Bloggers hoping to rank highly in search engines have to be wary if they leave comments open on their site.
Spam is an age-old internet problem, and search engine spiders can pick up on bad links in comment boxes if the default rel tag, dofollow, is enabled on your blog.
By using the nofollow tag, you can ensure that search engines won’t downrank you because someone’s posted something disreputable on your blog. It’s a great tool for boosting your search engine optimisation – and you can still benefit from genuine backlinks.
Many people aren’t aware of the default dofollow option, so it’s worth thinking about changing it to nofollow if your page is suffering from spam.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
Yahoo Clues has been launched in beta stage.
It provides search information about ‘trending’ topics in its search engine.
The beta provides broad brushstroke information about the most-searched terms, celebrities and issues.
The tool can provide internet marketers with key information to help generate traffic or hits for their website.
It breaks search down by location, age and other interests, which can help show how and why people are using the search. The search history can be broken down by month or year, and can provide a heat map of search terms.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Whilst Google+ is the big story of the day, Matt Cutts has just posted on his wall about a blog post that may have fallen under the radar about content creators being credited on search results.
For anyone who creates and authors content, this is a great new way to be recognised, found, and to promote your work in the search results, including with a photo.
There are a couple of very simple steps to being found by the algorithm which will be powering this addition to the SERPs. Full details can be found on the Google Webmaster help pages, but in essence, all you need do is:
Add the content pages where you post content to your Google public profile, and then paste a Google + button onto those pages. Like this:
Your own content will be automatically +1′d so it should create an archive of all your content over time for people to easily access from your public Google profile page. (This profile page is going to become as important as your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter bio etc, so be warned!)
Obviously, it is algorithm driven so your position in the search results and even whether you are listed will be down to good SEO and making sure you are putting out all the right social signals too.
So, it is always a good idea to tweet all of your fresh content, and make sure that it appears on other social networks as well as social bookmark sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon and Delicious too.
We’ll be playing around with this far more in the future to see how we can improve content rankings on behalf of authors and clients to establish a wider range of listings in the SERPS. Content that is well-written should have longevity on certain subjects, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out as a traffic generator.
It seems that Google + has a raft of other uses for serious networkers. For instance, many people looking to make contacts look through LinkedIn profiles and Twitter followers of authoritative or influential people to find new contacts. Facebook Friends can often also be searched in the same manner.
Google+ offers the same facility. So, find one person on Google+ who works at Google (or AN Other Company) and you can suddenly track down more people from their circles. Because the public profiles often give more than just name of company, you can also find their Twitter accounts, Flickr profile etc.
For some, this may mean that a re-assessment of their privacy settings is required. Just because someone has added you to their circle, it does not mean that you wish to know them. And you have no control over whether they make the members of their circles public or not, meaning that your public profile could become very public, and there does not seem to be any way in which you can make some of your profile information public to certain people and not to others.
This is all about being social but all of a sudden, one can feel that your ability to keep information about yourself private, or not 100% in the public domain, is being eroded.
When posting, you can choose which circle(s) see the post and can also disable resharing by clicking on the arrow at the top right of the post.
Navigate your stream using [j] for down and [k] for up.
Upgrade your broadband connection! If you are in a hangout with 10 people all on webcams, and someone decides to start pulling in Youtube content, your connection may do more than just stutter!
Well, managed to wangle an invite into Google+ in the first few hours of the invites being issued, so here’s a quick look around. [Update: less than 1 hour after typing that sentence, the invites have been switched off for now!]
Firstly, in case you were unaware, Google+ is Google’s potential rival to social networks such as Facebook. However before everyone tries to suggest that Google will fail in this space, even from the outset Google has obviously learned from some of the ‘mistakes’ that have been made elsewhere, as well as with Wave and Buzz.
Once you have joined, you should first complete your profile. Most people with a Google account may have already added some information to their public profile, but now is the chance to add much more, including multiple profile pics, which you can rotate through simply by clicking. You can connect accounts eg Twitter, Linkedin, Quora, Facebook etc, as well as add photos, bio information, and adjust privacy settings.
Google does appear to have taken into account the many complaints that there have been about privacy issues on social networks, with a full range of privacy options available. The amount and kind of notifications are also easily changed to prevent inundation of your inbox. Interestingly, you can also receive notifications by SMS but as yet this appears to only be available for India and the US.
The black toolbar that has been the subject of much debate these last few days now has easy access to Google+ at the left hand side, and notifications on the right. However, it only appears on Google.com at present, although the toolbar does appear in all Google properties eg Gmail, Reader, documents, calendar etc.
Once your profile is complete, you can add people to Circles, and seemingly these can be unlimited in number, allowing you to slice and dice friends, family, colleagues in numerous different ways. People can be added to various different circles and privacy settings can be customised for each circle. A circle can be added as a tab in Chrome, allowing you to easily click on a Circle and follow what everyone is doing.
You can see people who are in other Google + users’ circles and add them to your own. However, these people do not have to add you to their circles – just as people do not have to follow you back on Twitter. The names of your circles are not revealed, allowing you some privacy over your choice of circle names.
