Saturday, 28 December 2013

The Most Popular Social Sites in Other Countries

Americans tend to think of social networking from a personal perspective, likely in simple terms of Facebook and Twitter and maybe even Pinterest. In reality, though, there are dozens of flourishing social networks across the globe, some of which U.S. residents have never even heard of. Social media is truly a global concept.

Here’s a quick look at some of the most popular social sites in countries other than the U.S. used by millions upon millions of people.

Orkut

Orkut logo You may have never heard of Orkut, but everyone in Brazil has. With over 33,000,000 active and unique users, Orkut is Brazil’s number one social networking site. In fact, almost 60% of Orkut traffic originates in Brazil and the company (originally a branch of Google) was recently relocated from California to the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. Orkut is similar to Google+ in that users separate each other into groups and
share things like video and photos. It’s particularly popular among teens.

Skyrock

Skyrock logoA mainstay in France, Skyrock is a blend of Facebook and MySpace, thematically. It’s a hub for music lovers and radicals where users can blog and post videos and the site is actually the 7th most popular social networking site in the entire world. Brands in France actually use Skyrock to create branded pages for marketing purposes and there are currently over 21 million users.

VK

Never heard of it? It’s actually the second most popular social platform in Europe (after Facebook) and is most used among Russian-speakers. VK was originally called “VKontakte” and borrows heavily from Facebook in terms of design and features. The site averages 43 million daily users and allows members to create pages, tag friends in photos, and play games. English, Russian, and Ukrainian are actually the three “official” languages of the VK platform.

Renren

Everyone’s heard the rumblings of Chinese youth lamenting the fact that Facebook is banned (yes, banned) in the nation. Renren has been dubbed the “Chinese Facebook” as its look and feel are decidedly similar to Mark Zuckerberg’s site. Based in Beijing, Renren is actually a publically-traded company with at least 32,000,000 monthly users, all in China. It’s particularly popular among college students and in in 2007 went open platform, meaning Chinese developers are welcome to add functionalities to the site. Like everything else in China, Renren is heavily regulated by the government.

Cloob

Cloob actually has a nominal number of users, only about 1,000,000, but what’s interesting about the site is that it’s the top-visited social site in Iran. Nearly every other social platform in the country has been blocked but Cloob remains strong, particularly among men over 65 years of age. What’s more, the site is invitation only and “operated within the boundaries of Iranian law.” Governments outside of Iran have speculated that the site may make it a little too easy for radicals to communicate unchecked.

It’s easy to get caught up in the mindset that the social networks you’re used to are the ones everybody uses. In today’s globalized world that’s simply not the case and there are social sites with literally hundreds of millions of users based all throughout the world.

Original: Most Popular Social Networking Sites in Other Countries

Thursday, 31 October 2013

10 Popular Twitter Plug-ins for Your WordPress Blog

Those who have tried know how difficult it is to find Twitter plug-ins for WordPress. The problem is that even if you manage to find a few, they take a lot of space and don’t add enough value to your blog. In case you have been searching for some useful Twitter plug-ins, here is a list that will help you make a right choice.

1 – Tweet, Like, Google +1 and Share

http://wordpress.org/plugins/only-tweet-like-share-and-google-1/

This plug-in comes with five different icons that you can easily add to your blog. By using this particular plug-in, it becomes possible for you to add widget from Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter. People can come to your site, read your content and share it using the icons on different social media sites.

2 – IntenseDebate Comments

http://wordpress.org/plugins/intensedebate/

To make people write and comment on your content in your ‘blog comment’ section, you can make use of this particular plug-in. It is a useful plug-in for those who conduct a
campaign on social media to improve the number of comments on their blog.

3 – AddThis

http://wordpress.org/plugins/addthis/

Yet another impressive social bookmarking widget that works perfectly with Twitter. With this plug-in, it will become easier for your readers to share content via Twitter. It allows people to bookmark your entire blog or a particular element on your page. The interesting thing is that the plug-in doesn’t restrict people to Twitter, but it allows them to share stuff on hundreds of other social media sites and bookmarking channels.

4 – BuddyPress

http://wordpress.org/plugins/buddypress/

This plug-in makes it easy for your visitors to log into your WordPress site and then leave their comments – it also makes it easy for people to participate in different social events. As it works as a community-sharing device, it is easy to use it with Twitter. People on your blog can also use the same plug-in to connect with other members of your blog.

5 – WPtouch

http://wordpress.org/plugins/wptouch/

This is one good way of turning your blog into a mobile-ready site – it makes it easy for people to read your posts on their mobile devices. Not only can they read your posts and check your content, they can also make comments using their mobile-ready widgets, like Twitter. It makes sharing your content via social media sites a breeze. What it means is that with the use of this particular plug-in, you can actually turn your WordPress blog into an iPhone app.

6 – Wordbooker

http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordbooker/

It works as a cross posting plug-in and allows you to post micro blog posts on your WordPress site and then cross post them using your Twitter profile. It also allows you to publish your blog post on your WordPress blog and Facebook at the same time. It saves you time and makes blogging a lot easier.

7 – Network Publisher

http://wordpress.org/plugins/network-publisher/

This is another good plug-in used for cross posting. It allows users to upload a blog along with making parts of that post appear on different social networking sites. For instance, you can change its options in a way that whenever you publish a post on your WordPress blog, the title and first few lines of that post will also go on your Twitter profile – you can also change settings to make parts of your post show on Facebook and other sites. It works automatically and makes it easier to share new posts with your audience.

8 – PodPress

http://wordpress.org/plugins/podpress/

You should make use of this particular plug-in if you always host Podcasts on your WordPress blog. It is possible to use this plug-in to create a feed that will tell you how many download have taken place since you have uploaded it. At the same time, it will inform social media networking sites whenever you host a new Podcast. It supports a range of video file formats, which is an added benefit.

9 – User Access Manager

http://wordpress.org/plugins/user-access-manager/

You can use this plug-in to determine how different users can access your posts. With its help, you can take full control of what posts, pages, and files people could see on your WordPress blog. It also determines how people get access to the Twitter functions you have added on the blog.

10 – Social Media Widget

http://wordpress.org/plugins/social-media-widget/

It’s a good plug-in developed to create a sidebar on your WordPress blog. It offers a list of social media widgets that you can select and add to the sidebar. It is also possible to use this plug-in to create links to different social media profiles and pages.


Original: 10 Popular Twitter Plug-ins for WordPress Blog

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

5 Quick Tips to Boost Your Linkedin Visibility

Living in the age of social media means you aren’t somebody until you can be found on professional sites such as LinkedIn. However, with more professionals and businesses creating an account on this social networking site, it’s becoming more difficult to get found by potential employers or customers.

So, what can you do to increase your chances of getting found on the most powerful and popular professional network? You can start by optimizing your account correctly which will give you a leg up in using LinkedIn to find jobs, customers and more. In fact, optimizing your account needs to be a priority as it’s what can take your profile views to
go from 0 to 1,000.

Here’s how to do it:

1.    Complete your profile

This one’s a no-brainer but, if you take a look at the profiles on LinkedIn, you’ll notice that so many of them aren’t completely filled in. So, take the time to fill out every single section as this can help improve your position on LinkedIn’s search results and rank higher over partially completed ones.

Not sure which sections to fill out or what information to include? LinkedIn provides a useful tracker that shows the percentage of fields completed and the areas where you would need to add extra information about yourself, your skills and experience.

