For the first 200,000 UK Facebook users – 5 simple steps
Hi and welcome to my Blog at SEO Positive, each week I will be providing you with my digital marketing Top Tips on how your online business can stay ahead of your competitors! We manage online marketing campaigns (SEO, PPC, Social Media and Website Design) for some of the biggest clients on the internet providing them with a healthy ROI (Return on Investment) here’s a few of them: promocodes.co.uk, luggagesuperstore.co.uk, voijeans.co.uk, partybritain.co.uk and spabreak.co.uk for more examples please see our case studies.
So you’re a Facebook user and would like to know how to get 50 FREE Business cards that costs you absolutely nothing that’s right not a penny just 5 minutes of your time!
Follow these 5 simple steps and receive 50 FREE Facebook Business Cards:
1. Log into your account.
2. You will need to be using the new Timeline profile for this to work, if not you will have to convert it.
3. Go onto your contact info in the about section in your Timeline profile.
4. Click on the Business Card logo.
5. Allow MOO Business Cards access to your information and then follow the simple steps.
Facebook has launched this to coincide with the new Timeline profile, allowing everyone to integrate more with each other’s details. So if you are considering starting up a business or already have a business and would like to take advantage of 50 Free Business Cards then why not it’s FREE!
And yes I can confirm it’s 100% free as I received mine today!
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Not many people actually like the new feature known as Facebook timeline. A lot of users see this as a step back in social media and Facebook as a whole. If anything it shows off a profiles past which, 9 times out of ten people don’t like.
Because so many users have taken a disliking to it, this has created a lot of scam apps and so on. It’s also given me a great linkbait title. We can take from this and pretty much every change in social media history that whenever there is a change, there are users who are dissatisfied and marketers/scammers will take this opportunity and use it for their own benefit.
Who is to blame?
It’s easy to point the finger, but when you actually think about it, who can really be blamed? Let’s take Facebook and their Timeline as an example. Facebook are doing their best to stay ahead of the social networking game, which is basically Twitter and Google +. They are trying to show their users that they have a tonne of features and can be perceived as the best network around.
Scammers are using an opportunity. If anything they are being very clever about their actions. Ok, they are exploiting people’s dissatisfaction, but they are using an opportunity created by Facebook. Agreed that this is unethical and can piss a lot of people off, but ask yourself this, would you do it if you had thought of it first?
Conclusion
There have always been these sorts of scams on social networks, but also with PPC and SEO campaigns. There is nothing new here. What is new is the features that are being exploited. We as users need to accept that social networks are going to keep changing, that is simply a part of life and we must learn to change with it or fall behind.
For bloggers using social media networks know as Google Plus, there is a way, it has been available for a few months, to claim an article as your own. Having authorship of an article has a few benefits.
What’s The Point?
The first and most obvious when seen is that your Google+ photo appears in search results. This is more of a vanity feature but it is a cool one and makes blogging a real form of writing. Very similar to a hard copy book In the way that the author is given a lot of credit for it.
Another benefit is that it makes all content written by an author easier to find, when you find the author icon on a search result then there will be a link for more by that author. So this makes finding content by a specific blogger easier than ever.
One of the biggest points is that it puts your name on your own articles, which means that the problem of having articles stolen is finally combatted. This problem will no doubt continue, but if someone is stealing an article, it is easy to prove who the content really belongs to, which will make it embarrassing to be proved wrong and that you are stealing articles.
How To Do It
Matt Cutts has made a few videos explaining how to add authorship to content and this can be found easily on Youtube. The simpler way is to add HTML code. I will show an example, for your reference “URL” would be the URL of your Google Plus profile. <a href=”URL”?rel=author> +You</a>. The text within the link can say whatever you want but its best to say +”your name” but it really isn’t essential.
According to the instructional videos, the next step is to share the article on your Google + profile, this seems simple enough and if you are an active Google + user you are most likely already doing this.
