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"Search Engine Journal" - 10 new articles
- Google Buzz Layer Now on Google Maps for Desktop
- Winner of the Search & Social Spring Summit Grand Prize
- Surprise! Facebook Rolls out News Features at F8 Event!
- Jessica Bowman, Mike Gray & Greg Boser Added to Search & Social Summit Lineup
- Optimizing Your AdWords Campaigns
- 2 Great Wordpress Plugins to Find Your Blog Most Powerful Pages
- Facebook: What, Why, Who, How?
- Antitrust Group Wants to Break Up Google
- Google Increases Government Lobbying by 57%, with $1.4 M in Q1
- Google Acquires Startup Agnilux
- Search Search Engine Journal
Google Buzz Layer Now on Google Maps for Desktop
As if having the Google Buzz layer on Google Maps for Mobile is not enough, Google has just made it also available on your computer. This means that you can practically use all the features of Google Buzz for mobile that includes posting live updates of your whereabouts and your views about a particular place, in the comforts of your home or workplace, using your computer.
To try activate Google Buzz layer, visit Google Maps on your web browser and simply select Buzz from the "More" options menu. Once checked, you can now start exploring Buzz updates from people nearby or even from other people worldwide. You just need to change the current location of Google Maps and you can see those little icons that will pull out the available buzz on different lcoations. You can even find public profile of those who posted the buzz, timestamp to comment on the post or the place to see it in Maps. That way you'd know whether the buzz is auto-posted by bots or by real people.
While Google Buzz layer on Maps for desktop is a pretty cool feature, it has one limitation though – you can only view the buzz but not post your own buzz. To do this, you have to use Google Buzz for mobile via the web app, Google Maps for mobile or the Android phone widget.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Google Buzz Layer Now on Google Maps for Desktop
Winner of the Search & Social Spring Summit Grand Prize
With the conference being a little over a week away, we are stoked about the 80 degree weather that we foresee for the 2010 Search & Social Spring Summit. While listening to Todd Malicoat from Market Motive speak, you might even get a chance to see Loren Baker jumping for joy as he sees dolphins swimming by our conference hall.
On April 15, 2010, we closed our VIP Contest and have finally gotten a winner. Congratulations to David Alecock for winning the Grand Prize to the 2010 Search & Social Spring Summit! David has won a complimentary pass to attend the conference, complimentary airfare, a free hotel stay at the Doubletree Guest Suites and $500 in cold hard cash!
David will be able to leave with business connections in affiliate marketing, social media marketing, online reputation management, paid search and search engine optimization. He will learn outsourcing secrets on how to grow his business and spend the rest of his life on the beach.
For the speaker lineup and the schedule of the two-day event, please go here.
Also remember to book your stay at the Doubletree Guest Suites for a special rate of $109/night valid until Friday, April 23, 2010.
The 2010 Search & Social Awards will be coming soon. We will let you know when you can vote for your favorite blog and hear the winners announced at the 2010 Search & Social Spring Summit.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Winner of the Search & Social Spring Summit Grand Prize
Surprise! Facebook Rolls out News Features at F8 Event!
In San Francisco today, a great even called "F8″ took place. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg announced a few new key features that will help improve our social experience internally to Facebook as well as externally to the web. You know, I always joke about how Facebook is going to take over the world. Little did I know that my prediction may be true. So, to recap a little for you:
New Social Plugins
- Social bar plugin: something that can be added, which includes Facebook chat, the "like" button, as well as a list of friends who "like" the same site you do.
- Recommendation plugin: This uses an algorithm which will pretty much analyze all your favorite things, as well as the interests of your friends, to recommend things that you might "like".
- Activity stream plugin: this filters out all the rest of the stuff in your newsfeed to only show you your "liked" website's updates. I like this, because normally I have to sift through all my friend's updates to find something a fanpage or whatever posted for me to see.
- Facebook login plugin: They plan on doing away with Facebook Connect (which was an awesome idea in the first place) and making the Facebook login plugin essentially the same thing, however, you'll also be able to see pictures showing what friends of yours have joined the site.
- The "like" button: Running in an iFrame with no login required, this is probably the simplest of all the plugins. The beautiful thing about the "like" feature on websites is that it doesn't need to know anything about you to congregate a list of friends that have recently liked or engaged the website. It will also automatically add this into your Facebook profile.