2. Claim your Vanity URL

When you first create your LinkedIn account, your initial URL will include some random numbers and letters. Claim your vanity URL by changing it to your full name – for eg. linkedin.com/in/johnexample/. This helps you connect your LinkedIn profile to your name so you can get found easier by your real-life connections.

3. Optimise your profile using relevant keywords

When writing your profile description, make sure you optimize it by including the keywords you’d like your profile to be associated with in LinkedIn’s search results. Think of the search keywords a potential client or employers would enter into the LinkedIn search bar to find you. For example, if you’re a London-based web designer, focus on keywords such as “web designer” and “web designer London”.

4. Join and participate in relevant groups

Run a search on LinkedIn to find groups you might find interesting or useful. By joining and participating in relevant groups you can not only expand your network easily but also improve your profile’s visibility.  But don’t just join these groups. You also need to engage and contribute in a positive way in order to boost your level of profile activity. The more you engage, the higher the chances of ranking higher in LinkedIn’s search results.

5. Expand your network

LinkedIn is the perfect platform to connect with as many people as possible, whether they’re friends, former university colleagues, co-workers or potential clients. The size of your network is another important factor LinkedIn takes into account when displaying results. So, if you’re serious about improving your profile’s visibility on LinkedIn’s search results, you need to expand your network. Don’t stop at people you know. Take it one step further and reach out to new contacts, especially those who share your professional interests and skills.

How about you – what else are you doing to improve the visibility of your LinkedIn Profile?

Original:  Quick Tips to Boost Linkedin Visibility

Tuesday, 1 October 2013

Facebook Appeals to its Users with More Updates


Facebook is expected to launch a new feature in the near future that will allow users to “share” photo albums. Using this feature, the creator of a photo album can allow up to 50 users to contribute to an album. Previously, Facebook had restricted the control over a photo album to its creator alone. This makes the experience of sharing photos more social than it was before, and it also allows for a more streamlined photo browsing experience. For example, photos of a given event, such as a vacation trip or a wedding, can all be combined into a single photo album for everyone to contribute photos to. This is much better than the previous system, in which each user who had taken pictures at the event would have to create his or her own photo album. This system is also beneficial because it increases the exposure of photos from each
user, because the friends of other users that have contributed to the album are viewing them.

Through the introduction of this new feature, Facebook is attempting to stay on par with Google+, which already has a feature that allows its users to do this. Google+ lets all of its users who have attended a specific event upload pictures from that event. Currently, Facebook users who want to do something like this must use workarounds such as creating hashtags. This new feature will allow Facebook users the same ease of use as Google+ users when it comes to creating shared photo albums.

However, the implementation of Facebook’s feature is not limited specifically to events. For example, photographers can use it to collaborate with each other and increase heir collective exposure. For instance, multiple photographers can share a photo album and upload images with similar subject matter or photography technique such as high speed imaging in hopes of being discovered by users browsing the shared album that otherwise would not have seen their photos. With this new feature coming soon, it will be exciting to see the various creative ways Facebook users utilize it in order to make their photo sharing experience more social.

Friday, 27 September 2013

5 Useful Tools To Improve Your Instagram Marketing

Instagram is the most popular social pictures community with an estimated user base of more than 100 million members. With its huge audience, Instagram is becoming a major asset for companies to reach their target audience. If your business isn’t already on Instagram, it is the right time for you to jump ship and create an account.

Unlike other social media sites, the marketing success of Instagram solely depends on the quality of pictures you’re posting in the network. By posting good quality pictures which are eye catching, you can get a huge number of following which will ultimately help to get better results for your business. In this article, I am sharing the 5 useful tools you can use to increase your following, get them engaged and get better results with your
Instagram marketing campaign.

Instagram Marketing Tools

1) Statigram:

Statigram is a web based Instagram supporting tool, which will help you to measure and analyze the statistics of your account. Using this tool, you can get the numbers of your following, numbers of likes your pictures are getting daily, list the top hashtags which you have used mostly, etc.

Statigram can also be used for creating and moderating competitions on Instagram, promoting your accounts via blog, Twitter or Facebook page with the help of live feeds, and find out users or pictures using a specific keyword. When you can measure all your account statistics, it will be easy for you leverage your Instagram marketing campaign!

2) Curalate:

Curalate is an effective web tool which is providing Pinterest and Instagram account statistics. Using this tool, you can find your most popular hashtag on Instagram along with the most popular image. Curalate also helps you to monitor the user engagement about your brand along with tracking the most shared brand image. Using these statistics, you can easily find out your target audience.

3) Ink361:

Ink361 is a web viewer of the Instagram app which will let you to watch your images and feed on your desktop. One of the best features of this tool is its ability to let you create image albums using your Instagram images and share it with other people who aren’t on Instagram.

One of the main reason people use Ink361 is that it will let you to create accessories like phone cases, tablet cases, photo cards, fine articles, or canvas using your Instagram images. This exciting feature can help you to get better exposure for your brand and improve your social presence.

4) Followergram:

Followergram is another exciting web app specifically created for new Instagram users who are looking to build their following. Use this tool, you can find the most influential people on Instagram and follow them. Also Followergram will let you to find people who are posting images of your hand and the hashtags they are using with it.

Along with it, Followergram allows you to create vanity URL which can be used to showcase your Instagram pictures for users who aren’t on Instagram. Once of the best features of Followergram is that it will give a QR code for your profile which you can add to the company products or printed materials and make people visit your Followergram profile.

5) Piqora:

Piqora is an innovative tool which has been created specifically for businesses that are using Instagram for marketing. The tool lets you to compare your metrics likes number of global audience, trending pictures, and influential users with your competitors. By comparing your with competitors, you can easily find out the success of your Instagram marketing campaign.

By making use of these tools, you can easily get the better out of your Instagram marketing campaigns.

Tuesday, 10 September 2013

LinkedIn Introduces Company Page Analytics and Sponsored Updates

While the audience is diverse in terms of demographic makeup, LinkedIn primarily caters to a single target market: goals-oriented members who are using the site to meet professional needs. As long as the company continues to provide tools that enable this group of users to thrive, it will forever have a cozy position in the competitive social space. So far so good, and LinkedIn is back at it again with a feature that will surely pique the interest of its most dedicated users.

LinkedIn has rolled out Company Page Analytics. The new tool offers instant value by allowing you to easily track engagement levels across your page. Businesses, especially, should find the feature very useful as the data it provides addresses many of
the questions they may have about their performance on the network.

Company Page Insights

Serving up impressions, clicks, and interactions in a comprehensive graph view, the new Company Page Analytics lets social marketers, managers, and other professionals analyze page performance in a variety of ways. Core attributes include the ability to

-Discover status updates that drive the highest user engagement

-Monitor trends in engagement by criteria such as type and time frame

-View more detailed demographic information about page followers

-Track growth of followers and compare it against competitors

While these insights are not as extensive as what you get with Facebook Insights, which provides analytics for Facebook Pages, they are extensive enough to give you good idea where you stand in terms of leaving a good impression on your social fans. For that reason alone, you can expect this feature to become a big hit with serious professionals who use LinkedIn as an audience engagement platform.