Sparks is a really interesting feature which allows you to search on interests and find sites and news of interest. For any companies putting out regular press releases and featuring in Google News, your keyword optimisation is going to be important if you want to be found here. Sparks may take over from Readers in some ways, pushing the content to you for your interests.
Hangouts have huge potential, particularly for businesses who want to do online collaboration, run webinars easily, and for tech support. There still seem to be a few bugs – avatars not showing if no webcam, difficulty of adding a single person rather than an entire circle, call drop outs etc – but there are some very cool features such as public notifies of mute, sharing YouTube videos, and the sound and video quality for voice does seem to be at least as good as Skype when it is working.
Huddle allows you to have up to 6 people in a threaded text chat, making decision making simple.
There is a mobile app at m.google.com/plus and an Android app already in the store, with an iPhone app coming shortly once it is approved.
The mobile app makes following your stream simple, as well as bringing together all your Google properties in one place eg gmail, calendar etc, which is a long-awaited service.
Adding people to your circles brings plenty of content into your streams and for businesses is likely to prove preferable to Facebook, allowing targeting of users who are not FB fans. Google recently issued a statement that this time last year over 20% of searches were conducted by people who were logged into a Google account, so it is likely that this will rise quickly once the buzz about Google+ gets out and people want to try it.
By limiting the number of invitations, Google is playing a canny game and making this currently a fairly exclusive club that many more will want to join. Once the invites are opened up again, the Find and Invite feature offers a chance to add people who Google has identified are in social networks or linked to you in some way by email etc.
More shortly….going back to play!
User-graded search results have been introduced by Google in an effort to give recommendations more weight in search.
The +1 feature was rolled out worldwide this week – allowing people who use the search engine to see how many people would recommend a website.
The signposts will be added to both organic search results, and adverts – meaning businesses utilising search engine optimisation can get a boost from their customers.
Google says the move should drive more traffic to sites with numerous +1, and will help filter out irrelevant content or results.
Writing at Google’s official Inside AdWords blog, Dan Friedman explained: “We expect that personal annotations will help users know when your ads and organic search results are relevant to them, increasing the chances that they’ll end up on your site.
“Think of +1 buttons as an enhancement that can help already successful search campaigns perform even better, now, at a global level.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
People are spending more and more time online on social network site Facebook, according to new research.
As more and more people join the social network – which now claims to have more than 700 million users – they are spending an ever-increasing amount of time on the site.
The average time a British user spends on Facebook has risen in the last two years, according to research by Nielsen.
In May 2009, the average Brit spent five hours and 56 minutes on Facebook.
By May 2011, Nielsen found that had risen to six hours and 39 minutes.
The research shows the increasing popularity of social networks – not only in terms of new users signing up, but the greater time investment of those who visit the site.
For those looking to capitalise on a global market of millions, the figures suggest focussing on social media marketing to raise awareness of brands, products and issues is likely to yield greater results than ever before.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
A huge rise in the number of over 50s using social media sites has been uncovered by new research.
Ratings company Nielsen has found a boom in the number of silver surfers accessing Facebook and Twitter.
A study, organised with UK Online Measurement (UKOM) which looked at UK internet habits from May 2011, has shown the number of over 50-year-old women on Twitter has doubled after revelations about a major football star’s private life surfaced on the site.
The widespread coverage helped the site’s visitors jump to 6.1 million for the month.
Facebook’s membership has grown by 41% since 2009, the study said, with the majority of those new members being over 50.
James Smythe, general manager of UKOM, explained: “The growth in audience to these social networks is now primarily being driven by the 50-plus age group.
“Just a few years ago, this group may have found itself out of place on these sites.”
The figures underline the burgeoning audience on Facebook, which has more than 700 million users worldwide. It shows that social media marketing is reaching a truly wide age-range – from teenagers right through to pensioners.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Social media optimisation or SMO isn’t a new term or a new approach, far from it.
The term SMO was first coined in 2006 when the search engine marketer Danny Sullivan first used it.
With many companies now having different forms of social media marketing in place, SMO is a logical next step to improve the effectiveness of social media marketing.
So what is SMO and what is it’s purpose?
People have different views on what SMO involves depending on whether their background is more in SEO or social media marketing.
I recently asked readers of the Smart Insights blog about this and there was a split between those who felt it had the narrow aim of “using social media marketing to support SEO goals” (31%) and a broader aim “analysis and improvement of all social media marketing activities to results” (40%).
I think this all this is shows that you have to decide for your organisation the main emphasis of SMO activity. The Wikipedia entry for SMO is quite apt where it describe it as:
“The methodization of social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to website content”.
This suggests that the core of SMO is having a rigorous approach of test, learn, refine is the main benefit of this approach – not just experimenting, but being systematic. We need to use social media to help people find our content, participate in conversations about it and then share it.
So my definition is:
A systematic approach to improving content effectiveness in attracting visitors and leads and engaging existing audiences through testing techniques to increase the visibility, participation and shareability of content.
