Popularity: 2% [?]
Facebook has been very busy these past few months. Perhaps they are rolling out more features in an attempt to stay ahead of the growing popularity of Google+ or maybe they had all these enhancements planned from the get go. I’ll let you decide but the timing does seem convenient. It seems my Facebook profile or page is changing every other day to the point where you almost need a ticker tape to keep up with all the changes. So I thought I would do my best to bring you up to speed on everything that has changed to your Facebook page or profile in the past few weeks.
The first thing you probably have noticed is that Facebook now has a live scrolling on the top right hand side of your wall. Facebook has decided to show your real-time friend’s updates on the side and your Recent Stories down what used to be your wall. A great feature is that you can hover your mouse over top of the feed and it will extend all the conversations surrounding that post. The jury is still out on if people will like it or if they prefer to have everything posted on their wall.
Another interesting feature that Facebook is currently testing is the ability to show you who shared your post with others. From a business stand point, it will give you the ability to see what information is being shared and who is taking the time to spread your messages around.
Facebook Share Lists
Another change to Facebook this week is Subscriptions. The subscribe button will allow anyone to follow your public updates regardless of wether or not you are friends with them or follow them similar to how both Google+ and Twitter operate. Their messages will automatically appear in your feed when you subscribe. The new button appears on every Facebook user’s page next to the ‘message’ and ‘add friend’ tabs.
Emma Bartlett of the Telegraph writes “The move adds a Twitter-style functionality to the service, which has been lacking until now and moves the service on from just being a place to connect with friends – to being a place to share information with anyone.”
One thing to keep in mind is that you will automatically be signed up for a user’s feed once you become friends with someone unless they have turned off the feature.
Facebook Subscribe
Another great new feature recently launched is Friends Lists. This functionality allows you to sort and filter your friends among different groups or categories so that you can view the information you want from your different groups. You will be given a short number of categories to select from like family, best friends and people living in your area but you will be able to create your own at any time. Facebook will even make suggestions to assist you with the process. Of course Twitter has had Lists for some time and Google+ has their own version in Circles so I guess it was only fitting that Facebook came out with their own version.
Facebook Friend List
Feel free to leave a comment if you have anything to share or would like to contribute to the conversation.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Is 2011 set to be the “year of Facebook,” even amongsearch marketers? Based on what US advertisers told search marketing agency Covario, it’s definitely the year of social.
Search marketers have discovered how social media marketing can help build their search engine optimization efforts, and respondents to the Covario survey said their No. 1 priority for SEO next year was integration with social media programs. According to the report, “leveraging social media for scalable link-building efforts is a major initiative for advertisers.”
Social media will also play an important part in paid search efforts next year. Search ad campaigns on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn were top of mind for nearly half of advertisers surveyed—far ahead of priorities like local search or dealing with recent changes to major search engines (for example, Google Instant and Yahoo!-Bing integration).
The report noted that major spending increases on Facebook search advertising are planned for 2011. Covario estimated many advertisers would be spending 10% to 20% of their pay-per-click budgets on Facebook next year, giving the social networking site a major share of that market. The report also indicated that rather than pulling dollars away from other paid search spending areas, these would be additions to the search budget coming from display or offline budgets instead.
Source: emarketer.com
Popularity: 15% [?]
Google announced yesterday that they are yet again making changes to their search results page and the impact could be huge. Google is sticking to their claim that they want to incorporate more local results into a resulst page and they have certainly succeeded. Here is a picture of what is to come:
A few things to take away is that the Adwords area has been reduce and pushed down the page and what used to be the top organic results have also been pushed down the page. The focus on Google Places optimization will now be more important than ever.
Popularity: 16% [?]
With all the hype surrounding Facebook these days, I thought it might be a good idea to write a post about Facebook Fan pages. You see, I can think of at least four companies that I have spoken too recently that were having problems with their Facebook account when in fact after a quick consultation I discovered that they had not created a Fan Page but had created a personal page. Big mistake for businesses.
So let’s look at what is required to build a Facebook Fan Page.
First, you need to go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to register your page.
Once you have entered your page name and created your page you will have to customize it. Here are a few tips.
You will want to create an image of your company. The great thing about this image is that it can be in many different sizes. I recommend you use 200×600. This will give you the most amount of exposure.
Next you will want to fill in some information about your business such as address, hours of operation and website address. There is a section on the left of the page where you can edit a brief bio about your company.
Now that you have the basics set up you will want to begin importing content from your blog. To do this, simply click on the “Notes” tab. Click on “edit import settings” and input your blog’s rss feed. Not sure where to find your feed? The easiest way is to type in you blog address and add a /feed to the end of the url. For example: http:4sitemarketing.ca/blog/feed.
If you already had posts on your blog then Facebook will automatically begin feeding into your Facebook Fan Page.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Every business owner that I have ever spoken to have always had one thing in common. They would like their product or service to show up at the top of the search engines. Needless to say having a highly ranked website can have huge benefits to a business’s bottom line. However, the time and effort that goes into that result can be exhausting.
Fortunately, there is another option. Google now displays business listings at the top of the results page that can help guide would be consumers to your site for much less effort and cost. It’s called Google Local Business Listings or Google Places. A common search term will show up to seven businesses (also know as the 7 pack) giving you a greater opportunity to be seen.
So how do you get your site there you ask? Well let’s get started:
First you need to go to http://www.Google.com/local/add and select new listing. Once there you can create your business profile by filling in a brief form. Make sure to select the most appropriate categories that best describe your business. At the end of the process, Google will call your place of business and give you a pin number which needs to be inputed to claim your listing. After 24 hours, your listing will be in the index.
Of course there is a catch…..
In order for your business to show at the top of the results there are a few additional steps that we recommend to ensure your listing is properly optimized. Here are a few:
1) Use local area codes/numbers, not 800 numbers unless you are a national brand.
2) Presence in other top tier directories, such as Yellow Pages and other top Citations
3) Existence of full business name, address and telephone number on other websites including your own
4) Having 5+ images uploaded
Popularity: 22% [?]
Continuing with our “Best of The Web 2009 Series”, we are proud to provide you with a post originally posted by Adam Audette of audettemedia.com
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Continuing with our “Best of The Web 2009 Series”, we are proud to provide you with a post originally written by Rand Fishken at seomoz.org that describes some of the misinformation surrounding the seo industry.
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Continuing with our “Best of The Web 2009 Series”, we are proud to provide you with a post originally written by Peter Davanzo at seobook.com that discuses the foundation of good seo.
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Continuing with our “Best of The Web 2009 Series”, we are proud to provide you with a post originally written by Michael Martinez at best-seo-blog.com that discusses differences and similarities between seo tactics and strategy.
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Popularity: 48% [?]
Continuing with our “Best of The Web 2009 Series”, we are proud to provide you with a post originally written by Everett Sizemore at esizemore.com that discovers what to look for before optimizing an e-commerce website.
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Popularity: 36% [?]
Continuing with our “Best of The Web 2009 Series”, we are proud to provide you with a post originally written by Victor Murygin at 10e20.com that discovers what to look for before optimizing an e-commerce website.
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Popularity: 22% [?]