Sponsored Updates Overview

Before launching the aforementioned tracking system, LinkedIn rolled out a new ad product called Sponsored Updates. With Sponsored Updates, marketers can engage their target audience with posts that come off as more relevant and meaningful than traditional paid content. These updates may consist of articles, blog posts, or videos and show up in the site feed on the company’s desktop, smartphone and tablet apps.  Each post is accompanied by a “Sponsored” label and welcomes engagement through interactions such as liking, commenting and sharing. Users can also follow the sponsoring company right from the update.

Not only is LinkedIn taking a cue from rivals Facebook and Twitter by essentially allowing brands to buy their way into the feed, it’s taking a similar approach to purchasing ads a well. Marketing managers can buy Sponsored Updates directly through the company’s self-service advertising platform. The self-serve tool keeps customization in mind by giving you a way to target your audience, choose and manage your budget accordingly, and pay based on a CPC or CPM model. This new ad feature offers worldwide appeal as the updates have the potential to reach audiences in 20 languages in the more than 200 markets LinkedIn operates in.

It would appear that the arrival of Company Page Analytics is right on time because it complements Sponsored Updates almost perfectly. Marketing managers with administrative access can login and use the feature to see how their ads are performing. The analytics tool provides insights into what is working as well as what isn’t, empowering users to make strategic decisions that improve future campaigns. LinkedIn is confident that this addition will be instrumental in selling the new ad units.

The Social Network That Could

LinkedIn doesn’t have the size or popularity of Facebook. Nor does it have the type of mainstream appeal that attracts celebrity ambassadors like Twitter. Having said that, it is fairing pretty well for a social network that is often described as “boring”. The company has a viable business model in a robust, diverse advertising platform and legions of loyal members who depend on it to support their professional needs. As it stands now, LinkedIn has an estimated 220 million users, which by the numbers, still makes it one of the largest social networking sites.

Company Pages Analytics is just one of several new features to come out of the LinkedIn factory over the past year. The system is basic in its current state, but the company says it will introduce more functionality to improve it in the near future. Whether or not the presence of analytics compels marketers to start investing in LinkedIn ads is up for debate, but I would like to think that any page owner who conducts serious business on the site will find value in the feature itself.

Wednesday, 28 August 2013

5 Tips To Effectively Optimize Your Google + Places Listing

A good Google Places listing can help you get easy traffic to your site. If you are wondering why optimizing your Google+ Places is important, then the answer is simple. Approximately a third of every search is based on location and Google Places makes it very easy to obtain a page one listing.

For example if you are a Real Estate Display Home with multiple sales offices or a retail boutique with multiple outlets, Google Places is an excellent channel to use.

Here is a look at 5 tips to effectively optimize your Google+ places listing.

1. Contact Details on Your Site


The first tip for an effectual Google places optimization is making sure that you have a
contact details page on your website. This page should have details of your phone number and business address. A map is useful as well.

2. Get Citations


You should have citation from around the internet. Citations are when your business or company is listed on other sites, you want to ensure that the right details, that is address, and phone number among other important details are on those sites.

You should make this 100 percent correct for each of your citation around the internet. If it is 100 percent correct, you will get higher ranking in Google Places listings. This will drive more traffic to your websites, hence making your business more known and ultimately bringing more sales.

But you should note that if you have different phone numbers appearing on different websites, this will have an impact on your raking as well.

3. Get Reviews on Your Google Places Listing


It is very important that you get reviews and comments on your places listings. Today, it is not easy to get reviews, particularly as people are more liable to give negative reviews. Therefore, if you have some people who really appreciate and compliment you on your service or product, just send them a link or request them to go to Google Places listing and have them leave a review. This is a great way to give your website a better ranking.

4. Connect With Local Businesses


It is important that you take the chance to post an article on other local companies in the area, whenever you get that opportunity. This way, you will be able to prove to Google that you work within the local region and you are prominent in the locality.

5. The Google Places Dashboard


If you believe there is an issue with your listing, you might access your dashboard. You simply have to log in there and you will be given any errors or other things that you should tidy up.

But at the end of the day, never depend on Google Places, never depend on Google and never depend on a single traffic source. It is good to have many different sources from everywhere in the internet. Hence again, do not depend on Google Places, you will have your listing jumping up and down for any reason. Although reviews come and go, the most excellent thing you can do is concentrate on your number one asset, which is your website. Increase it; make it the source of power. Put a lot of audio and video on it.

Monday, 12 August 2013

Why Promoted Posts Are Better Than Facebook Ads

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that promoted posts on Facebook are better than Facebook ads that appear on Facebook. There are a lot of pros and cons to both forms of advertising, yet promoted posts come out on top. Let’s explore why.

First and foremost, the reason that promoted posts are better than Facebook ads on Facebook is the number of people you can get to click on your post. The reality is, many people don’t even see the ads on the side of the Facebook page. They have become
almost numb to all of the ads that bombard them on web pages. They barely acknowledge that there are any types of ads on the page and they rarely even truly look at them to see if they’re relevant to their needs or wants. With a promoted page, you are sure to get a lot more interest in the information. People are more likely to click on a link that is promoted by a friend or a page that they like than to click on a random ad that they rarely notice. This means that you are raising more brand awareness if you are a business trying to garner attention. There is a great flow chart over at Socialmouths.com. The comparison chart shows that one of the best pros about promoted posts is that more people are likely to open them. The whole reason that someone is going to promote a post is that they want a wide audience to see it. So, promoting it is going to accomplish this very thing.

Won’t It Cost Too Much?A misconception is that you are going to spend a lot of money on a promoted post and not get the exposure that you want. This is not quite true. When you are promoting a post, you are controlling your budget. You can choose how much money to spend because you are choosing how many people will be able to access the post. It’s much better to spend money on a post that you know is going to be clicked on versus the Russian Roulette of sidebar advertising. Being cost effective is a sign of successful advertising and marketing.  Another reason to choose a promoted post over a Facebook ad is the flaw in the search system. Sometimes a person will search something because they are trying to gain information and not because there’s a true interest. A person searching puppy mills is often looking for information to shut down a puppy mill. Facebook sees this search and erroneously believes you want a puppy mill. Then you start to get targeted ads for puppy mills or store bought dogs. This can infuriate even the most laid back Facebook user. A person who has Liked your Facebook page will typically share the same opinions and outlooks. They are going to have a true interest in what you are advertising or promoting. Paying for a promoted post is a much better use of your budgeted money.

How Do I Choose?

If you have a lot of friends and followers, it’s an easy choice to make. You should choose the promoted posts. Over at CooperVision.com there is another good article that details the differences between promoted posts and Facebook ads on Facebook. The pros most definitely outweigh the cons due to price and the amount of interest that your promoted post is going to reach.

Original: Promoted Posts Better Than Facebook Ads

Monday, 5 August 2013

6 Successful Podcasting Tips To Embellish Your Social Media Efforts

We have always believed that content is the king. There have been constant efforts being made by everyone to ensure their websites have exceptional content. Well, content doesn’t necessarily mean text. It could also stretch up to the other ways we have been using to communicate to the audience, like videos, podcasts and graphical representations.

The most recent technique that is being used these days is to transcript videos to make articles. However, if you want some more artistic and creative input to bring more life to your text, you might want to consider using podcasting as a tool. So, what are podcasts? Well, these are nothing but digital multimedia files that are uploaded on the for the user to
download it. The user can download it on desktop, tablet or even his Smartphone. I consider this to be a much simple way to reach the audiences, where they can not listen to your content. However, it is exceptionally important to execute podcast properly.

