Facebook’s Graph Search Results Page: An Eye-Tracking Study : MarketingProfs Article

A new study finds that users of Facebook’s Graph Search focus on the top couple of results, similar to what happens on Google. And those users lose interest in lower results as they move down the page.

I’ve always been a different type of searcher, especially on Facebook. I’ve been using Graph Search for a few weeks now, and I’m not that crazy about it. I don’t always find what I’m looking for, and I have to keep refining my search, or clicking on the “view more” link at the bottom of the page.

Graph Search is still in beta, but it’s likely to be permanent at some time in the future, so it’s in your best interest to optimize your Facebook page with keywords so you can be at the top of the heap. In a future article, I’ll explain exactly how to do that.

Read more about this survey in this MarketingProfs article…Social Media – Facebooks Graph Search Results Page: An Eye-Tracking Study : MarketingProfs Article.

How to Share Articles to Multiple LinkedIn Groups

Posting blog articles to LinkedIn groups is a great way to share useful information with the other group members. But if you belong to more than one group, it can be cumbersome posting to each individual group. There is a way to share articles with more than one group at a time.

3 Common SEO Mistakes and How to Fix Them

By Gloria Rand
Worrying about the latest algorithm change from Google won’t make a difference to your website’s search ranking if you’ve made a common SEO mistake like optimizing for common words or using your company name as the title tag for every page on your website. Here are three other SEO mistakes to avoid, and how to fix them:

SEO in a Minute: Twitter

Want more Twitter followers? You’ll learn the key steps to take in this SEO in a Minute video:

I’m Gloria Rand with today’s SEO in a Minute tip.

Want to know the secret to attracting Twitter followers? Use keywords that reflect your interests or business in your twitter username, your bio and in your tweets. My primary Twitter username is @gloriarand, so I created another profile to market my SEO copywriting services to the green products niche. That username is @GreenSEOcopy. If someone searches on Twitter for SEO, my username should come up.

Keywords are also useful to include in the bio section of your Twitter profile. Remember that you only have 160 characters to convey your business and personality, so make it concise!

The third place that often gets overlooked to include keywords is your tweets themselves. Whether you’re sharing a blog post or tweeting about an event you’re conducting, include relevant keywords so your tweets will show up when someone’s doing a search. If you’re tweeting quality information, people will start to follow you.

If you’d like more information on how to use Twitter to grow your business, visit my blog at gloriarand.me.

Why Your Small Business Website Needs SEO from the “Get-go”

[tweetmeme]By Gloria Rand
Are you planning to launch a new small business website? I have some advice for you. Take search engine optimization into account BEFORE the site is built. Too often a small business owner will call me to optimize their website after it has already launched. This is one of the most common SEO mistakes. But the best time to optimize your site is when you’re still in the planning stages.

Do keyword research before you write web content

 
Ideally, an SEO copywriter should work hand-in hand with the web designer to create the overall look for the small business website. Once the copywriter completes the keyword research and writes the copy, she can let the web designer know how much space is needed for headings, sub-headings and body content.

Doing SEO after the site launch creates added expense

 
If the SEO work is done after the website is launched, the web designer may have to be called back in to make adjustments. For instance, the web designer may have to lengthen the page if additional copy has been written to include the necessary keywords. Now you’re paying a second time for work that could have been completed the first time around.

How I work with small business owners

When a client hires me to write copy and optimize their brand new website, the first thing I do is send them a “web creative brief.” This document asks a series of questions including:

• What is the purpose of the website?
• Who is your target audience?
• What are your products or services?
• What is the main unique benefit that your product or service offers?
• What keywords do people use to search for your product or service?

Once I have that information, I can do keyword research and then start writing copy, incorporating those keywords. I also will write the meta tags for each web page. Once the client has approved the copy, I will forward it onto the web designer so that she can adjust the spacing of the site to fit the words. The web designer can also add the meta tag information to the site’s code. Once all the work is done, the website is ready for launch!

If you need copy written for your new small business website, contact Gloria Rand for a free consultation.

© Copyright 2011 Gloria Rand

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? To publish this article in your ezine or website, please include the following:

Gloria Rand is an Entrepreneur, Speaker, Copywriter & Marketing Consultant who works with entrepreneurs and small business owners to implement SEO strategies and social media marketing for online visibility, profits and success. Leveraging her background as a writer and producer for the award-winning PBS news program, “Nightly Business Report,” with her own experience as a small business owner, Gloria helps professionals turn great ideas into cash cows. Link up with Gloria at www.gloriarand.com or www.fb.com/gloriarandcopywriter.

