science section or articles that have been dug 2,000+ times. Companies are using Twitter to promote sales and events. Inspirational quotes are sent out everyday to keep you up-lifted. Politicians are using Twitter to post their speeches and political views. Celebrities are posting their latest events aswell. I am sure there are more amazing accounts out there that I have yet to find, but Twitter definitely does allow ANY business to express themselves in which ever way they please. Twitter even has an array of tools that you can use to enhance your experience such as Twhirl, Tweetdeck, Twellow, Mr. Tweet, Tweetbeep, Tweetminster, Twithority , Twitterfeed etc

So if you take anything from this post, it is that I truly believe any business or person can use Twitter however they wish. You can use it to chat with your customers, post news or events, post pictures, links to your blog, links to any sort of promotion. Twitter does take time and patience, but once the balls starts rolling you won’t regret having spent the time or money on it.