Conclusion
The benefits of having authorship are definitely worth the effort of inserting a small chunk of HTML code, and if you’re a heavy Google + user then the only thing you will have to do differently is add the HTML code which can be copied and pasted.
Written by + Lewis Austin
Reputation can be a very important factor for a lot of businesses and maybe even people. When running an SEO campaign, reputation management goes hand in hand to make sure that your company does not get any bad publicity.
One great way of doing this is by having an active Google Plus account. When your account is indexed, this can take a few days or even weeks. Once it is finally crawled then your profile or page will rank high for the title or name it has been given. If you use your company name, then this will help it to appear in the results for your company name.
Another benefit of using Google Plus is that all posts you make that are public, also get crawled by G. so that means that providing they contain enough information about your business, your posts will also appear in the listings for your company name.
If you are already running a reputation management campaign, then your Google + profile will take longer to rank, especially if you are having press releases written and so on. The one thing you could do is send links towards your + page/profile. This can be done in loads of ways, the best would be an anchor link with your company name as the text, although you can use widgets and buttons.
If you are not running a reputation management campaign then you can use the techniques above however it is not necessary, this is because the profile will have less competition so will show higher. Link building to this profile will secure its position and if you would like your page to have a solid rank then this is recommended.
Conclusion
Google Plus is a great tool to use when it comes to reputation management as it naturally ranks higher and gives you full control of what is displayed about your company to the public. This can help increase sales and your general reputation.
On a fine and bright morning, you take your seat with a cup of coffee and start doing the usual stuff in Google analytics. It is a perfect setting for a great day but lol! Something is wrong in Analytics. It just cannot happen. How could the number of visitor plummet to an all time low? And the mad rush begins. Most of us, especially who have to deal with visitors trending, conversion optimization, PPC and other stuffs are well aware of the fact that this is not anything unusual as long as you are completely dependent on a single entity – Google. A slight change in algo or a minor tweaks in its existing pattern and you lose everything you have built up so dearly for long. A single wrong move in your online marketing can devastate all your good efforts. So, if you are tired of playing the patience game with Google or looking for an alternative way of generating some leads, here we are going to list some ideas that can be catapulted into success depending on how well you are using them.
Less is More: After the panda update, we have realized the hard way of course that quality and quantity cannot go hand in hand. I personally feel that we need to upload only those articles that have spark on them and that can trigger fierce debate. So, that means, you need to publish those articles that really adds value to users experience. Now, these kinds of articles take time to write. So, take your time and publish 1 article in a week rather than go on heaping up garbage on garbage. Great article will lead to great brand presence and this has got nothing to do with Google. You will have a steady flow direct traffic no matter what Google introduces.
Tweet To Blow Away: Twitter is a great marketing tool but still majority of marketers are clueless about how to use it to their advantage. You do not need to tweet insistently or 24X7. This has got nothing to marketing. You need to make people retweet your coverage without doing anything sneaky and this is bottom line with twitter marketing. It is a vicious circle of promotion and all you need to do is to make it roll. Just a push and there it goes. It will keep driving visitors to your website who are really interested about your product or service.
Connect via Facebook: Facebook is one such source that could help you keep alive your website even if it got thrashing from Google panda. To draw a good amount of traffic, you need to create a buzz in facebook and this can be done by adding some controversial elements in your posts and then posting that thing in the facebook wall. As the debate rages on, more and more facebook users will be engaged in the discussion and the number of visitors from facebook will surge. However, to make it work on regular basis, you need to do a real brain storming session before we publish something.
Do More than What is Necessary: Just blatant promoting for driving traffic to a website may not work all the time. So, why not reverse the trend. Rather than slapping a facebook fanpage box in the website, we can work hard to make social presence of the website as an inseparable part of the living presence of the website. Website should be transformed into a social content delivery mechanic that contributes to the growth the website as a whole.
