"Search Engine Journal" - 6 new articles
- Bing Adds Search History to Search Autosuggest
- Google Buys Online Image Editor Picnik
- Free SEJ News iPhone Application Available
- Do's & Don'ts of Social Media Marketing
- Creative Writing Tips for LinkBait Production
- Get More Productive with 'StayFocusd' Google Chrome Plugin
- More Recent Articles
- Search Search Engine Journal
Bing Adds Search History to Search Autosuggest
The Bing Search Blog has just announced that starting today, your query history will now be part of its search autosuggest feature. Meaning, Bing does not only analyze your usual search behavior based on previous searches but now will use your actual previous searches to suggest search terms for your current search.
This could be a helpful search feature if you use Bing often. For recurring searches you don't have to retype the whole search strings anymore as Bing will pull out your previous searches and suggest them to you. To make the search suggestion based on your search history, Bing is even coloring them purple, similar to the standard color of visited links on webpages. The usual Bing autosuggest terms are still in blue colored text.
Of course, there's a caveat here when it comes to user privacy. So to protect your privacy, Bing is suggesting that you turn History off any time that you feel you need to. You can even selectively remove any portion of your search history via the Manage History option of your browser's Bing settings.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Bing Adds Search History to Search Autosuggest
Google Buys Online Image Editor Picnik
Google has just acquired another company as announced by the company's official blog. It's Picnik, a fun, online image editor that was founded in 2005 and since then become one of the most feature-rich online image editor partnering with various photo uploading sites including Flickr.
Picnik offers some easy-to-use tool that you can use to enhance, modify, and add more excitement to your photos. All done online at the Picnik site, I mean website.
Picnik claims of millions of visitors monthly, which is probably one of the reason why Google acquired it. While Picasa Web Album is a pretty good photo uploading site, tying up with Picnik could add some luster to Google's photo sharing site.
But of course it is still uncertain yet what Google will do with Picnik. Although the Picnik folks said that nothing is going to change right away. They are just moving to Google office as they continue to provide the same service, at the moment.
Knowing Google, it will just be a matter of time before it makes use of Picnik to advance a certain goal. In the meantime, congratulations to the Picnik team!
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Google Buys Online Image Editor Picnik
Free SEJ News iPhone Application Available
Attention all Search Engine Journal lovers and avid readers out there: we have good news! The new SEJ News iPhone application is now available in the app store. The even better news? It's completely free.
The format of this application is very easy on the eyes. The newest content is located on top, followed by the older posts. Simply scroll down as far back as you like to read the articles.
The iPhone application designed for this website is not only simplistic and easy to use, but also has the ability to instantly refresh. You'll never miss out on any new posts that might have become available while you were eating/driving/working/feigning interest in something else. When you open the application, simply place your finger on the screen and drag it down to pull down the refresh box. As soon as you release your finger it will start downloading new content.
There are two ways to download this application. You can either search "SEJ News" in your iPhone app store, or you can also download SEJ News for iPhone directly from the I-Tunes store.
We hope you enjoy this application! Remember: the best things in life are free.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Free SEJ News iPhone Application Available
Do's & Don'ts of Social Media Marketing
Okay, I admit that at first light, social media marketing (SMM) may appear like child's play. After all, what is there to it? Create a bunch of profiles, Digg a little, Stumble a bit and you are set, right? Wrong! That is the exact attitude that can kill your social media campaign (and dreams) before it can begin.
I don't mean to suggest that it is beyond a social media novice to successfully carry out a marketing campaign. Armed with enough knowledge, I am fairly certain, even a novice will be able to pull it off. Nor am I making it out to be more complex than rocket science. However, approaching it with a complacent attitude definitely won't be helpful. Social media, as much 'fun' as it is, is not without rules. And successful social media marketing is possible only if one, pro or novice, follows these rules.
Do's!
1. Build a strong social network. So, you have a profile on Twitter, so, it has over thousands followers. You pat yourself on your back for building such a strong social network. Boy, are you ever so wrong? Have you taken care to ascertain how many of these thousands of followers are legit? And how often do you interact with your followers, respond to the tweets you receive? Less than positive answers to either of these questions mean that despite the impressive number of followers, your social network is as weak as it can get. Interact with your network, only that can ensure your network is as true to you as you want it to be and that your message is conveyed successfully.
2. Expend your effort building the trust quotient of your site. If yours is not a trusted site, set about working on improving the areas it is found lacking in. When you engage in SMM, you are inviting the entire world to scrutinize your site, if you think it won't be able to stand up it, wait until you are ready to launch you campaign. You can start by ensuring your site is clean of harmful viruses and spammy links.
3. It's simple, it may sound a little hackneyed, but it is also true – pretty impossible to drive a social media campaign without a blog. Bloggers pioneered and now sustain social media, without them, there would be nothing to Digg, or Like or Stumble. Social media would be reduced to a couple of social networks and unending streams of status updates. (All right, maybe a little more than that, but you get the picture). Integrate a blog (pretty easy to do with Wordpress) into your site and update it regularly with 'good' content!
