Mobile marketing has closely followed the fast ascent of smartphone penetration around the globe. Developed markets like that of the US, UK, much of Europe, several countries in Africa, and across Asia and the Pacific have seen marked growth in the use of smartphones. What is most relevant to SEO companies and social media marketing professionals, however, is the fact that search behavior has grown along with the adoption of the smartphone. People are using them to conduct their internet searchers more and more thus opening up the opportunity for businesses to conduct paid search and SEO campaigns to target the mobile searchers. Now Google is looking to the developing markets in Latin America as regions ripe for Android predicting them to take off in the coming years.

On this blog, I have touched on the importance of catering SEO efforts to the local context of a particular culture in many different posts. It is the underlying theme of my international SEO writing as it is massively important for brands and yet it is not done enough. When businesses expand their operations into different cultures or countries, the people that make up their audience changes based on culture, language, and the political-judicial landscape that they find themselves operating in.

New chapters in the case for social media marketing seem to be made on a monthly or even weekly basis. The medium has allowed for the close communication between businesses and their various audiences, including their valued customer base. Facebook revolutionized the business transition to social media, Twitter followed, and now the likes of Pinterest and Google+ are vying for their social relevance and value. Each brings a different element to the table as so they should, in order to differentiate themselves from one another and offer separate functionality. Talking to social media experts and search engine optimization consultants who integrate SEO and social media efforts into integrated campaigns, there are many valuable ways to engage with audiences in the social space. Now, the latest innovative use of social media is to use it not only to track what customers are saying about beloved discontinued products but also to ask what it is they want back - and then deliver on what they find out.

Google does pioneer many innovative features on the web from their Maps offerings down the line, and their Google Translation has been assisting users for six years now. But, it has been announced that Gmail users will be able to utilize an auto-translation feature to translate text to their language of choice from now on. The email feature uses technology pioneered for the Google Translation service that has been continuously refined through the years. These two features are an example of how Google uses its search technologies to advance other areas of service. Google Translate accesses hundreds of millions of human translated documents online and looks for patterns to make highly educated guesses regarding the nature of the content to be translated, its context, and what the most appropriate translation would be.

International SEO is increasingly relevant for businesses that are looking to either grow their presence in a new international market or expand their operations into a new country. Either way, businesses are trying to maximize their online exposure and cater their marketing efforts to their new environment engaging with their new audiences.  International SEO encompasses all the online search engine optimization work that enables web searchers in a particular market (bound by culture or borders) to discover the brand and avail of its products and services considering the culture and language of the searchers.

The concepts of organizational identity, image, and reputation are important in business operations, especially for the strategy that is engaged in by business decision-makers as well as the outward communication that a company extends. There are various understandings of each term both in the working sector and within scholarly research in the academic realm.  SEO agencies can help businesses shape all three in their conceptualization and implementation through their online presence.

Google has been no stranger to legal issues with investigations being conducted into privacy and antitrust matters among others for a considerable period now in all corners of the word. 

Businesses across industries have become more interested in corporate social responsibility (CSR) over the past decade than in any time previously. What constitutes CSR varies but it generally covers the equitable operation and often the "giving back" from businesses.  To mitigate harmful impact to the environment and the wellbeing of the communities impacted by a business' operations, it can make conscious choices as to the way they source materials, manufacture their goods or deliver their services, the way they treat their employees, and interact with local or impacted communities.

Local search has gotten much attention across the web in addition from us here on the WebiMax blog as the importance of it for business marketing is clear. Local search is extremely prevalent and will only increase in its occurrence among web searchers and smartphone users in the years to come. Now, recent research from comScore with the 2012 Localeze Local Search Usage Study shows some new numbers that give a look deeper inside local search and why it is so important for consumers.

We write across subjects on this blog - Jason has written a good amount on social media recently, and Anthony on public relations and relationship building just today. So when you look across subjects one central element that runs through is the importance of engagement. Or more specifically - purposeful engagement. Whether in forming professional relationships in person or through a digital medium, connecting with customers through social media, or reaching out to past customers, one of the ever-present goals is purposeful engagement. What is meant by this is that when marketers connect with audience members, they want it to be meaningful and impactful, inspiring them and moving them to action. Marketers need this communication to hold value for the audience members and not just be token promotion or commenting.

Social media and video marketing are increasingly more important in the internet marketing efforts of businesses. More people are online and searching for business information than ever before and videos that businesses create and then promote can increase the exposure businesses get and the ability to build their outward image and communicate a specific message. All of this can be wrapped up neatly in a short video that is tastefully shot and skillfully produced with even small features such as text, images, and transitions.