Listed below are a few successful podcasting tips which can help embellish you social media efforts.

    Quality Information is a ‘Must’ – People usually prefer podcasts only because it doesn’t require you to put much energy reading and understanding it. Therefore, you need to ensure that your podcast provides quality information to the users. By quality information, I mean something that is relevant to the context the user is looking for. Moreover, you also need to ensure that your podcast is interesting, apart from being informative, so that the users don’t feel waste of time while listening to your podcast. For this, it is necessary that you ensure you have a high quality podcast on your site.

    Smart Devices Make it Easy to Reach the Target – We know that podcasts are audio representations, and it is necessary that you get maximum people listening to them. You know most of your users access Internet on Smartphones and thus, you may want to target them through mobile devices. For this, you will first need to see how many of your Facebook users use Smartphones or Tablets to access their Facebook account. If you think more than half, or at least half your users do so, you can add podcasting to your social media efforts. Podcasts can be heard anywhere, anytime, while in gym, buying grocery, traveling or even working.

    Develop Content Which is Easy to Share – You will have made a great podcast, which everyone likes, but make sure that your podcast is such, which is exceptionally easy to share. Only then will it be able to reach a large number of audience. This will also embellish your podcast to be share within your community and even in other communities or networks.

    Broadcast Issues Related to the Industry – You must always determine the content you are going to include in your podcast. Nobody wants to listen to promotions. Make sure you do not make it look like a sales call. It can create a negative impact. Rather, you must include important interviews and discussions related to the industry. Make it look informative than promotional. This will give your audience some really valuable information and enable you to build your credibility.

    Don’t Unnecessarily Stretch the Podcast – Remember, podcast12 is not some upcoming song which users are waiting to be up in the market. For the same reason, make sure that you keep your podcast to the point. People are genuinely not interested in listening to lengthy stuffs. So, keep it to a 30 minute episode with relevant content. It is important to understand that all your users are extremely busy people. They may feel distracted very soon and therefore, you must ensure that you bombard all the important information in the beginning of the podcast.

    Record Your Podcast as Videos – After you have successfully made your podcast, make a video copy of it as well. People like watching videos of such interactive and informative stuffs. It is not necessary that you make a video of the entire audio recording you have. Rather, use different segments of the podcast to make an entire video. Keep it short, almost up to 3 minutes and post it on YouTube, the second most popular search engine. Ensure that you have all the related keywords tagged to the video, to make it come high on search.

Conclusion

You will notice a large number of podcast usage these days. Several large corporations and medium sized businesses are using podcasting to embellish their social media efforts. You can too be one of them. However, it is important that you follow the tips mentioned above to have a perfectly flawless strategy, altogether.

Original post: SociableBlog

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

How Google+ Makes an Impact on Search Engine Optimization

Google+ is actually one of quite a few of Google’s attempts to break into the social media circuit. After a few failed attempts, they have finally found a winner. It stands no chance of competing with Facebook (at least not in the foreseeable future), but is still popular enough to enable you to grab a few SEO benefits from it. It is possible to use Google+ to help you get a little bit higher in the search engine results pages.

Google will follow some of your profile links

If you add a bunch of links onto your Google+ pages then Google may pay them a passing interest, but if you can connect a link to your Google+ profile, then the more popular your profile becomes then the more attention Google will pay to your connected
links. You can create connected links by putting them in your profile Bio. Your bio links can have the anchor text of your choice, and if you gain more influence on Google+, then Google will take more notice of your links and will rank up your website slightly.

Do not forget that social media is not the powerful and almighty tool that online “experts” are claiming it is. Google, Bing/Yahoo do pay attention to what goes on within the social media sites. But, just how much credit they give what happens on there is anybody’s guess. Suffice it to say that nobody has ever reached the number one spot on Google because of something that happened on social media.

You can embed links onto your posts

As mentioned above, you can add links to your pages on Google+ (or your posts, as they are also known). Again, as stated above, the links will only be paid a passing attention by Google and will affect your websites SEO (assuming the links point to your website). However, if your links are shared amongst a large number of people then Google will pay attention to them and rank your website up accordingly. This is because if a link is shared by a number of people, then Google assumes that the link (and therefore the page) is of importance, and will move it up the search engine results pages.

Learn a little bit about linking. The backlinks you receive from other websites are more valuable than the links you receive from social media. But that does not mean you should cast social media out to sea. If a few big hitters on social media start linking to your site and mentioning you online, then the Google algorithm is going to start paying very close attention to your website.

You can optimize G+ title tags

You may have noticed that when you post something on Google+ then the first part of the post becomes the posts title tag. The title tag can be optimized so that it ranks better and so that there is a higher chance of a click through rate increase. Just make sure to choose the keywords of your first line very carefully. If you do this then the link attached to your post will have a higher click through rate. If this is the case then Google will pay more attention to the link, and will increase the rank of the page it links to accordingly.

You should take time to learn a little more about G+ tags, as well as other tags on blogs and Meta tags on your website. They do act similarly to keywords within text, but do have a different function. This is because they are designed to speak directly to either the search engines or the social media engine. This means that there are lots of rules that apply to these tags that do not apply to web content. For example, it is okay to misspell words on tags, and it is okay to hyphenate words that would not usually be hyphenated.

People who are authors with Google+ gain SEO benefits

They have an authoring system where you can attach your Google+ profile to the content that you write off of the Google+ site. If you write a lot of good content then you gain a better reputation within Google+, and this comes with better SEO benefits and article popularity benefits. It may even help you to get your online articles indexed a little faster than they would be otherwise. This is because Google is able to find and index the articles a little faster than they would do via other routes. This is because they are following the link from your Google+ profile.

An online reputation is something that is hard to maintain. You need to be on the tip of people’s tongues, because otherwise they will forget you. The Internet is a big place and popularity jumps up and down like an ostrich on a hot bus roof. With Google+ and their authorship program you cannot really make a massive online-reputation splash, but you can leave a mark for people to research into. When a person normally hears you name then he or she may wait for your next publication in order to figure out if he or she likes you. But, with Google+ and its authorship program, he or she has access to lots of your old and already published works.

Original:  Google+ Impact on SEO

Tuesday, 16 July 2013

How To Use Infographics As A Useful SEO Tool

Infographics are the latest craze in the SEO community. They are a platform where you can demonstrate plenty of information through a graphic form. This means that they are an engaging way to communicate with your audience and ensure they want to come back for more.

If you post useful content through your infographics you’ll be much more likely to have an audience that appreciates your content and is willing to share. However the main problem is that many people don’t know how to use infographics or where to put them. Below is a series of places where you can place your infographics to get the most exposure.

Infographic Directories

The first place you should aim to get your Infographic into is the various Infographic
directories around. These infographics directories are there to expose your work and get it noticed by the people around. The good thing about Infographic directories is that if you complete a good piece of work it could be highlighted.

The best situation you want from an Infographic directory is for it to be featured on the homepage. From there you can hope for a large website to pick it up and use it on their website, both promoting your Infographic and your website.

Blogs

Another way to promote your Infographic is either through your own blog or through one of your partners. By exposing your Infographic on a blog you enabling you whole audience to be aware of it and have an opportunity to share or like it. This increases engagement and also increases the chances of more people finding it.