Now, those goodies are pretty much for the general public. The following things have also been added that are a little more complex.
Open Graph Protocols
This has been a tricky subject to grasp for me, but here it goes. Websites will now have semantic markup, and Facebook will now be able to reads tags from external websites, to see, categorize and understand what kind of things you're liking. There are 30 partner sites that are going to be involved with this, so you'll have no shortage of websites to play on. It's going to be fluid, so if you have something liked in your profile from the CNN website, you can hover over the link and it will give you information. Inside Facebook gave the example of "like"ing Toby Gerhardt on the ESPN website and being able to receive updates strictly about him in your Facebook activity stream. He will also show up in your profile, and when you hover over him it will probably say "ESPN" etc. It's all integrated. Instead of just connecting links to static pages, they want to connect people, interests and encourage social-ness in the web. This is what I've gathered from reading about open graph protocols, but until it's actually physically usable, there could be more involved that I'm not understanding right away.
"We think connections between people and things they care about will define internet experiences. Our goal is to accelerate."
Graph API
Every object in Facebook is going to have a unique ID. Developers can then download this object from graph.facebook.com/userid. To see your friends for instance, you can go to /yourusername/friends/.You will no longer need SDK and tons and tons of documentation. Breathe a sigh of relief, developers!
Because it's in real-time, you can also use web hooks that will allow you to ping whenever users update their walls as well as register call backs.
So… in closing
Sites like Microsoft Docs, Pandora etc will be using all of these features. Once they are fully done and I get my hands in to it, I will probably be able to write a better article. Until then, this was just a glimpse of what was said today at the conference :)
Also, from an SEO perspective… when things are getting moved into real-time search and sites are now connected in these ways… are "likes" going to be something that will be incorporated in SEO and social media marketing in the near future? Since the industry is always moving and changing, should this be something we should be aware of now, and possibly looking to implement? Sorry- crazy brain thinking ahead to the future. I'll slow my roll here just a little.
Part of me thinks this is amazing, and part of me thinks that it's scary. I absolutely love the innovation, but there's always the concern for privacy and what it means when we're so used to getting information tailored to our liking. If you think about it this way, once the algorithms start picking up your interests, and start influencing your web results and whatever else it will eventually come to, it's almost as if you're living in a sheltered world. You're going to get so used to having information given to you, that you may be blind to whatever other information out there that doesn't fit into your "likes". What do you guys think?
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Surprise! Facebook Rolls out News Features at F8 Event!
Jessica Bowman, Mike Gray & Greg Boser Added to Search & Social Summit Lineup
Search & Social has secured three new premier speakers to be covering SEO tactics and in-house SEO strategies at the Search & Social Spring Summit 2010 in Tampa, FL on May 3rd and 4th.
Search & Social Spring Summit is one of the most cost effective conferences in the search & social media marketing space with a ticket cost of only $525 for the two day event.
Only 26 seats are left for the event, so if you are planing on attending, REGISTER NOW.
Search & Social Spring Summit Speakers include :
- Greg Boser Founder, WebGuerrilla, LLC
- Todd Malicoat (StuntDubl) Internet Marketing Consultant
- Rae Hoffman, CEO of Outspoken Media
- Neal Rodriguez, SEO for the Nielsen Company
- Chris Winfield, President of 10e20
- Brent Csutoras, Social Media Marketing Expert
- Dave Szetela, SEO of Clix Marketing
- More Search & Social Summit Speakers
Search & Social Spring Summit will of course be moderated by the founders of Search & Social and Search Engine Journal :
- Loren Baker
- Jordan Kasteler
- Dave Snyder
Attendees can expect to learn, at this affordable conference, the latest trends and successful marketing approaches by speakers who are headliners at other conferences costing a thousand dollars or more.
Complete Schedule for Search & Social Spring Summit
Day One of Search & Social Spring Summit
Breakfast & Registration
Monday 8 am – 9 am
Search & Social Spring Summit kicks off with a breakfast buffet & registration for all of its attendees. This is the perfect time to come down by the pool, register, grab some swag along with your bagels, fruit and coffee and start your morning networking before our first set of presentations.