The Internet has changed many things, the least of which how people get their news and consume information, as well as businesses promote themselves and connect with their audiences. For decades the work of PR has been kept to a handful of broad forms of media - print, TV, radio, and live in-person events. For a while now, the internet has been changing how businesses connect with their audiences in order to extend their message and purposefully engage. In short, more is possible, and the new functions that are emerging leverage the power and reach of the internet. Social media and SEO are two elements of online marketing that essentially change the landscape of PR and enable businesses to do achieve more by doing more.

With continued increases in the sales of goods and services through online platforms both here in the US and abroad, there exists several standard musts for companies in order to succeed. These are not necessarily groundbreaking or even new recommendations, but new research out regarding the industry in international markets suggest e-commerce companies are not engaging in these important practices. They are slow to fully embrace the realities of what is needed in order to succeed in the online retail industry. As a result, call them principles, practices, or strategies, but they absolutely need to be implemented to the specifications and needs of each business. Simply put, e-commerce companies must engage in these activities:

Again, this title is tongue-in-cheek, as there is certainly no one size fits all plan, as the implementation of one would achieve only mediocre results, miss out on great potential, and potentially damage a brand's image in certain markets. There are strategy points that can be catered to each market, though, and one underlying guiding principle - understand each local context, what is popular, what the trends are, what the web behaviors are, and what characterizes their online activity to name a few elements ,and analyze how your business can operate in that market. With this post, we are continuing the subject and now addressing social media in Europe.

Yes, that title is tongue-in-cheek, as there is certainly no one size fits all plan. Reading any of my previous writings here, if there is one recurrent theme or underlying message toward international SEO and internet marketing in a new international market, it is that marketers must cater to the new context. They need to do their homework in understanding the local environment and how culture, language, and the societal structure (political, judicial, etc.) will impact the operations of the business - and act accordingly.

In yesterday's post, I opened the discussion of Twitter's varied use by non-marketers and covered two interesting and innovative applications of the technology. The first is that of Francis Kariuki (@Chiefkariuki), the Kenyan administrative chief that uses twitter to get important messages out to his community members. Secondly, we looked at the twitter bot named Where's My Bus (@whensmybus) which offers travelers real-time London bus information.

Twitter is impressive, the technology itself in what it allows you to do but also in how people are actually using it to improve how they interact with the world around them on a daily basis. The platform has seen solid growth and now has over 100 million active users, those that sign in at least once a month. The US slice of Twitter use is expected to rise to 21 million this year (eMarketer) as people continue to see worth in its use, even if to simply track that which they find interesting rather than creating and sharing content themselves.

The Microsoft-Yahoo Search Alliance that began in 2009 is coming to the end of its full roll-out in the UK, Ireland, and France. The Search Alliance started a few years ago with Microsoft's Bing powering Yahoo search and transitioning the advertising activity on each search platform to Microsoft's adCenter. The transition has been smooth, but has taken considerable time to manage all the moving parts of such a transition for large companies and the synchronization of behavior and function for all the current adCenter users.

Purposeful targeting to drive traffic is the essential point of both organic SEO and paid search. Utilizing tools in each mode of internet marketing allows for the catering of specific messages to different contexts. This assists the ability to split test ads for paid search and bring localized web searchers to your web properties in terms of SEO. Now, new zip-code and location functionality out this week from Google allows for marketers using AdWords to target over 30,000 ZIP codes offering a greater ability to more specifically cater the ad message to a specific location. Similarly, "Location Insertion," another new feature, gives marketers the freedom to establish a single ad and have information placed into that ad depending on the locations of the search queries that initiate it. The two features are considered location extensions in AdWords, and they have important implications for businesses partnering with SEO companies in an effort to increase paid search spend and traffic.

Twitter, the most popular microblogging site on the internet, offers instantaneous communication and unique engagement opportunities for businesses to connect with members of their audience. Twitter indeed offers two-way communication, but a recent study by Conversocial shows that many big businesses, within retail clothing in this case, do not engage in two-way communication with their customers, and if they do it is limited. On social platforms other than Twitter, customers can message businesses directly, comment, and reach other in other ways.