Besides this you could also get it featured on another relevant blog with the chance of gaining highly targeted traffic. As well as this if you manage to include the anchor text on the bottom you could also receive a good, authoritative link back from the site. This means you’ll be adding value to their audience but also gaining higher search engine rankings in the meantime.

Social Media

Social media is another fantastic tool to spread the word out about your new content. You can post it on your Twitter and Facebook page and ask your audience to share the content. Since it’s going out to an audience who is already interested in your content you’re more likely to actually get people to comply and get the word out.

Also as with related blogs you can also use social media to utilise partner relationships with affiliated brands. By doing this you have access to their audience and have an opportunity to share your Infographic with them.

In the end Infographics are a great communications tool, but a good SEO tool at that. If you contain your URL at the bottom you will see people come to the exact link and share your content, it can also be used to push social media presence. However way you use it, if you get it right then you have a fantastic opportunity to go viral and reach a large audience.

Original: Infographics As Useful SEO Tool

Monday, 10 June 2013

Staying Social: Social Media Updates

Social media technology is constantly evolving and it can certainly be challenging to stay up-to-date with the evolution of familiar products. The business world has reached a point where social media participation is not only expected, but required in order to stay relevant among competitors. Here are a few updates from around the social media world to help you stay tuned into what’s going on within this infinite space.

•    In April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Facebook Home , a new platform for the social network available on certain Android devices. At the announcement, Zuckerberg said, “Our phones today are designed around apps, not people. We want to flip that around.” Features include a live news feed of “friend” updates
as soon as you turn your phone on and reach the home screen. There is also something called “chat heads;” If you are having an ongoing Facebook Messenger chat with someone, their photo appears in a bubble in the margins of your phone so you can access the conversation at your convenience while you have another app open. In early May, Facebook announced that Home downloads had surpassed the 1 million mark. The company did not reveal how many of those who downloaded the software are active users. Monthly updates will begin on a regular basis in July.

•    In other Facebook news, if your small business has used Tweetdeck to manage both Twitter and Facebook accounts, you have realized Facebook is no longer available on this management service as of early May. (This inevitable change is a result of Twitter purchasing Tweetdeck two years ago.) The shuttering of the Facebook relationship has created an outcry from social media aficionados, many of whom are switching to HootSuite , which still supports Facebook.

•    LinkedIn  users now have the opportunity to add pictures and videos to their professional pages. This visual element provides a digital portfolio element of a candidate and helps users put summaries into actions. This feature is available in the summary, work experience, and education sections of the online resume and networking site.

•    In a study by Manta , small business owners flocked to social media outlets in the past year in a desperate attempt to increase sales. The report found, though, that their efforts have not shown a return investment. The survey questioned more than 1,200 small business owners, 50% of whom have increased time spent on social networks, and 55% said they utilized Twitter and Facebook to attract new customers and/or establish sales leads.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of social media outreach is establishing one audience (or maybe several) and learning what each needs from your outreach efforts. Experts recommend having someone on staff that can devote time every day to listening to customer feedback and being available to offer more information and alternatives to current business practices. Social media outlets provide an opportunity for businesses to personalize their brand and products. It can be difficult to reach an audience through a website with so much information. Facebook and LinkedIn, for example, can break down information into more digestible bites of information. It takes time to develop relationships, though, which is when small businesses will see a return on the investment of their time, which is just as valuable as their money.

Angie Picardo is a staff writer for NerdWallet. Her mission is to help consumers stay financially savvy, and compare checking accounts.

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

6 Free Android Apps To Enhance Your Social Media Marketing

Apps are appliances made for devices based on android OS to expand the utility of the devices. As a manager for social media who is at all times on-the-run, you can be sure to depend on these important apps to stay engaged and connected with your social media. Android apps are available in large numbers in today’s large market. It is recommended you consider the 6 free chat apps to manage your social media marketing:

1 .Tweet Deck

With Tweet Deck, people can customize their experience with Twitter through groups, columns, saved searches and automatic updates to keep them updated concerning interesting topics and the public. This free app, Tweet Deck, allows users to follow what
other users ‘status updates are all about, and provide updates via links, sharing of photos, sharing of videos, and tweeting.

2. Hoot Suite

This app permits businesses to launch their marketing campaigns, send target messages to a number of channels, expand and identify their audiences using social media. Hoot Suite brings individuals together from a spectrum of social media websites, like Twitter and Facebook. Through Hoot Suite’s control panel, groups can collaboratively schedule updates to Word press, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, through mobile, desktop, or web platforms. Teams may additionally follow campaign outcome and business trends.

3. Gowalla

This free app, Gowalla, permits sharing of places users visit including contacts and friends, utilizing videos, pictures, and posts. Specialist of Social media can connect with the app through Twitter and also Facebook. This app currently offers iPad native apps, Palm, Blackberry, Android, and iPhone. Support for other phones may be given in the future times by 3rd-party developers.

4. Shareaholic

This free tool which is for Internet Explorer as well as safari and Firefox, consents to sharing all pages by its users, anytime, with more than 100 services for instance Google mail, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Word Press. The tool, Shareaholic permits the users to make their bookmarks simple and be able to find latest materials while they come on the Internet.

5. Zinzzchat

Share pictures, videos, and articles on different social networks with Zinzzchat. The free app lets you have new content to stay focused on marketing. You can use it on Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn.

6. Postling

Postling makes it simple for you to make content and thereafter post it straight to your blog in order to maintain new content on your blog even at times when you are not using your laptop. This is vital because your audience simply want new content.

The above 6 apps that will help you manage your social media marketing is ideal for your dealership to get more value and exposure from the social media, and get closer to your audience. Auto dealers who want to improve the effectiveness of their Social Media Marketing campaigns need to have these 6 apps to improve their social media marketing.

The chat apps will help marketers to engage their customers who are already mobile. Dealers can also monitor what is being said about them online at anytime and anywhere. They can promote positive mentions immediately and reach out for negative mentioned immediately. Remember if used correctly, free chat apps can be a driving force for your business.

Original: Android Apps for Social Media Marketing

Thursday, 16 May 2013

Twitter Launches Keyword Targeting: Can Marketers Cash In?

It took a while, but Twitter has been regularly improving its ad platform since first rolling out advertising solutions back in 2010. The latest ad enhancement looks to present marketers with some of the most attractive opportunities they’ve had yet.

Twitter recently launched a keyword targeting feature that allows advertisers to target users based on the terms and phrases contained in their tweets. The new system is designed to help businesses produce better results by tailoring Promoted Tweets content around the dialogue their ideal customers use in their social posts. For Twitter’s ever expanding marketing community, the introduction of keyword targeting raises the importance of the almighty tweet, mainly because of the platform’s real-time communication capabilities.

Keyword Targeting in Action

Here is an example to give you an idea how the new keyword targeting feature works. Let’s say a Twitter user posts a tweet about a delicious sandwich they ate at a local
restaurant. In this case, that restaurant who faithfully monitors their stream sees the post, and uses it to run a location-based campaign featuring some of those keywords to advertise a new promotion. If the user who made the tweet see’s the ad, they may be tempted to stop back in and see what else is on the menu.

Twitter’s keyword targeting tool no doubt provides a more effective way for marketers to craft sponsored content based on audience interest in specific products, services, and topics. But what about the user? How are they impacted? According to Twitter, the new feature will have no notable affect on the user’s use of the platform. The company says that it is not ramping up the number of ads it will display, and users still have the power to block out Promoted Tweets they don’t find interesting.

