Here is a brief round up of 2011:

2011 saw the the roll out of Google+. It was reported as having up to 10 million users within the first 24 hours or launch. Since launch we have been keeping a watchful eye on its progress. There seems to be a lot of interest surrounding its future and the significance of the +1 feature in search algorithms. This year we have seen a massive increase in global brands and our clients adopting social media marketing into their online and campaign strategies, and some of the results have been spectacular.

Google’s Panda update in 2011 affected a number of global high ranking sites and gave headaches to a number of webmasters, with Google now paying much more attention to spelling and grammar. Globally, Google accounts for an astounding 80% of all searches [http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4] so it’s well worth fixing any mistakes quickly.

January saw Twitter lifting all censorship on political and controversial content. Twitter is still the primary source of breaking news and celeb gossip and despite fierce competition is still growing in new user sign ups.

And who could forget about Facebook reaching 800 million users in September! [okay, that one may have passed you by if you aren't spending as much time as us tracking social media usage!]

Finally 2011 has undeniably been the year of mobile smartphones; mobile online users have enjoyed more app services, delivering a more streamlined user & buying experience. This increase has led to mobile marketing and reaching users on the go as a key driver for commercial growth.

We look forward to posting again soon.

The new Google sitelinks are here and they will certainly help brands dominate the search results page. The biggest help will be found with users able to bypass the homepage and find key sections on the website.

The growth and development of online marketing has been vast over the past few years, with smart phones, the iPad, mobile marketing, social media, viral marketing and the insane growth of internet and social networking use. (For an idea of what’s coming next, have a look at Trendwatching.com’s Crucial Consumer Trends for 2011.)

Here are some of our favourite 2010 stats:

Facebook grew by over 30% last year, now boasting 500 million users

Top Google search terms were dominated by social media, with users looking for Facebook, YouTube and MySpace. The social network giant Facebook nabbed over 3% of all searches in 2010.

For a handy Twitter roundup (and so I don’t have to go and research it all), check out the Most Powerful Tweets of 2010

I love Time’s Best Blogs of 2010 list, which shows that no matter how much information we have access to for free on the internet, most of us are still going to end up looking at humorous sites like CakeWrecks, Sh*t My Kids Ruined and The Oatmeal for cheap laughs. And if we’re not doing that, we’re searching for the next must-have technology or the coolest designs. Interesting also is that TechCrunch is voted ‘essential’ and Mashable ‘overrated’ this year.

The most watched YouTube videos revolved around music, parodies and humour (albeit annoying oranges saying “Whazzzzup!”). A representation for social media marketing took number 5 with The Old Spice Man, but my favourite has to be OK Go’s video for This Too Shall Pass:

This year, we’ve covered a huge range of subjects in the Ikroh Blog, and we’ve listed a few of our top posts below, in case you missed them.

Google I/O Site Review Session – SEO Troubleshooting With Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts posted the site review session from Google I/O 2010 yesterday – troubleshooting a selection from the 500+ sites sent in for a little R&D following a generous offer on his blog… (read more)

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Social Media Marketing (But Were Afraid to Ask)

The live chats at the Vocus webinar a few weeks ago were fantastically lively and informative, with participants answering as well as asking questions that were posed to the scheduled speakers, Deidre Breakenridge, David Meerman Scott, Beth Harte, Lee Odden and Brian Solis. As time was tight, not all the questions were answered, so we thought we’d scoop some up from the logs and try to give some insights… (read more)

Good Blogging – The Power of the Ewoks!

How do you keep your blog interesting and popular? By programming a mini troupe of AI Ewoks to cavort across your homepage every time someone visits your site? By offering a free back massage to every subscriber? (This would be more effective if you regularly stop traffic whilst out for a jog.) By hosting exclusive real time streaming of an underground Apple VS Google fight club? Yes to all the above. Though they might need some tweaking…

Keeping your blog exciting and interesting is not always easy but is worth the challenge. Producing a blog can be vital for increasing search engine optimisation ranks and delivering important information clearly. From a search perspective, search engines thrive on sites producing fresh and new content, so it’s imperative to make your content unique and engaging… (read more)

And Finally…

Ikroh is a fast-paced, full service digital marketing agency with a fantastic, friendly team and a massive collective experience combining creative ideas, strategy & technology. We’d like to thank our clients and readers for being a part of what Ikroh is today. All this is possible because of you.

Wishing all our clients and readers a very merry Christmas and a great New Year!

We’re off to Social Collective in London on Thursday, for some social media mingling, a great line up of speakers and, um… lots of free food.

Social Collective promises to:

“bring together collective thoughts on Social Media for 2011… looking forward into the bigger picture about how we communicate within the platforms and how we measure and integrate Social Media into our strategies, customer service and marketing campaigns.”

The agenda goes as follows:

Social Media Secrets: Observations, shortcuts and juicy nuggets of insight from the brands that know the truth about social communication – by Katy Howell

Measurement and Insight: The Rights and Wrongs - by Brad Little (Key Note Speaker)

Social Opportunities for Brands in 2011 – by Paul Harrison (Key Note Speaker)

Can B2B Really be Social? – by Andrew Gerrad

#SoTech Open Debate on Marketing, Advertising, PR in the Era of Social.

Project Social Clarity – by Chris Hall (Key Note)

CNN Global Research Study – by Didier Mormesse

The speakers will cover a range of subjects, including: best practices in social media, creating an integrated strategy, brand monitoring, measurement and insight, social tools for businesses and the evolution of ‘social business’.