Today's post continues where yesterday's left off regarding the state of internet in Mexico, and further down what its advancement means for businesses and SEO. The difference in web use and access between urban and rural areas in the country is great, and closing this gap is important for internet's growth. In cities with more than 15,000 people (where 71% of Mexican homes are) only 40% have a computer and 30% are online. In the almost 190,000 Mexican towns under 2,5000 people, only 6% of the homes have a computer and only 3% are online. Penetration isn't terribly high in urban areas, and the drop-off to rural regions is significant. Reasons are infrastructure, the inability of many to afford computers, and the lack of education in the use of computers within some populations. The government has taken some actions already to make the technology more widely available and has set some goals to be reached by 2015:

I haven't spent that much time discussing the internet and the potential for internet marketing and SEO in Latin American -yet. It has been an area that just hasn't received great attention. This is largely due to the fact that internet penetration in Latin America has been slow and the market for building an optimized online presence is not fully developed. Thus is the nature of developing markets, they hold great potential, but each country's situation is different - it depends on whether they are three years, six years, or more from entering a space where they have the infrastructure, support, business presence, and computing public to push for all the benefits the internet brings. A developed internet landscape not only brings a market for internet advertising and SEO, but it also brings marked social and economic benefits in terms of international development and progress. A McKinsey study interestingly addresses this very point.

The major sporting vent in the UK this summer is a truly global event with people from all corners of the world not only participating but following and supporting the actual events and accompanying activities. Many will travel to the UK to see the events and festivities in person, but for the millions of fans that will not, media coverage will be expansive to bring the happenings to everyone else. The committee guiding the major event in the UK has pushed the events in various ways online and through social media in years past, but this year the efforts are enhanced and more purposeful creating more engagement and an improved experience for fans.

The e-commerce numbers are growing across the globe and daily deal sites are a large reason for the sector's growth. Looking specifically at the Italian market, the growth and role of daily deal sites in e-commerce is no different. According to leading industry executives, companies like Groupon and LetsBonus are surging in Italy and contributed to the country's double-digit growth in 2011 online retail sales. The presence and success of these sites is noteworthy and the degree to which they continue to grow and attract online shoppers will greatly affect the trajectory of the e-commerce industry both in Italy and other markets. As such, looking at the future of this sector, internet retailers have an opportunity to employ specific practices, among them being SEO, to push coupon sites forward driving more traffic and growing conversions.

There is news seemingly coming out daily regarding the possibilities that smartphones present businesses in terms of widening exposure and growing business. This is essentially because of all the sectors that smartphones and their functionality and features touch. The impact is clearly seen and only growing in the years to come especially regarding mobile local searching both at home in the US (where smartphone adoption has just reached the 50% mark) and abroad.

I have written about cultural characteristics often on this blog to affirm their importance for proper international SEO and general internet marketing efforts that are catering to specialized or international markets. [One side note is that cultures are not restricted solely to countries, as groups within an overall culture can have their own specific cultures with accompanying tendencies]. Understanding how they impact your business is paramount and it requires doing the necessary research on the local contexts and establishing how best to accurately adapt web content and messaging to improve the customer connection, among other things. International SEO companies work to assist businesses with their strategy and actions in this regard and help them gain a greater foothold on various international markets.

Businesses must cater to each local context - have I said that before on this blog? Yes, it is a recurring theme but only because it holds great utility for businesses and it bears consistent repeating. This is especially the case when others are offering the same advice, like say Tom Smith, managing director of the market research firm GlobalWebIndex.

I have written a good amount on the importance of local search for businesses with the rise in smartphones and more specifically, the rise in web searching on smartphones. The rate of search is impressive. In a recent Google study, 99% of global respondents indicated they use search engines on their smartphone, and searching for local businesses is one of the most popular searches. The essential point on this if you are unfamiliar, is that SEO companies and marketers can assist businesses that cater to local audiences by increasing their presence on local-centered platforms and features. SEO for geo-targeted search terms and optimizing pages on local features such as Google Places will improve the online visibility of businesses when searchers enter queries for their industry in their geographic area.

In yesterday's post, I looked at Google Autocorrect and how a Romanian brand responded to the unfavorable suggested terms for the Google search query "Romanians are…" launching a "Romanian are smart" campaign. The campaign was successful and more attractive terms replaced the undesired ones. Businesses and individuals can find themselves in similar reputation management cases where they seek the services of SEO companies to resolve the issue. Check out that post for thoughts on what companies can do in such a scenario. However, today we look again at Google's Autocorrect, but this time in relation to Japan and the object of unfavorable suggested terms is an individual rather than a nationality.

As search is their primary function and market, Google continually works to improve the search experience on their platform for their end-users. Google consistently rolls out improvements to their algorithm and search approach, some larger (such as Google Search Plus Your World) and some smaller (such as the continuous geo-targeting refinements), but all are detailed in their company blog, which is an important way that marketers and SEO experts keep abreast of the latest from the search giant.