Jeremy Web[b]

Over the holiday period we have been doing a lot of thinking about what 2010 holds for the internet marketing community.

Here are our thoughts about what is happening, what might happen and what you might do in response.

We all know that for ecommerce, a good Google ranking is very important. However, Google now consists of various "flavours" of search - you have the main listings, news, images, video and shopping.

The shopping results can be an excellent way to appear in Google listings, particularly in competitive markets. The shopping listings have their own ranking algorithm, but my common sense approach says that if you supply full, honest and influential text about your products in the Title and Description, you'll get views and clicks.

Getting listed in the Shopping results used to be a difficult process, until Ian Wright's brilliant Joomla Google Base  extension for Virtuemart.

It's the curse of the early adopter. You either find yourself surfing the new wave of technology, or getting beaten up by the dumping surf of disappointment.

Windows Vista was very much the latter experience. A simple "upgrade" of a pretty up to date machine turned into two frustrating days of hardware upgrades, re-installs, and driver hunting.

When I was offered a release candidate copy of Windows 7 two months ago, I was naturally reluctant. However, I have to say, it has been a brilliant experience and I'll explain why I like it and offer some guidance as to whether you should upgrade.

Further to my recent article "link building top 10 tips", here are some free addons to Firefox that make identifying great link partners easy and fast.

I was asked to do another web site report recently for an online supplier of business cards.

They were already using an SEO company, so I thought things would be pretty well sorted. I was surprised to find a number of sub-optimal "on page" factors that would have a  very detrimental effect on ranking, traffic and hence sales.

Great domain names are in very short supply and as any economist will tell you, where there is scarcity, there is value.

If you have tried to buy a domain name for any venture, you will be only too aware that there are few "good" names left among the most popular top level domains (TLDs) like .com and .co.uk.

Just back from the final talk in the "Alternative MBA" series organised by Esquire Magazine. The topic was "Entrepreneurship" and the guest speaker, Will King founder of the King of Shaves. Again the venue was the Maddox Club in Mayfair, London.

Will King proved to be a natural and interesting speaker interviewed by Henry Farrar-Hockley, and the Monkey Shoulder whisky cocktails were as tasty as ever!

It was a good start to what turned out to be a great day at the Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust  (PSYBT) Annual Volunteer Conference. Checking my email in a quiet corner of the Edinburgh International Conference centre, a familar looking blonde asked if she could take a seat. A quick glance confirmed it to be Michelle Mone, the millionaire entrepereur and marketer behind the Ultimo Bra range. 

I'm just on my way back from an interesting evening at the Maddox Club in Mayfair, London. This was the venue for the second in a trio of lectures in the Esquire Magazine "Alternative MBA" dealing with marketing.

The guest speaker was Trevor Beattie, a name that you might not be familiar with, but you have almost certainly seen his work. His company, Beattie McGuinness Bungay is the creative force behind hugely successful marketing campaigns for brands like Wonderbra ("Hello Boys") FCUK, Carling, and now Virgin Galactic. 

We've been experimenting with Twitter a lot more recently, as it seems to be reaching a critical mass. Whether it grows and stabilises to become a useful tool, or fizzles out once people get exhausted from information overload, only time will tell.

Certainly at the moment, it is an excellent way to connect to and develop relationships with an extraordinary range of people.

One thing that seems to be an issue at the moment is Twitter server overload. Occasionally though the day, the site goes down, to be replaced with the "fail whale" graphic and a request to try again soon.

So, some creative type thought...what if Hitler had used Twitter...