Early Results

The keyword targeting feature Twitter recently unveiled is being warmly received by the internet journalism community. As for what type of results the new system is generating, Twitter says so far so good. In the initial announcement, the company touted results of tests it conducted with a small group of ad agencies and advertising partners.

One of those advertisers was GoPro, a leading manufacturer of innovative camera equipment. The company used the keyword targeting in the timeline across four different advertising campaigns. After using the tool, GoPro’s performance with Promoted Tweets improved to the tune of nearly two million impressions and engagement rates of up to 11 percent. Other brands reporting good engagement results in the early round of testing included Microsoft Japan, Walgreens, and Everything Everywhere.

Getting Started

Getting up running with new targeting keyword feature looks to be a relatively straightforward   process. According to Twitter, it is similar to performing a basic search across the site.  Marketers simply enter the words or phrases they wish to target in their Promoted Tweets, and then decide if they want to base the process on matching phrases or unordered keywords. From there, they can customize the ad by specifying location, gender, device and other targeting criteria.

Twitter’s keyword targeting tool is currently available in all the markets and languages that are supported by the platform. Marketers can access the feature in full by using either the Ads API or Ads UI. Twitter is hailing the enhancement as an important addition to its advertising system, particularly, for brands that are combing the incoming stream of tweets for dialogue that speaks to the intentions of the user. All in all, the nature of Twitter empowers marketers using this tool to engage audiences with the right content, in the right context, at the right time.

A Cut Above the Rest

The introduction of functionality that allows brands to target their premium marketing content by keywords gives Twitter a distinct edge over its competitors in the social advertising space. In a sense, it puts the company closer to Google, which lets marketers target content by the keywords users enter the search engine through AdWords, and creates a gap between Facebook. While Facebook trumps all in terms of size, the Twitter experience is very unique and something it has been able to preserve amid the experiments with ad integration.

Jason Stein, founder and president of social media agency Laundry Service, is among a growing number of spectators speaking highly of Twitter’s new keyword targeting capabilities. What are your thoughts about the new feature? Is it a game changer, or just another tool you’ll ignore in favor of organic methods?

original: SociablWeb

Friday, 26 April 2013

3 Key Ingredients Of A Successful Video Marketing Campaign

Video creation is an art. Get down the lighting, the energy, the presentation, and you can easily create an absolute masterpiece. The secret is in practice. Persistently practicing your video creation skills can help you become a true master. Just like any other skill, if you work at it over a set period of time you can churn out truly noteworthy creations. Feeling comfortable in front of the camera might take some time. Practice!

Overcoming the Blocks: I Sound and Look Funny


I know these two blocks are chief impediments to video creation success. Most people feel that they look funny when on video for the first time, and virtually all people believe that they sound funny. This is because you are not accustomed to hearing your voice in
third person. You hear you, speaking from home – your body – but once you hear yourself speaking from a third person perspective, watching videos with you as the star, you might feel uncomfortable, self-conscious, or even embarrassed. You must get over these blocks because self-conscious tendencies influence you to hide away from individuals.

You will pull back, talk in a hushed tone and be lifeless, absolutely spoiling your chances at creating a noteworthy video. You will also scare off confident, assured individuals who will be turned off by your meek, weak presentation. Have faith! Get over yourself. Trust me, once you learn to laugh at yourself conscious tendencies you will open yourself up to an exciting new world, a world where you grab life by the horns and start creating fabulous content.

You look great and you sound even better. Now get on with creating videos, practice, and as you cut through these self conscious tendencies the quality of your work will skyrocket.

Shoot in the Right Light


Using the proper lighting can help you create a wonderfully entertaining video, as people need to see you in order to fully embrace your presentation. Shooting in dark locations, or in uneven lighting, creates a shadowy type appearance which can distract otherwise entice viewers. You can only make a firm impression if you are willing to shoot videos properly, and getting down the right lighting is a huge factor in this presentation.

Toy around with lamps indoors or shoot videos around noon time outdoors, or even better, shoot videos a bit later or earlier in the day, so you can receive maximum sunlight on your face from the proper direction. Too much sun might make you glow a little much; guard against this situation. Just practice, and tweak, and create, and test, and you will be able to get your lighting down and put out a masterpiece.

Choose Juicy Titles


Choosing juicy titles helps you to draw in viewers with greater ease. Take time to select titles which resonate with your target audience. You can only boost page views if people are actually interested in what you have to offer and the only piece of content people view on twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook is your video title. Take the time to craft a really enticing, eye-catching title. Do not rush through this process or else your video creation efforts go to complete waste, and I know you are not going to be happy about spending significant time crafting a high energy video with few views, correct?

Get over yourself. Release self conscious tendencies by shooting videos over and over, practicing your craft and gaining comfort around the camera. Shoot in the proper lighting to optimize your presentation and choose juicy, enticing titles to draw viewers to your presentation persistently. Use these tips to rock out your video creation campaign today.

original: SociablWeb

Monday, 15 April 2013

Marketing and Internet Professionals Concerns on Facebook Home

A marketing professional had expressed his concern regarding Facebook’s (FB) new Home software; a program for the home screens of android cell phones. This act is contrary to popular belief that marketers often employ pervasive techniques to entice probable clients.

Angus Wood, the executive of the digital marketing firm iProspect told The Telegraph, a news site based in the United Kingdom that this move from FB would be invasive and tedious. Wood added that the ads might repel consumers from using FB’s service. In his statement, Wood said: “Facebook are unlocking a vast amount of consumers’ time. But alongside that, the closer you come to the consumer,
the softer you need to tread, and the bar for content quality will be higher than ever.”

The iProspect executive explained that Facebook should limit its new program to certain ads that are truly relevant to its users. This is to prevent some users from being annoyed. For Wood, an over-frequent marketing within a personal space like that of a cell phone home screen will instantly turn off the users of Home.

Meanwhile, Facebook is bound to advertise the use of Home through their Cover Feed on April 12, 2013. Aside from the alleged pervasive ad, some analysts were also critical if this will enable FB to accumulate excessive personal data from people who will use the new program. The founder of a technology news website GigaOM, Om Malik stated: “Facebook Home should put privacy advocates on alert, for this application erodes any idea of privacy.”Not only that, Malik added that the smartphones have the possibility to send the General Positioning System (GPS) of the user. This meant that Facebook would know where the phone is, located and possibly its owner at any given time. Surely, FB will amass more control over certain data that were available in the internet.

Malik further explained that if a phone will fail to move from a specific location between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. in a week or more, FB could instantaneously deduce the location of the home of its user.  The GigaOM founder also encouraged all people that they need the help of legal representatives since FB is bound to invade privacy. His specific statement was –

“We need to ask our legislative representatives to understand that Facebook wants to go from our desktops and browsers right into our home — the place where we need to be private”.

Facebook garnered all the aforementioned criticisms, after Mark Zuckerberg, the current chief executive of Facebook unveiled Facebook Home in a press conference in California. News reports say that FB had also launched a partnership with HTC First – a smartphone with a built-in Home program.