Social Media News & Content
Chris Winfield, Chris Bennett, Neal Rodriguez, Brent Csutoras moderated by Jordan Kasteler of Search & Social
Monday 9am – 10:15 amSocial Media is generally split into two categories, social networking and social news sharing/bookmarking. This panel features three of the foremost experts on Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Fark and some of the more well known (and lesser known yet more targeted) social news sharing/bookmarking websites that do not only build proven links to the posts and stories which become popular on them, but also TRAFFIC!
Chris Winfield, Chris Bennett, Neal Rodriguez & Brent Csutoras, three social media experts, will discuss tactics and strategies for building a successful social media campaign across the world of Digg and beyond.
Social Media Biz : Doing Business on Twitter & Facebook
Rae Hoffman, Julia Gorzka, Joe Hall & Brian Chappell moderated by Jordan Kasteler of Search & Social
Monday 10:45am – 12 pmSocial Networking is more than just connecting with friends and clients on Fanpages. Rae Hoffman, Joe Hall, Julia Gorzka & Brian Chappell will discuss real life situations and case studies that the small business or the Fortune 500 executive can use for utilizing social media as a reputation management tool, money making application and/or widget generation and branding device. This panel will cover how to get people talking about your brand on social media channels, and how to monetize or motivate using social media.
LUNCH : Sponsored by Second Step Search
12 pm – 1 pm
Monday's Lunch is a full on buffet (we know food and love food) sponsored by Second Step Search.
CASH BAR Opens
12 pm to 5 pm
On-Site SEO Tactics
Greg Boser, Michael Gray & Todd Malicoat moderated by Dave Snyder of Search & Social
Monday 1pm – 2:15pmThree SEO professionals, Greg Boser, Chris Bennett, Michael Gray and Todd Malicoat will offer their SEO expertise to review overlooked SEO campaign tactics, tips on getting SEO changes made to corporate sites, webmaster tools tactics & specifically linking site analytics, site speed and spiderability to your SEO campaign. All three of these men charge over $500 an hour for their SEO consultation services, and this session will be one to remember.
In-House SEO : Tactics for Managing Multiple Sites & Headaches
Jessica Bowman of SEOinhouse.com, Tony Adam of Myspace! & Kathryn Katz of Consolidated Credit moderated by Dave Snyder of Search & Social
Monday 3:45pm – 5pmIn-house SEO is a whole different ballgame than SEO consultation or agency work but at the end of the day, we all have to understand the life of the in-house SEO and the challenges they face to not only learn how to work with them, but also understand that the issues they face aren't just challenges, but opportunity for the little guy and those willing to bend.
Are you an "In-house" looking for tips and tricks to boost your productivity and career? Then this session is a can't miss for you. Jessica Bowman is the premier authority on In-House SEO management strategies. Tony Adam recommends buying the IT team a six pack of beer to get the job done quicker. Any other great tips? Learn them on this panel.
CASINO NIGHT! Happy Hour & Dinner : Sponsored by Search Engine Journal
Monday 5pm – 11pm
* Open Bar Happy Hour from 5 pm to 6 pm.
* Gourmet Buffet Style Dinner for Attendees.
* Full CASINO and Dealers with Roulette, Poker & Black Jack.
DAY TWO of Search & Social Spring Summit
Hearty "Morning After" Breakfast
Tuesday 8 am – 9 am
After partying all night at the Search & Social Casino Night and Open Bar, you're going to want to stock up on the protein, carbs and coffee to get through this day of advanced sessions. This Hearty "Morning After" Breakfast right in the conference area is the best way to shake off the night before, and kick off the day right!
Advanced Paid Search Tactics
Dave Szetela, Ryan Sammy, Janel Landis Laravie moderated by Loren Baker of Search & Social
Tuesday 9am – 10:15 amGoogle Adwords can take a few minutes to set up, but a lifetime to master. And now with the integration of shopping feeds, International campaigns, the restrictions of the Google Content Network, and more and more opportunities in paid search, we need experts to light the path and show us the way.
Dave Szetela of Clix Marketing & Janel Landis Laravie of Chacka Marketing will discuss paid search & conversion optimization tactics AND Ryan Sammy of Search & Social will show you ways to integrate price points and sale inventory into your Google AdWords campaign.