4. This is a classic tip, works every time. You may remember a time when 'List' posts were all the rage (as a matter of fact, they are still very popular), how they could draw traffic to a blog like nothing else could. Well, now with the immense popularity that video sharing sites seem to enjoy, creating a video in the vein of a List post (for example, a 'How To' or an 'x Best Tips' video) and uploading it on sites like YouTube and Tubemogul is something that can really benefit your SMM efforts. Sure, you wouldn't say no to instant exposure and the possibility of reaching millions of viewers. Apart from YouTube, you can promote the links to the videos on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and effortlessly double the exposure your brand stands to receive.
5. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open, and your finger on the pulse. Bad anatomical idioms aside, being aware of all the changes happening around you on the web is important not just in social media marketing, but any kind of marketing on line. Subscribe to feeds from relevant sites, use an RSS reader (like, Zune or Feedreader) and be among the first to comment on posts you like or find particularly relevant. Commenting on posts is great way to get in to the thick of the social activity on a site, but being the first commenter will give you the opportunity to initiate a discussion and channel it in the direction you wish to.
6. Social media marketing can hardly be possible unless you are willing to be, you know, social. It's a given that you should make your presence felt on all the major social sites, but what is equally important, but is often overlooked is being part of micro-communities – that are relevant to your business. While your message may get lost in the irrelevant 'noise' on established social sites, it has more probability of reaching the intended audience in a smaller, but niche, micro-community. If you have a site about pet grooming, joining a niche community for dog lovers like Dogster will greatly help your business.
7. Stick to your brand philosophy! Just because you are depending on a (relatively) modern approach to marketing doesn't mean you have to abandon your brand's basic ideology, which has hitherto guided you. Let your brand philosophy guide your SMM strategy, it will stop you from over-promising and help sustain your brand identity.
8. Be familiar with the social culture of the communities you frequent – very important, lest you commit a social faux pas and the other members banish you from the community. If you have ever participated in a forum discussion, you know what I mean. Like forums, social communities have a certain culture – certain jargons they favor, certain topics that are preferred. If you wish to be accepted as part of a community, be sure you are well-versed with its ways and are prepared to adapt. Though essentially they do the same thing, Digg and Reddit has different and distinct cultures; if you are found to be pro-Reddit on Digg, you'll be buried even before you can say social!
DON'Ts!
9. Don't 'spam' on social sites. A no-brainer, really. Everyone on the Internet knows that Spam = Evil, so if you are engaging in social spamming, you are clearly prepared to see your SMM campaign die an extremely quick death. But to those of you, who are yet to commit this cardinal of sins, let me say this: DON'T DO IT! Not only you lose your credibility, social or otherwise, but all your efforts will go to naught as well. Social spamming isn't limited to offering unsolicited irrelevant links on social sites; posting promotional comments (with or without links), Digging or Stumbling posts on popular topics that are in no way related to your site, even sending automated Direct Messages on twitter are considered spammy practices.
10. Avoid blatant marketing tactics, be subtle. I know what you are thinking, "what's the point of having a 'subtle' marketing campaign?" I am afraid that's the way things work in social media. The 'social' element (a.k.a user/follower/fan) in social media apparently has little patience for overtly promotional and gimmicky marketing tactics. Give then fun contests, quizzes and games that don't 'corrupt' the social space too much, and they'll love you!
11. Don't forget to keep your social profiles live and updated. One would think, this goes without saying, but there are enough 'dead' profiles out there to change one's thinking. I don't like following, friending or even 'fanning' inactive profiles, I can only imagine it is true of other social media users too. Freshness is of the essence in social media, if all a profile can provide is stale information, it is of little use to anyone.
12. Don't forget about Online Reputation Management. A significant amount of signals monitored in ORM come from social sites. So, while you are engaged in SMM, it is of vital importance to gauge user reaction to your product and to take appropriate measures to counter any less-than favorable signal. If these negative signals point to an actual problem with your product, take them to heart and address the issue immediately. If they aren't, work to rectify the wrong perception.
13. Don't drop search in favor of social. You SMM efforts should complement your SEO efforts. Choosing one over the other will turn out to be nothing so much as a mistake. Continue building links and optimizing your site while you build your presence in social media.
14. Don't try to do too much too fast. Let your SMM take a natural course. Natural being the keyword here; just because you figured you got into the game a little too late, don't try to make up for it by working over time. So, tweeting updates every half an hour – bad idea. Your followers want to receive useful tweets from you, even one tweet a day will very likely keep them happy. Try not to flood their streams with less-then-useful, overtly promotional tweets, this holds true for your activity on other social sites as well.
15. You social media activities should be primed to bring exposure to your site. They certainly should not be used to go on the offence and slander your competition. Battling it out with a competition can do more harm than good to your SMM efforts.
16. Don't engage in social climbing – you can't have a successful SMM campaign if you have only people with big, established profiles on your network. While seeking to climb the social ladder, arguably in an effort to boost the importance of your profile, you may lose out on many a potential customer.
Consider these rules while you are chalking out your SMM marketing plan and you can stop worrying about your efforts backfiring on you.