We’re looking forward to it, and will be furiously typing up notes throughout to post here next week for those of you who couldn’t attend.

With the broad acceptance of social media as an integral part of online business and marketing, we’re now looking to the future and how social media is going to develop and help shape business practice and interaction in the years to come. Ikroh are always looking for new ways to help our clients perform fantastically online – we’re like an excitable labrador, licking your face – friendly, enthusiastic and loyal, and if you take on Ikroh, you can guarantee results.

We’re all bit chuffed here at Ikroh HQ, since we’ve been ranked in the top ten for our Seach Engine Optimisation in TopSEO’s BEST UK SEO COMPANIES category this month.

Ikroh’s Managing Director, Daniel Wright says:

“We are a small company delivering BIG results in the marketplace and this is only possible because of our great team! Thanks to everyone for achieving Top 10 in Search Engine Optimisation UK.”

So… can we get a “woop woop!” from everyone at the back please?

Woop woop!

#1, here we come….

Friday, Ikroh’s in Love…

We are a loving bunch here at Ikroh. Group hugs are common in the office, sushi is shared, children are entertained and our coffee cups runneth over. “Ikroh Loves…” is a weekly post dedicated to the web wanderings of our team and the multimedia we’ve come across and are feeling the love for; apps, music, photos, design, video, articles, news, tools, guides and sites. If you’re similarly loved up, go ahead and submit your own beloved wanderings as a comment or an email and we might just agree with you and post them here.

Without further ado, here are this week’s contenders:

App:

The Sky News iPhone App – Keep updated on whatever news floats your boat with easily navigated tabs organised by subject and no ads to get in the way. You can view videos, get text alerts and even submit your own reports. (We’re all into apps right now because of Top Secret developments at Ikroh regarding iPhone and Android to help with Social Media Marketing and SEO… Watch this space.)

Images:

36 Features the iPhone Definitely Didn’t Get – Winning suggestions in a photoshop contest on Gizmodo, include a lightsaber, not one but TWO itoasters, bacon maker (our fave) and  boob authentication (well, in the world of geeks it was inevitable to have something boob-related submitted) to name but a few.

Website:

Awkward Family Photos – if you haven’t been here before, you’ll spend several hours here now. A comprehensive archive of strange, humorous and disturbing family photos and portraits, submitted by their blushing stars or family members. From the famous “Thanksgiving Letter” to the most heinous display of denim and mullets in the known world, AFP has the length and breadth of excruciating nostalgia.

Happy wandering!

We are proud to show off that we have climbed one place in TopSEO’s June 2010 ranking awards for Search Engine Optimisation. Now in at Number 13 – Ikroh!

We’ve also held our place at Number 5 for Web Audit services – an accomplishment we are extremely pleased with.

TopSEOs says:

“Congratulations. You have exemplified your commitment to excellence. Your firm understands and excels at customer satisfaction, has a great depth of knowledge, and has unique advantages over your competitors.”

Ikroh’s principles have always been high – to provide purely ethical SEO, to work on a one-to-one basis with our clients, shaping and tailoring campaigns to suit everyone, no matter how large or little a company. We care about our customers, and our customers’ customers, and don’t agree with unnecessarily aggressive marketing approaches that fail to connect with people on a personal level.

Ikroh has grown by540 % since 2008 and will one day take over the world have great plans to advance and develop and of course to continue to provide excellent services in SEO, PPC, Web Analytics and Social Media Marketing.

Alison’s work:

Daniel our MD’s work:

The phrase “don’t give up your day job” springs to mind.

TopSEOs looks into many aspects of each SEO company before making its selection. Their evaluation process looks at a company’s knowledge of SEO and the overall customer experience, as well as things that are important for potential clients to consider when choosing an SEO company such as the return on investment.

As a smaller, younger company than many of the others in the top 30, we are proud to see that we are successfully competing with the big UK SEO firms. You can rest assured that we will continue to work hard to drive traffic to all our client’s websites, and increase their return on investment.

As a fellow entrepreneur, our managing director found Julia’s talk uplifting and inspiring. Milton Keynes is known for being a centre for big headquarters, but it is reassuring for younger businesses such as Ikroh to see that there are other vibrant, flourishing new businesses around us. In particular, her observations about the importance of the work-life balance struck a chord with him. Daniel agrees with her that having young children provides both motivation to run your own business and one of the rewards for doing so.

David Bellamy OBE wrote the foreword for the atlas & was at the launch to mingle with the guests and have some press photos taken. Much to the surprise of our MD & his wife, David Bellamy asked to borrow their son for a couple of photos! The 6 month old seemed quite interested in the atlas, grabbing at it, but luckily not trying to eat it as he tends to with everything…with a £2000 price tag that would have been a very expensive teething toy! He was also fascinated by David Bellamy’s beard, and as a seventy-five year old with nine grandchildren of his own, David looked to be very comfortable with a baby in his arms.

As Daniel and his wife left David Bellamy echoed the words in his foreword, telling them to take care of each other. In the foreword to the atlas, he wrote: “Read it with care and then, in the knowledge that Earth is the only home our children and grandchildren are going to inherit, I beg you to treat it with the care it deserves.” The world now has a book encapsulating the earth as it is now. What will it look like when our Managing Director’s little boy is grown up? We can only imagine.

It’s out as a BETA for Windows, “Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier”. It’s an open-source web browser so we are looking forawrd to deleoping a few apps shortly. The Ikroh team are very much looking forward to release of the Mac BETA. We will keep you posted..

Thank you for your understanding.

Ikroh are an SEO & Internet Marketing company