Advanced Link Building Tactics
Chris Bennett, Brian Chappell & Todd Malicoat moderated by Loren Baker of Search & Social
Tuesday 10:45am – 12 pmQuite frankly link building is not what it used to be and with more and more opportunities in link development opening up with the expansion of social media and self publishing, building a link is much more labor intensive and challenging than just renting a link on a sidebar.
Professional blogger and link builder Loren Baker will run through the world of blogging and link building, to show how blogs and social metrics can be used in a successful linking campaign. Todd Malicoat is one of the premier experts on link building and link baiting. Brian Chappell has built links with the best of them and will discuss link development using a multi-tiered approach.
All three of these panelists build links in some of the most difficult verticals online and this should prove to be an incredible session.
LUNCH : Sponsored by Raven SEO Tools
12 pm – 1 pm
Load up on this buffet Italian lunch sponsored by Raven SEO Tools.
CASH BAR Opens
12 pm to 5 pm
SEO Site Clinic
Greg Boser, Chris Boggs, Rae Hoffman & Michael Gray moderated by Dave Snyder of Search & Social
Tuesday 1pm – 2:15pmOver an hour with three SEO badasses. Need we say more. Greg, Chris & Michael will take advanced SEO questions from the room AND via our online chat.
Outsourcing Secrets, Grow Your Business and Spend the Rest of Your Life on a Beach
Kevin Henrikson, Aaron Chronister (Mad Hat) & Dave Snyder w/ Open Forum
Tuesday 3:45pm – 5pmWe'll cover tips and tricks of outsourcing so you don't have to learn the hard way. Find out how to identify the tasks that CAN and CANNOT be outsourced. Finally, learn how to breakdown and create an assembly-line work process in order to lower costs. Help is a lot cheaper than you think, if you know where to look and how to manage them. In addition, learn how to use your social media and SEO skills to build a business from scratch, that all started with one BACON EXPLOSION!
CALYPSO NIGHT! Poolside Happy Hour & Dinner w/ Live Music!!
Sponsored by Affiliate Summit & Best of the Web
Tuesday 5pm – 11pmWe have two main goals with our events. First, to be the best value in Internet Marketing conferences and events. Second, to provide the best education and networking mix available in an Internet Marketing conference. Together, you will confidently walk away with valuable information and resources.
Business Networking Events
Along with the content driven sessions at Search & Social Spring Summit, which are perfect for the beginning online marketer to the advanced SEO, Search & Social Spring Summit hosts day long networking events & group workshops for the limited 120 seat conference so you will leave with business connections in affiliate marketing, social media marketing, online reputation management, paid search and search engine optimization. In summary, the connections you make at Search & Social Spring Summit will forge long term trusted business relationships and friendships.
Networking events include :
- Fully catered Breakfasts, Lunches & Group dinners (all included with event ticket)
- Casino Night with various Casino Games, Dealers and Prizes
- Poolside Luau Night with a Calypso Band and Catered Goodies
- Group Workshops between sessions
Location & Venue
The Search & Social Spring Summit 2010 will be held at the Doubletree Guest Suites in Tampa, FL on May 3-4, 2010. Special conference rates are just $109 per night for the suites, which include a kitchenette area, living & meeting area and separate bedroom.
The waterfront Doubletree Guest Suites in Tampa Include :
- Complimentary 24-Hour Business Center
- Complimentary Airport and Local Transportation
- Heated, Outdoor Pool that overlooks the Old Tampa Bay Wildlife Preserve
- 24-hour fitness center
- Waterfront Location with Bay View Suites
For additional information and to purchase tickets, please visit SearchSocialSummit.com.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Jessica Bowman, Mike Gray & Greg Boser Added to Search & Social Summit Lineup
Optimizing Your AdWords Campaigns
Pay per click advertising is a form of marketing with major benefits. It differs from other methods of marketing in its ability to allow advertisers and marketers to measure and analyze the results of their techniques, to refine and optimize them to increase ROI beyond almost anything possible in the offline marketing world. Google AdWords is currently the prominent pay per click resource available today. Learning some of the ways to optimize your AdWords campaigns can cut costs while keeping conversions up in several ways.
Here are four ways to refine your AdWords campaign to see where money spent is producing the best return and to adjust settings to maximize return on investment.