Tie up: You can either save your skins by signing business partnership with some websites that are similar to your niche, forgetting the old animosity. But this pact has its own share of advantages and shortcomings. On the positive note, it can help you get some supports for the rainy days but on the slip side, your brand image may come under fire. Another alternative way is getting your articles published in other sites. Now, this is a win-win situation for both the parties. The hosting site is getting a really well written article whereas you will get some visitors thanks to the presence of a link at the end of the article.
Do Not Miss Out On Opportunity: You need to monitor every single metrics and changes of your website analytics daily. Out of these complex analytics, you should try to find out the perfect scope for new opportunity that may come along the way. A small opportunity can be snowballed into a massive opportunity that may drive a considerable amount of traffic to your website.
Author Bio
Michael Evans is a writer who enjoys writing in the tech niche and he also promotes Flash templates with the integrated Flash CMS.
Do not exist; Twitter marks all of their links that are outbound as no follow. Even the links in Twitter user’s bio, but that does not mean Twitter cannot be used to bring in links.
The Twitter feed known as Twylah, pulls all tweets from your Twitter stream and post them on your profile page. The only problem with this is that Twitter users will most likely be using URL shorteners which such as bit.ly, this means that the URL will not have an anchor text, which would be very helpful, however having that link which points to your site is better than nothing.
If your Twitter profile is on topic the majority of the time, then the links that are sent out will be seen as more important. Not only that, but if you do some link building to your Twylah page to increase its’ PR and SEO value, then the links that Twylah send out will become even more important!
If you want to make the most out of Twylahs links, stop using URL shorteners as this will help with branding. However if your posts are too long, then you will either have to live with bit.ly’s or shorten the rest of your content.
You must not get too carried away with this using Twitter as a link building service, if you would like to do this then I would suggest creating a dummy profile just for SEO links. Because if your following on Twitter joined before you started using Twitter as a link builder, you will no doubt lose your following.
Conclusion
Twylah is a great way to pull in free links, but it is essential to not get carried away with it, make sure your original use for Twitter is still there, otherwise you will find your profile is losing follows gradually until you have none left.
Ever Googled yourself? We all know we have and chances are you have found another random person who just happens to have your name. You think to yourself that you should be up there and would love to be on page 1. Just so you can show off in front of your friends.
So how do you optimise yourself to be on page 1? You can’t, but what you can do is optimise one of your social media profiles. The way to do this is through link building. One of the easiest ways to do this is link from your site to your social media profile with the anchor text of your full name. If you do not have a site of your own, try guest blogging on other people’s sites or using the website known as MyBlogGuest where you can submit your articles and include the anchor text to your profiles.
In the majority of cases, not many people will be optimising their social media profiles for their name because they would not generate any business out of it. This is purely vanity and just something you can show off to people.
If you are not such a good writer then the only other thing you can do is purchase link building services, but I think the fact that you are page 1 for your name is not worth purchasing the link building services. It is worth writing some articles and including your social media profiles as the correct anchor text.
Most guest posting sites will let you link to a website and your social media profiles, so you can optimise not only your social media profile, but other sites at the same time, which will no doubt help to increase your SEOcampaign and the results that it will bring.
Conclusion
Optimising your profiles is something to do because you can, it can be used to help with social media, but unless you’re famous there is no point because there is probably a low amount of people searching for you. So it is fairly simple to optimise your profiles for your name due to the low competition.
Ripples is a feature available on Google +. This is basically Google’s version of Facebook insights but obviously because the big G has put it together, it has that extra crisp feel to it. Google sees a post as a pebble being thrown into water. When a pebble is thrown into the water it creates a ripple which bounces of other objects and can cover different distances depending on the weight of that pebble. The “heavier” pebbles are posts that have more value for content and Google + users respond to and make comments on.
Google ripples displays all + users who have been involved with that post. It orders this information through where they saw the post. They may not have found the post directly from you and this is shown in the analytics.
In the future, Google + could potentially become the most dominant of social networks, and with their business pages now available, Google + has everything it needs to overtake Facebook. It is very likely that we see a huge amount of companies, ranging from SEO to retail services, all available on Google +. If this is the case, then analytics such as ripples, will be widely useful.