Zuckerberg previously narrated that these days; the designs of phones revolve around applications and not for people, which led to the creation of the Home application. This particular application has an edge over other apps through Chat Heads, a feature that will allow users to send as well as read text and Facebook messages without going back to the home page of the app.

original: SociablWeb

Thursday, 4 April 2013

Google Opens Up Its Universal Analytics Beta To All Google Analytics Users

Nowadays, people use a number of platforms to surf the web, and this variation in platform use make it a challenge for businesses and website owners to keep track of their site’s performance and interact with consumers. In an effort to make things more manageable, Google recently opened up its Universal Analytics to all Google Analytics Users.

Simply put, the public beta of Universal Analytics aims to help website owners better track their website performance across multiple platforms. This is believed to be more accurate than the original Google Analytics since it covers different channels that consumers use to access the Internet when they search for information, products and services, utilize social media, and interact with other users.

What Makes Universal Analytics Distinct from Google Analytics


According to Google, Universal Analytics make use of a data collection method that is
different from the one Google Analytics used. As such, businesses need to set up a new code snippet called analytics.js on their websites to be able to take advantage of the new system and use it to better understand how their target market interact with their websites using different platforms. Google added that the new JavaScript code snippet is more flexible, giving its users the ability to better customize their data. Aside from incorporating the new code snippet, businesses also have to create a new web property on their Analytics account to use the full features of Universal Analytics.

Unlike Google Analytics that uses cookies, this new tracking system uses universal tracking IDs. Businesses can utilize this to follow their customers’ activities from the first time they visit the website to the point they make their first purchase and beyond. Also, as Universal Analytics makes use of a new Measurement Protocol, Analytics users can sync their customers’ data coming from various platforms, such as phones, laptops, tablets and other Internet-enabled devices.

How Universal Analytics Can Help Your Business


Whether you are a business owner, a website manager or an SEO expert, Universal Analytics is a viable tool that will help you get a true picture of how effective your efforts are when it comes to marketing, sales, support, product usage as well as costumer retention.

As trends are continuously shifting and with more and more consumers using a wide variety of platforms to access websites, Universal Analytics will not only enable you to keep up with those trends but will also let you analyze the activities of your target market and use the data you have collected to make effective decisions. That is, you can create specific marketing campaigns and use them on channels that deliver the best results. This, in turn, will help improve your site’s search rankings, generate more traffic, improve conversion rates and boost business profits.

Basically, Universal Analytics provides you a number of opportunities to improve the way you market your products and services online and for you to better engage with your target market. However, if you are currently using Google Analytics and you would like to switch to Universal Analytics to get ahead of the game, you will have to wait a little longer as Google noted that they are yet to release a migration guide to make the transition easier. If you cannot wait, though, Google recommends that you make a new property in your Google Analytics account following the analytics.js development guide they have provided.

original: SociablWeb

Friday, 22 March 2013

6 Awesome Tips For Split Testing

In marketing and web development, split testing is a web design experimental approach aiming to find web page changes that maximize outcomes. You basically compare versions of your website pages; for example, you can compare two versions of your web pages or website like comparing of versions A and B such as A being the live version and B being a modification of that version. Usually, websites that are great candidates for testing A/B are e-commerce websites. Testing and making modifications based on your results will help increase your sales.

This process of alternating 2 or more website design alterations to test interactions between users is called split testing. Landing pages and other web pages with goals that
are specific benefit from considerations of design that force users to take actions which are appropriate. Split tests let designers utilize metrics that are relevant.

Most companies use the approach of designed experiments to make decisions about marketing. This is a practice that is increasingly common as the expertise and tools grow in these areas. There are a few case studies that used split testing, revealing that testing is a practice that is getting more and more popular with medium and small sized businesses. For instance, the pioneer of split testing use in the space of ecommerce was done by Amazon.com. Here are 6 awesome tips for you to help you with split testing.

1. Testing Elements


When split testing, the various elements that need to be tested include the colors, images, layouts and copy test. You will see which results are generated by which elements. Keep in the elements that reveal good results and tweak or make significant improvements on those that do not.

2. Adjust Text


In split testing, adjusting images and text content tends to create maximum audience impact. Text shortening such as only including the brand or product gist seems to increase the engagement of the audience and stir the motivation for making a purchase.

3. Adjust Images


In the same way, test your images to find which product photos on the landing pages increased visitors click through and if it increased the checkout rate. Compare these results to those of pages with no photos of the products.

4. Don’t Split Test Everything


When it comes to split testing, there is no need to prioritize navigation tools design as well as menu bar designing. As long as these are found in all the correct places, the style doesn’t matter usually.

5. Adjust Color


Even if many webmasters assume that color adjustments are not a priority, these are actually quite significant. This is due to the fact that visuals tend to lure guests into actions. Websites with blue backgrounds that are not quite noticeable are not able to get as much attention as much as bright colors can such as orange.

6. Test All the Landing Pages that Matter


To do this open your browser on the Web and navigate to the home page of Google. Create a new general account or sign in to your Google webmasters tool account. Navigate to the Website Optimizer of Google. In the window where it says Getting Started, create a new experiment and from the 2 choices listed for the experiments, click A/B Experiment and click the button “create.” In the provided field, enter the name of the Experiment and add the original URL page you want to test and make sure that it is not log-in or password protected but rather, is quite accessible to Google. Name as many landing pages you want to test in the additional fields below.

Split testing is a great method to find out what modifications you need to do on your website to increase your sales. Follow these tips and start split testing so that you can grow your business.

original: SociablWeb

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

SEO Tactics For The Post-Penguin/Panda Internet

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a field of internet marketing that’s constantly in a state of flux thanks to Google’s massive influence over the entire Internet. On more than one occasion, Google has rolled out algorithm updates that punish SEO practices that were once widely accepted. In the aftermath, webmasters are left with seriously reduced page rankings, web traffic and revenues.

Google Penguin

Google Penguin
That’s exactly what happened last spring when Google rolled out their notorious Penguin update. From Google’s perspective, Penguin addressed a major problem caused by websites who linked to dozens, even hundreds, of other sites in hope of raising their rankings on search results. This created major headaches for end users, who wound up having to sort through dozens of low quality results in order to find something of value.

For webmasters, Penguin created headaches of a different sort. They suddenly found that
the link networks they’d spent years, and sometimes thousands of dollars, developing were now rendered useless. These same folks also had to spend countless hours identifying and removing low quality links going to and from their sites.

Given the challenges of actually contacting a person at  most sites , this proved to be a very difficult task. But since Google demanded that both inbound and outbound links be of high quality, they didn’t have much choice.

Developing Penguin Friendly Links

Google’s main complaint against the old system of paid links and link exchanges is that it wasn’t, “organic.” The company decided that one of the best standards for measuring the legitimacy of links and their associated content was whether it was attached to a site that featured relevant, related content.

SEOs and webmasters quickly adapted their content strategies to account for Google’s new emphasis on organic links and began putting their own emphasis on a practice known as, “guest blogging.” Guest bloggers are simply writer from one blog who guest post on another, related blog in exchange for a link to their site.

Guest Blogging

While guest blogging is a great method for building organic link networks, it can be very time consuming. After all, you’ve still got to contact each individual blog, make arrangements to post, and then write the post. For some webmasters and blogger, this is more work than they’re able to do on their own.

Oftentimes, these time strapped bloggers will hire out a guest posting service like the one run by 4th Media in Denver, Colorado. These services not only write the guest posts, they find relevant sites to actually post them on. It’s a big job and, if you’ve been hit hard by Penguin, they’re well worth the money.