1. The Segment option. This is one of the newest additions to AdWords. The Segment option is available within your Campaigns, Ad Groups and Keywords tabs. Within each, the options are different, but allow for viewing of your results in specific ways of measurement. This can include breaking into specific units of time, such as weeks or days of the week.
By viewing your data this way you can discover what weeks are most active for a seasonal market, as well as information such as which days of the week are most prone to getting better conversion rates. By knowing this data, you can reduce costs where your conversions are more expensive, increase bids where you are seeing better conversion rates, and in all these ways increase ROI.
2. A-B Split Testing for ads. This can be one of the most effective means of increasing CTR for your ad groups. Have two or three ads active for each ad group. After a number of clicks (ideally at least 20 clicks on each ad), choose the better performing ad. Replace the more poorly performing ad with a different ad copy. Repeat the whole operation to find which advertisement will produce the best CTR or the best conversion rate.
Doing this can often improve your CTR by a factor of 2 or more, and a higher CTR improves Quality Score as well as increasing lead generation. To get an accurate reading for proper A-B split testing, make sure your campaign setting for Ad Delivery->Rotation is set to "Rotate: Show ads more evenly".
3. Remarketing with the Audiences tab. This is an element of AdWords that works only for the Content Network. When the Audiences tab is enabled, you can create remarketing lists to target specific visitors to your site. By placing code on specific pages within your site, a cookie is put on all users who visit these pages.
Then when they visit other sites with similar targeted themes, a very relevant ad is shown to these users to give them motivation to return to your site to make a purchase or opt-in. This works by reaching out to visitors who had visited your site previously and displayed some kind of interest in that market. Often this remarketing approach can increase conversions by contacting people who have an established interest in your products and reconnecting with them.
4. Changing advertising frequency/rate settings. Advertising can be adjusted in AdWords to not just advertise for certain days and hours of each day, but the amount for CPC can be adjusted to raise or lower bidding rates for certain days and hours. The setting is within each Campaign settings area, under Advanced settings->Schedule and choosing Ad Scheduling, the selecting "Bid Adjustment" inside the scheduling option.
After doing research for performance for specific days within your campaign you can make changes to cut costs and increase ROI nicely. For example, after viewing that you are getting little or no conversions on certain days of the week, you can pause these days with this setting. In the same way, any days that have better conversion rates can have an increased bid amount to maximize CTR for those days. This can all help improve business results for your AdWords campaign.
By knowing about and using these different options within AdWords you can greatly improve your pay per click results. AdWords optimization is a definite way to increase ROI and open additional opportunities to expand your marketing methods. Properly using these techniques can cut costs, increase profits, and help you make the most out of this powerful tool.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Optimizing Your AdWords Campaigns
2 Great Wordpress Plugins to Find Your Blog Most Powerful Pages
Learning which of your published content did particularly well based on some parameters is a great way to become a more successful blogger. This way you can see which of your posts are well received in social media, which of them get linked more and which of them spur a more active discussion.
This week I am sharing the two best Wordpress plugins that will offer you a huge variety of parameters to evaluate your posts:
Blog Link & Traffic Analysis Plugin for WordPress
This plugin digs into your blog posts and offers several variables to find the most powerful of them:
- post date
- page views per post in the previous 3 months
- inbound links (requires Yahoo Site Explorer Yahoo API which is quite easy to receive)
- Google bot visits (last visit and number of visits)
- Yahoo bot visits (last visit and number of visits)
- MSN bot visits (last visit and number of visits)
- Other bot visits
You can sort by any of the column to find the pages that did best for any of the criteria. For example, if you want to find post with most backlinks, click > icon in the "Inbound Links" column:
The best part of this plugin is that it gives you the ability to compare any of the variables side by side. For example, you can see how number of links effects the bot visits and traffic:
Just a quick note: you will need to update the link count manually and the process takes quite some time, so you don't want to do that too often.
Popularity Contest for Wordpress
This plugin provides a wealth of information on how well your posts are doing.
1. The summarized popularity data:
The first thing you'll see is the table containing the following data:
- Post unique views;
- Category and archive views,
- Comments,
- Trackbacks, etc
(I wish the table were sortable though)
2. Recently popular pages: the section allows to see most popular posts over the past 30, 60 and 90 days as well over the past year.