In comparison to Facebook insights, ripples show a detailed path of each post, whereas insights shows general information about each post and statistics for that page. One problem with ripples would be that it does show how many people were involved in great detail, however the reach for the post is not shown and this is something that is important, especially for those taking to social media for new sources of business.
Everyone loves a free link, and if it doesn’t take a lot of effort to do, you’re mad for not doing it. Google Plus has released business pages so you can now create a profile for your business, but not only that, you can use this profile to help improve your SEO efforts.
There are 3 areas on each Google Plus page or profile that you can use to send links your way: introduction, website and recommended links. The last two are fairly obvious to send links your way but you need to make sure you are using them properly. The first is introduction; this is the designated area to describe yourself or your business. Make sure your keywords are in this section as it will not only help you rank on Google + but you can use this to help your site rank. Simply highlight a keyword or phrase, select link and add in your website.
The website area is self-explanatory but there is no opportunity for an anchor link like the introduction area. The recommended links section allows you to show your friends your favourite pages. The title of the page is basically the anchor text, so in this case, you can take the usability route or the SEO route. The usability method would be to name the page, for example SEO Positive sends you to our home page. However this opportunity could be used for SEO purposes and you could enter one of your keywords. This choice will vary depending on how you want to use your Google Profile, if you are using it simply for the SEO factor then no doubt you will be making the most of the anchor text, but you could also use this for reputation management. However this is another story.
Social Networks like Google Plus offer you the links for free, which will help your SEO efforts and help you rise through Google’s SERP’s. Opportunities like this need to be made the most of because they could make all of the difference in the rankings, and from a high ranking site like Google, it is an essential link grab that if anything is encouraged.
Facebook page owners would have noticed this morning that there has been an upgrade on Facebooks’ insights. Previously there was a terrible amount of data provided, but now it has definitely had an upgrade and is somewhat useful now.
The first and most obvious change would be that when an admin goes to their page, then the insights tab shows up amongst other tabs such as the wall and photos. This is, if anything, an attempt by Facebook to nudge page owners to use their analytics a little more.
The Overview
When you click on the insights tab, you are taken to a quite colourful graph, this shows your pages’ reach, people talking about your page and the content you posted. Displaying the graph this way allows Facebook admins to analyse what posts did well and how they can improve their future strategy by what performed well in the past.
Posts In Detail
Facebook now describes very detailed information about each post. Information provided is as follows: Reach, Engaged Users, Talking About This and Virality.
Reach
Reach is not a new term in social media, it basically means the amount of unique people that saw your post. Reach is a fairly important factor to think about, and the higher your Reach is, the more likely you fan base will increase and become active and valuable to your business. A Reach graph is available for each post and it displays the amount of organic, paid for and viral views your post has received.
Engaged Users
This means the amount of users who have interacted with your post, for example clicking on it or commenting. When clicking on the number of engage users you had for that post, a pie chart will be displayed. There are two categories for this chart, the amount of stories generated to other clicks. Stories generated include when someone likes, comments or shares your post. Other clicks is anything that does not fall under that umbrella, for example clicking on the post to see how many people have liked or commented.
Talking About This
A person talking about your post is someone who created a post about yours. This can also count as a like or comment, basically any action that would result in content appearing on a fans wall which is related to yours. When clicking on the number, another pie chart is displayed which shows the amount of comments, likes and shares.
Virality
Virality is a percentage which is figured out by the talking about figure divided by reach, times 100. In essence, virality is the conversion rate of a post because the aim of each post is to engage fans, and the virality percentage displays this very well.
Conclusion
Facebook have greatly improved their analytics and I know that I will definitely be using them to monitor my posts to see progress and find areas on which I can improve in. Social media now has an equivalent to SEO and their Google Analytics and that is Facebooks Insights. I think this update has been much needed and now the data that is provided is up to par there is no doubt that more and more Facebook admins will be using this service.