Finally

It’s a whole new world out there for SEO practitioners and webmasters. Simply keeping up with the ever-changing whims of Google executives, and the latest SEO best practices, can be very time consuming. Nonetheless, staying ahead of the SEO curve and keeping your traffic generating strategies in good shape isn’t something you can easily ignore.

Understanding how links work and how to utilize them to maximum SEO effect is one of the bet things you can do for your site.

image source

original post>>

Sunday, 3 March 2013

How To Use The Twitter Vine Video App For Your Online Business

Twitter vine app

This is probably one of the most overused-but-true sayings in the realm of marketing, whether it is within social media circles or any other kind, is the fact that “words tell but tales sell”.  I am sure that you’ve all heard that expression on a number of occasions.  However the reason any kind of saying like this becomes a cliche like that’s it’s true.  People interact with people due to things that unite us, things that we share.  And exactly how we uncover deep connections with other people is most frequently with the
energy of the story and how it is told.

In the earlier days of Twitter.com, people wondered how exactly a tale might be told in 140 figures or less. So Twitter was wiped off by many people as just a teenager’s play-thing.  The general concensus was that anybody who is really serious about communicating in 140 figures probably isn’t that bright.  I mean after all, they would need to use abbreviations, symbols, and customize the English language to an almost non-sensical degree.

But, that’s not really been the case has it?  Because people began to make use of the service, it became very clear there could be some real energy in individuals using just 140 figures to stir feelings, to share ideas, and also to connect.  And along the way, tales were told – see where I am going with this?

For this reason alone I am looking forward to the brand new stand alone video application that Twitter just launched known as Vine. Just in case you had not heard, recently Twitter introduced a micro video blogging application known as Vine. Customers can make and upload 6-second video loops (as well as splice short clips together) to then share with their buddies.

Vine does not import any connections out of your other platforms (like Twitter).  This means that as with every other platform, it will take you a while to hook up with other Vine users, as well as making yourself attractive by putting some thought into creating your profile.

But How Can a 6 Second Video Help Your Business?


1 – Product Demonstrations

To date, this is among the most obvious way in which brands and companies may use the energy of 6-second videos.  Is there be something which is easy to show to your clients rather than explaining with words? If so, then transform it into a 6-second video (or a series of different ones).

2 – Contests & Competitions

Contests are among the most widely used social networking tools in almost any brand manager’s toolbox, right?  So make use of this to your benefit!  Do some crowd-sourcing and request your fans to produce their very own favorite how-to video or advertisement on Vine.

3 – Showcase Your Team


As I have pointed out for other picture and video platforms, this is often a fantastic spot to show some “behind the curtain” footage out of your company. Have a quick video within the worker break room or snap a fast video of the cat having fun with a laser pointer before you go for your forthcoming presentation. Show a before, happening, after of the next trade-show set-up. The options for letting your clients get to see the “behind the curtain” of the company and your employees working hard are endless.

Info: An alternative to Vine, is of course YouTube.  It’s unlikely that Vine will ever beat the volume of viewers that you can gain via Youtube, but it should still serve its purpose.  Check out this video to see how a popular coupon code company is using videos to engage their customers.

original: SociablWeb

Tuesday, 12 February 2013

Five Things You Need To Know About The Google Webspam Team

Google webspam

1. They won’t penalize you over one tiny thing


With all the technical expertise that goes into creating and maintaining it, it’s tempting to view Google as an unfeeling, unthinking robot – one that responds to certain stimuli in certain ways and can’t be bargained with. In reality, Google is built and used by humans – just like the rest of the internet.

For that reason, the Google Webspam team aren’t going to penalize your site just because one well-meaning webmaster created a site-wide link to your domain without realizing that’s not best practice in the world of search engine optimization.

If you’re taking a responsible approach to link building and SEO you don’t need to worry about attracting a less than ideal link here and there. The Webspam team are here to save us from spam, not make the web a flawless place.

So stop fretting over the occasional bad link and instead channel your efforts into getting
more links from quality domains by producing quality content.

2. They won’t swing by your website just to see if you’re doing anything spammy


Sure, the Webspam team is staffed by fine men and women, not anonymous robots, but you can’t expect them to spend their days manually visiting every website on the net just to check if someone is up to no good. Reports to the spam team still play a big part in tracking down sites that warrant further investigation, while advances in search technology have made it even easy to find domains which may be engaging in dubious SEO practices.

The fact is, if someone from the Webspam team has cause to manually review your site, the chances are you’ve been up to no good. They know it, you know it – anyone who has looked at your domain in Open Site Explorer knows it. All those links with exact match anchor text just scream spam and there’s no point pretending otherwise.

By and large, if you are engaged in any kind of SEO spam and it’s “working” for you, it will only be a matter of time before you’re found out and when that happens, you’ll wish you’d stuck to the guidelines from the get go, because…

3. When they hit you, they will hit you hard


Once they’ve caught and punished you, you’re going to have to pull out the stops in order to get back into their good books. There’s no point in removing a handful of links and then submitting a reconsideration request. That’s just going to make them even angrier. You have to work on the assumption that the Webspam team know about every single black hat thing you’ve done, because the fact is they almost certainly will. Don’t think you can sneak a few high value paid links past them. Get the bad links removed or disavowed. All of them.

Once you’ve finished that, you might want to think about where you’d be ranking in Google if you’d spent all the time you wasted on black hat techniques and the subsequent clean-up on high quality link building and outreach.

4. They won’t hit you with an algorithm penalty


“What?!” I hear you cry. “That’s exactly what they do! They penalized my site when they introduced Panda and again when Penguin came along!“

However, a ranking drop because of an algorithm change isn’t the same as a penalty. A manual penalty will see you completely delisted from Google, while a hit from an algorithm change will only lead to a drop. (Of course if you’d been good, you might have seen an increase.) In practical terms, the results of an outright ban and a large ranking drop are likely to be much the same, but the difference is still worth noting.

If you have been hit by an algorithm change you don’t have to worry about applying to get the penalty removed and, as such, regaining your rankings should be easier. If you have a large backlink profile with some strong, naturally obtained connections then it is worth weeding out the weaker, spammy links through manual removal or the disavow tool. If your link profile is small, or mainly spammy, focus your efforts on building quality links, then start to ditch the ones you know you shouldn’t have.

An algorithm change is about removing the benefit from techniques which are against Google’s Webmaster guidelines but still provide a rankings boost. Such changes don’t look to penalize individuals, but instead ensure it pays to stick to the rules. Take it as a warning that what you’re doing isn’t best practice and make amends before it’s too late.

5. They won’t tell you exactly what you should be doing


The Google Webspam aren’t there for your benefit, they’re there for the benefit of Google’s users. Clearly what’s good for users is good for your site, but don’t expect @Matt Cutts to take you by the hand and lead you to the promised land of top ranking for all your keywords. Google are there to lay down the guidelines, you then need to make sure you stick to them while carrying out SEO in an innovative way. Obviously, that’s easier said than done, but it is what will get you the big wins in the long run.

At the very least, you need to pay attention to everything Google says and does, but in reality you’re going to have to keep abreast of best practice across the board – from on-page SEO to the latest developments in outreach. Sticking to the rules may seem like hard work, but consistently doing so will build up long-term benefits, ones that won’t disappear when the Webspam team catches you out.