3. Most viewed pages and categories:
- Most viewed pages;
- Most viewed categories;
- Most viewed tags;
- Most viewed archives;
- Home page views;
- Feed views;
4. Reactions:
- Most commented posts;
- Posts with most trackbacks;
- Posts with most pingbacks;
5. Averages:
- Average popularity by category;
- Average popularity by tag;
- Average popularity by month.
6. Popular posts within each category.
The plugin also offers a handy sidebar widget that allows to list your blog most popular posts by plenty of parameters including overall popularity, archive views, comments, etc:
The widget also has quite a few options that allow to exclude views by authors, (dis)able showing the popularity rank of the posts, set the search engines, adjust the popularity values, etc:
Notes:
- The plugin gave me an error on installation but when I left the installation screen it appeared to be working just fine;
- After installation you will notice that new posts are much more popular than old ones. Since home and feed views have not been recorded for old posts, they won't be ranked as highly as new posts.
Any other suitable plugins I have missed?
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
2 Great Wordpress Plugins to Find Your Blog Most Powerful Pages
Facebook: What, Why, Who, How?
I've noticed more and more Facebook Fan Pages popping up and it's great. Fan Pages are a great way to connect with people, build your credibility and ultimately generate leads and grow your business.
The problem is most people are making one BIG mistake when it comes to their pages. More on that in a minute. First let me give you an overview on what I'm going to talk about today….
- What Are Fan Pages?
- Why Are They Important?
- Who Can Build A Fan Page
- Who Should Build A Fan Page
- The "Big Mistake" So Many People Are Making
- How To Build A Good Fan Page
What Are Facebook Fan Pages?
Facebook allows you to create a Fan or Business Page where you can post information, participate in discussion and share photos, videos and news.
Unlike groups in Facebook, Fan pages are visible to unregistered people and are indexed by the engines – which is another opportunity for you to come up in the engines.
The number of Fans you can have is unlimited (whereas the Friend limit is 5,000).Fan Pages are generally better for long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers.
You can send "updates" to fans whenever you want. It's a nice way of building a database of interested users. Send messages about new products, updated website, etc.
When someone joins a Fan Page, it's published in their News feed for all of their Friends to read (unless they have turned this off). This helps spread the word about your Fan Page.
A Fan or Business Page is designed to promote a business. It can be used to share simple information like your business hours, contact information and product/service offerings. It can also be used as a marketing tool.
If you design a fun and graphically appealing Fan Page that is designed to capture leads and promote your business well, it can be a good tool for generating new leads.
In Facebook's own words: "Start the Conversation. When your fans interact with your Facebook Page, stories linking to your Page can go to their friends via News Feed. As these friends interact with your Page, News Feed keeps driving word-of-mouth to a wider circle of friends."
Why Are Facebook Fan Pages Important?
The stats speak for themselves:
- Facebook has 400 Million Global Users (and growing)
- Facebook has 100 Million U.S. Users: Facebook is strong around the world (Canada has the highest penetration rate), but nearly 1/3 of all Facebook users are in the U.S.
- The average Facebook User Spends 55 Minutes Per Day
- Real-time Search Is Important Today: Facebook is now making most content available publicly (unless you adjust your privacy settings). This has tremendous implications for search engine optimization and reputation management. You need to be on top of real-time search – today.
A recent study (The Sysomos study) found a strong correlation between amount of content (notes, links, photos, videos and custom pages/tabs) and number of fans.
Who Can Build A Fan Page
Anyone can set up a Fan page, but to get the most out of it with the added features, you need to know HTML and work with graphics and you need to attach it to a personal profile (you can't use the FBML App unless the page is attached to a personal profile page).
Who Should Build A Fan Page
Anyone looking to create more exposure and generate more leads for their business should build a Fan Page.
You don't have to play games or make friends and waste time idly chatting with people. Look at your page as a source of publishing good information and generating a base of followers.
The key takeaways are that you have to know your audience, you have to engage and compel them first and foremost or they'll leave. Once you've done that, you have to provide quality content regularly and encourage discussion and engagement.
There are thousands of brands on Facebook in addition to the thousands of small – medium sized entities that have no brand awareness – you need to stand out from that crowd!