SMO activities – The 5 rules of SMO
So what does SMO involve? I think it’s useful here to look at the 5 new rules of SMO developed by Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy New York. These are:
1. Create shareable content. This is fundamental to social media marketing, so in SMO it’s about determining the content that your audience prefers to share across different social media platforms. In Rohit’s original post, this activity was about encouraging links: the two go together.
2. Make sharing easy. This is the embedding of buttons and other widgets to encourage sharing, recommending or bookmarking within your site and blog. SMO analyses the best placements, formats and messages to do this.
3. Reward engagement. It’s commonplace now to reward “Liking” or “Tweeting” through a promotional or content offer, so this can look at the best offers to do this. Rohit also says this should look at a longer-term of encouraging deeper engagement and conversations.
4. Proactively share content. This covers the process and format for sharing beyond your central hub. This can include syndicating articles to other partners or platforms like Slideshare or Scribd. Some also create their own widgets for embedding or sharing on other sites (atomization).
5. Encourage the “mashup”. Rohit says that this is encouraging folks to take and remix your content, so it becomes user generated content. This activity can effectively be built into campaigns.
What else should you test as part of SMO?
I think these rules are really useful for reviewing your approach to integrating social media marketing into a website, but I think there’s more to it.
So, what’s not included in the 5 rules. Well other options which we’re looking to test and refine through analytics and AB/multivariate testing include:
1. Which sharing activities and types of promotions lead to business results, leads, sales or changes in brand preference?
2. Determining how social media can support SEO activities now we know it’s a ranking signal and through encouraging backlinks.
3. Preferences of different audiences using different social media platforms to share different type of content and offers.
4. Optimum frequency for initiating sharing.
5. Best methods for identifying influencers and seeding content.
6. Approaches to integrate sharing of content through different social platforms, web, mobile and email channels.
Companies are adopting social media because it has ‘come of age’. No longer is it the unproven, new kid on the block, and we are even seeing a small percentage of companies abandon their websites in favour of a purely social media presence. (Source: Network Solutions)
One of the social media traffic-driving methods is to use Twitter. There are, broadly, three ways to use Twitter:
1) As a broadcast mechanism
2) As a research tool
3) As a conversation tool
Let’s consider each in turn and its place in your social media marketing strategy.
Broadcast Mechanism
One of the simplest ways to reach your audience is to use Twitter to disseminate information about updates to your website, blog, brochure, or to announce sales, discounts and special offers.
However, this requires you to have an audience to reach. In order to gain followers, they need to a) know you exist and b) find your tweets of interest, meaning that they will share them and act as evangelists to their own followers.
As a research tool
For those in active industries, Twitter is an ideal means to find breaking news, watch your competitors, and follow events and news. This use of Twitter can mean taking a far more passive role and needing to engage less than if Twitter is being used for marketing and promotion, as in the other two usages given.
As a conversation/CRM tool
This is easier for smaller companies who inevitably need to engage in far fewer conversations than a large corporate, and can therefore develop deeper relationships with potential and existing customers. For larger companies, if Twitter is to be used in this way, it is wise to assign a number of people to the task and ensure they communicate well as a team.
That last instance is the most likely place where having staff tweet could benefit your company, although keeping others within the company up to date with news, competitive behaviour and so on, can also be extremely valuable.
So, let’s look at staff using Twitter to market the company. There is the obvious use as given above of a dedicated team (or individual) who manages all uses of Twitter in the company name. However, this misses the opportunities presented by involving a wider group of staff in the Twitter promotion of your company.
If this is to work, there need to be ground rules laid down from the outset. For instance, is it wise to allow your staff to tweet about the company on their private Twitter accounts? Probably not, is the simple answer. Is it wise to prohibit staff from using Twitter at all? Again, probably not. Most staff will find a way to access Twitter e.g. on their mobile phones if you ban access.
What is required is a means to allow company employees the chance to tweet about and for the company, but without diluting the message by incorporating it into their own private Twitter account. And all guidelines require an understanding of how Twitter works, and how it can benefit the company if used wisely.
For instance, if each member of staff who wishes to tweet has their own corporate identity on Twitter, and each tweets to their own set of followers, then you have the potential for engaging a far wider audience. This can be seen by large news agencies whose reporters often have their own Twitter identity, whilst each newsroom – Breaking, Tech, World, and so on – also has a stream. This allows followers to watch for favourite journalists as well as follow specific subjects. Hence, permitting a far larger audience across all streams than would be likely from a single all-inclusive account.
So, Increased Reach is a major benefit of allowing staff to tweet. The sum of the parts is far greater than the whole could ever be.
The major con of all this is managing accounts e.g. when a member of staff leaves, you need to withdraw that account to prevent misuse by a disgruntled member of staff. This may prove difficult if that member of staff has changed their password for precisely this purpose, and so security should be managed. Errant ex-employees can have their accounts closed down by Twitter directly, so then again it is not too much of a concern.