Bhavya George represents Social Maximizer, a social bookmarking service that assists webmasters in promoting their blog posts & articles in various social bookmarking sites.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Do's & Don'ts of Social Media Marketing
Creative Writing Tips for LinkBait Production
Have you ever sold a client linkbaiting content and when it came time to produce the bait, you've thought "oh dear, there's not much to write about ___" (copper pipe manufacturing, hermit crab pet insurance, massage distance learning, etc)?
Writers block. Brain freeze. Call it what you will – the inspiration behind link bait doesn't come easy to all. Most of us are SEOs, not trained copy writers, but on occasion writing link bait or guest blog posts for client products land in our laps. I tend to get creative, and think up dramatic story lines to combat the sometimes sterile concepts at hand.
Creative Writing Tips for LinkBait Production
Tone. Toys for kids, project management software for AB's, electric guitars for musicians – these groups don't speak the same language. Get the lingo down for any one group – lets focus on guitar musicians in this case.
Google's Wonder Qheel is great at suggesting industry relevant terms.
After searching for top blogs in any given industry, I use the Cloudlet plugin for Firefox which scrapes SERPs to form a tag cloud of often used keywords on a results page.
Looks like I should also mentions amps, top brands like Fender, and the popular sunburst finishing glaze.
Character Development. SERPs image results, Flickr, and Picassa often give a pretty accurate idea of the types of people using any given product. Results for electric guitar: men, 20 – 60yrs, dark outfits, large boots, long hair, holding electric guitars, sweaty, 1 syllable names. Now I must imagine myself as a man who likes to dress for funerals, goes hiking, doesn't own scissors, is in need of some Axe, named Spike.
Adversity. This is the opportunity to incorporate the client. What is your character having to overcome? This challenge will ultimately result in utilising your client's product as an aid or the full on solution. Spike's adversity: He needs to buy a new guitar because he smashed his old favourite on stage in last weeks gig.
Plot Line. Like any good story line we need a beginning, middle, and end evolving in the face of this adversity.
Beginning: Set the scene and explain the adverse situation. Spike the electric guitarist has just moved to Memphis. His record company has given him an instrument allowance and he needs to decide on a new electric guitar.
Middle: Spike hum's and ha's over the types of electric guitars in his price range.
End: Spike decides on the client's brand of electric guitar because of the great X, Y, and Z features it possesses. Spike can't wait to play it on stage and share it with his friends.
While an obvious challenge, try to be subtle about how you introduce your product. The entire point of a story line and character is be more organic so that you appear legitimate, and not just another product cheerleader.
I hope you take away a refreshed creative edge when producing client linkbait, be it a blog post or perhaps even using your character to explore (infiltrate?) social media avenues and forums. Please, leave comments below and share your own inspiration for writing linkbait copy for clients – bonus points for especially monotonous industries.
My "Spike" inspiration.
Chelsea Blacker is a London based search consultant currently working at Base One Search With a background in SEO & PPC cultivated at Promediacorp in NYC, Chelsea focuses on engaging B2B brands in social media and online PR. If you want to further procrastinate from getting on with your real work, check out her current Marketing Pilgrim post You Know You Work in Search When… or say hi to her on twitter @ChelseaBlacker
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Creative Writing Tips for LinkBait Production
Get More Productive with 'StayFocusd' Google Chrome Plugin
Saying hello to all Google Chrome users out there: today's post is right for you. I am sharing a new (fun!) productivity addon for Google Chrome: "StayFocusd". Now an introduction which I loved first of all:
You sit down at the computer, and you swear you'll be productive. Next thing you know, it's twelve hours later. You've checked your email, updated your Facebook status, browsed the trending topics on Twitter, read your RSS feeds, looked up your favorite band on Wikipedia, vanity googled yourself, cyber-stalked your ex, looked at all your high-school crushes' Facebook photos, and lost a week's pay playing online poker.
Sure, few of us won't want to check the tool out after such an intro. So I did. After an instant installation (can't get used so far, no need to restart!) you will notice the tool icon in the browser address bar. Click on it and you'll be able to block/unblock the current site:
Here's what it stands for:
1. Block this entire site: This will block you from browsing any page on the current site once time runs out.
2. Advanced options are the following:
- Only block pages on the current subdomain;
- Only allow pages on the current subdomain;
- Enter a custom url: This will allow you to block or allow any specific page, path, or query.
The last one is cool: it allows you for example to block yourself from browsing Delicious come while still being able to access delicious.com/save to save important pages.
Naturally, you can configure the period of time after which the site gets blocked via settings which also list all the blocked and allowed sites (and allow to customize the list):
However the removal feature is somewhat wicked. Here's what I got after I tried to unblock my test site:
Here's the explanation:
Can I change the amount of time I'm allowed per day?
Sure, as long as your time for the day hasn't run out yet. Just visit the Options page and enter the number of minutes per day you want to allow yourself. If your time has run out for the day, you'll have to wait until tomorrow before you can update your settings.
Well, I guess it means I won't be able to change the options until tomorrow. Farewell to Google for today.
And here's what the blocked site looks like after the time runs out:
Now, all you have to do is to stay focused!
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Get More Productive with 'StayFocusd' Google Chrome Plugin
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martes, 2 de marzo de 2010
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