The "Big Mistake" So Many People Are Making
So what is the big mistake I keep referring to? Ready, drum roll please…
Everyone is creating pages that look like everyone else. They are using the default tabs and not adding anything compelling and interesting to the page.
I am a huge fan of Sex and The City and much to my disappointment; I am going to use their Fan Page as an example of what not to do!
Let me start by saying that with over 1 million Fans you might think I'm crazy for talking about what they are doing wrong, but that is the precise reason I chose their Page to focus on.
Needless to say Sex and The City has a huge following – they are doing radio and TV ads, they have major word of mouth and a massive built-in Fan base after 6 years on HBO and a hit first movie.
Most small to medium-sized businesses don't have the same exposure and can't expect to get the same results without effort.
All Sex and The City had to do was post their trailer for the new movie and voila, instant success.
The rest of us need to work for our exposure and fans.
The first step is creating a great page that is eye catching and compelling. The next step is populating it with great content (take a tip from SATC, posting their trailer on their Fan Page first was a really compelling reason for people to check it out. So post something people will really want to see and make it available on Facebook FIRST).
Let's talk about how to make the page more compelling….
By default Facebook comes with "tabs" for Info, Notes, Photos, Events, Links, Discussion, Video and the Wall for the page. Those are all great tabs and you should use them – but you need to take it a step further and create custom tabs. FBML is an app that allows you to use graphics and HTML to create beautiful pages that are compelling and designed to capture leads.
Take a look at the Sex and The City 2 Page. You land on the Wall and there are no custom tabs.
Now taking a look at my page, you'll notice you land on a custom tab that has marketing text and a place for me to capture leads. The page is also enhanced with graphics.
The info I chose to place there is helpful to my visitors. I tell them how they can get up-to-date SEO info and how to get a proposal. I offer them a free book (Optimization Step By Step) and I show them how they can follow me on Twitter for more news and updates.
They can then go to the Wall, where they can read tips, advice and links that I have posted.
You need to take your page a step further and create compelling "landing pages" to further draw people in. Otherwise your page just looks like another page and doesn't do as much for you as it could.
How To Build A Good Facebook Fan Page
Simple Steps To Get You Started:
(Please also check out Facebook's instructions)
- Login to your Facebook Account.
- Scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click ADVERTISING
- Click PAGES and then click to create a new page or manage existing pages.
- You then have the following options:
Once you select the type of page you want and name it, then you get to the fun stuff!
You get to complete the Info tab, upload your Page's profile photo and start some discussions on the Discussion tab.
Don't forget to use Notes to import your Blog and then add the FBML app so you can create your custom pages.
I can't cover every step in one post but definitely let me know if you want these steps covered and I'll write more posts covering each of these steps in-depth.
Now onto what will ultimately determine the success of your page….
What Makes A Good Page:
- Make sure people know what to do – not everyone is well versed in Facebook. Guide users to becoming fans (see image below for example – note in my Example the Become a Fan button is not there because I am already a Fan of my own page, but if someone wasn't a Fan, the arrow would draw their eye up to the button to where they can become a Fan)
- Have a compelling headline that tells them what you are all about and what they can expect (see image below for example)
- Have some strong introductory text that further tells them who you are (see image below for example). You want them to be able to quickly get a feel for who you are and what you offer – without having to read a ton of information.
- Make sure you are capturing leads on the page. While you hope they will click through to your site, if they don't you still want to get them on your mailing list right from this page – that way you can continue to market to them. (See image below for example)
- Point out a few key areas of your site that you want them to go to and make it very quick and easy. I want people to check my Blog for the latest new and I want them to request a proposal, so I've made it easy for them to do that. (See image below)
- Don't forget to link to your Twitter page so they can follow you on Twitter as well. You never know whether people will prefer to use Facebook or Twitter or if they will come to your Blog or will read your newsletter, so you want to give them all possible options so they can choose to get info from you in whatever way they want. I have so many people following me on Twitter, reading my newsletter and also becoming Fans on Facebook. Don't assume if you "have them" on Facebook that is enough. (See image below)
- End with your contact info, a compelling statement and a nice graphic to cap off the page. This would also be a really good place to end with a final Call to Action. You could also remind them to check the Wall tab or any other important tabs. I test and tweak different things on my page all the time and right now I don't have an ending Call to Action or mention of my other tabs, but I think in most cases, it's a good idea – especially if you have another tab that is important for them to check out.
Some Final Thoughts:
While Fan Pages are a great tool and taking advantage of FBML gives you a fairly robust page, their layout still needs some work (did you hear that Facebook?!).
You can't control the order of the tabs and having too many tabs causes them to drop into the little drop down menu and less advanced users won't see them.
So while you definitely want whatever tabs you will actually use, make sure you remove the tabs you aren't going to use so it isn't cluttered. You can have multiple custom FBML tabs but again remember that if you have too many people likely won't see it all. I think a few (1-3) really focused and really good custom FBML tabs get the job done best.
Once you've got a killer Fan Page, the next step is promoting it. I really need to get to work on that myself. I'm so busy helping clients and coming up with ideas to improve my page, I forget to promote it. So make sure you don't follow in my footsteps. If you are going to create a page, PROMOTE IT!!
Looks like another Blog post for me in the future. I should get to work on building my Fan Base and document the process to teach you! Stay tuned!
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Facebook: What, Why, Who, How?
Antitrust Group Wants to Break Up Google
This could possible be the worst anti-trust action hauled against Google to date. The Santa Monica Group which recently received a grant to investigate Google's privacy practice is about to ask the Justice Department to impose an antitrust lawsuit against Google, The San Francisco Chronicle reports. The Group is even calling for the possible break up of Google if proven guilty of antitrust violation.
The said group is about to announced its investigation through a press conference called – "The Antitrust Case Against Google."
"We, as an organization, have concluded that there's enough evidence on the table to warrant this, to go beyond the reactive steps that the regulatory agencies have followed up until now," said John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog.
The press conference will surely be a well attended event with some of the confirmed attendees include Gary Reback, a former Silicon Valley lawyer which spearheaded the antitrust case against Microsoft. Reback is also actively running after the Google Book Deal.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Antitrust Group Wants to Break Up Google
Google Increases Government Lobbying by 57%, with $1.4 M in Q1
In Q1 2010, Google spent $1.4 million in lobbying money with the federal government bodies, which was an increase of 57% over $880,000 from Q1 2009. With the company having interests far beyond search, I'm expecting this lobbying spend to climb even more over the course of the year, as Google is getting more involved in FCC rulings, government programs and assistance in pressure on other governments with its global business growth… especially in China.
Here's a rundown of some of the spending from the Associated Press :
- Google tried to influence legislation intended to prevent U.S. technology companies from cooperating with repressive foreign governments that restrict free speech and violate human rights. [China]
- Google also lobbied last quarter in favor of the FCC's proposed "network neutrality" rules, which would require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. Although the big phone and cable TV companies oppose such regulations, Internet companies such as Google say rules are needed to prevent Internet access providers from favoring or discriminating against Web sites and services.
- Google lobbied on the FCC's national broadband plan, which lays out a roadmap for bringing affordable high-speed Internet access to all Americans, and on efforts to find more wireless spectrum for mobile broadband services.
In Q1 2010, the bulk of Google's lobbying was spent on lobbying the Congress, the FCC, the Federal Trade Commission, the Commerce Department and the Justice Department.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Google Increases Government Lobbying by 57%, with $1.4 M in Q1
Google Acquires Startup Agnilux
Hot on the heels of the buzz created by Gizmodo's "discovery" of the iPhone 4G prototype is the report that Google just acquired the startup – Agnilux. Agnilux happens to be composed of former chip developers who left P.A. Semis when it was acquired by Apple. Other than that information, nothing else is known about Agnilux. The startup remains to be a mysterious small company.
Agnilux was also reported to have had previous talks with other companies aside from Google, including Cisco, Microsoft and Texas Instruments. As to what Agnilux is currently on to, New York Times reported that the startup is currently building a server. If this server is the reason why Google acquired Agnilux or for some other reason, only Agnilux and Google know for sure.
What is confirmed for now, through a Google spokesman is the fact that indeed Google acquired the company.
So, any guesses on what Google is going to do with Agnilux?
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Google Acquires Startup Agnilux
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jueves, 22 de abril de 2010
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