SEO in a Minute: Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile

[tweetmeme] In this SEO in a minute video, I explain how to optimize your LinkedIn profile to reach your target audience.

I’m Gloria Rand with today’s SEO in a Minute tip.

June 2011 is significant for LinkedIn because that’s the month when it officially became the 2nd most popular social networking site after Facebook. Now LinkedIn is a great resource for job seekers, business professionals and sales people. The way that you can find jobs, or reach your target audience to generate leads is through an optimized profile.

There are six places in your LinkedIn profile that you want to include keywords. It all starts with the professional headline that comes right underneath your name on your profile. This is your opportunity to describe yourself and even include a call to action. Next two places that you want to have keywords are in your current and past occupations. And then a fourth place is the website category. Now instead of using the default my website or company website that LinkedIn gives you, you can actually, when you edit your profile, choose “other” and then you can throw some keywords in there. So for instance, on my LinkedIn profile, instead of “My Website,” it says SEO copywriting, ’cause that’s what I do! Finally, the last two places that you want to definitely have keywords in are the summary, the LinkedIn summary, and the specialties.

Now if you need LinkedIn profile written that’s got great keywords to reach your audience, send me an email at gloria@gloriarand.com or you can visit my blog at GloriaRand.wordpress.com.

Why Quality Trumps Quantity for Blog Content

[tweetmeme]One of the challenges of writing a blog is coming up with new article ideas. During a recent webinar I conducted on blogging for business, someone asked whether it was better to write their own blog or use articles from the Internet.

In a word, my answer is “No.”

I say that especially because of Google’s crackdown on so-called “content farms” during its recent algorithm update. Here is an excerpt from Google’s Blog about why it changed the algorithm:

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

Write Original Blog Content

As you can see, it’s more important than ever to write good blog content that is original and that provides excellent value to your readers. While it may seem nearly impossible to come up with an original idea — check out the latest film remakes in Hollywood, for example — at the very least, you should put your own spin on a given subject. As Google said, if you only republish existing articles found online that content could be considered “low-quality,” and your blog would suffer in the search rankings as a result.

How do you come up with fresh content? I recently posted an article called “42 Blog Post Ideas for Building Your Business” that can give you a lot of ideas! That list has worked for me, when I get stuck. You can also keep up with the news in your industry and write opinion articles about the latest happenings. Set up a Google alert for relevant keywords in your business and use the articles that the search turns up for ideas.

If you still need help writing blog articles, I’ll be happy to help! Just send me a message using the “Contact Me” form on this blog.

 

Top 10 Most Overused LinkedIn Profile Buzzwords

[tweetmeme]The LinkedIn social networking site sometimes gets overshadowed in the press by Facebook, but like the Energizer bunny, it keeps going and going. It currently has more than 90 million members in over 200 countries, with about half that number in the U.S. alone.

 
It’s proven to be a great resource for job seekers (I landed a part-time social media job from it myself last year).  There’s just one teeny problem. Why, oh why, do so many Americans feel compelled to use the following words on their LinkedIn profile?

10 Most Overused LinkedIn Profile Buzzwords

1. Extensive experience
2. Innovative
3. Motivated
4. Results-oriented
5. Dynamic
6. Proven track record
7. Team player
8. Fast-paced
9. Problem solver
10. Entrepreneurial

Laziness? Lack of creativity? Whatever the reason, these were the most overused “buzzwords” used by U.S. professionals in 2010.   Thesaurus, anyone?

It is important to use keywords in your LinkedIn profile, which I’ve talked about in this blog before. But why use the same boring words over and over?

Let’s take the word “innovative” for example. I searched the term on Thesaurus.com and came up with the following synonyms:

avant-garde, breaking new ground, contemporary, cutting-edge, deviceful, ingenious, innovational, innovatory, inventive, just out, leading-edge, new, newfangled, original, originative, state-of-the-art

Any of these would be more “original” than innovative. (Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself!) If you have a LinkedIn profile already, take a look at it, and make sure you’re not using any of these words. And if you don’t have a profile yet, look at the profiles of people in your industry for ideas, and make sure that what you write will stand out from the crowd.

Here’s an example of a LinkedIn profile I wrote for a client in the flooring industry. If you’d like something comparable, hire a professional copywriter to do the job. The price you pay can deliver big dividends if it gets you noticed by a prospective client or employer. Contact Gloria today for a free consultation.
 

Gloria Rand’s Top 10 Blog Posts of 2010

[tweetmeme]

As 2010 comes to a close, I wanted to thank everyone who has been reading my blog this year, taking the time to comment and sharing my blog articles on Twitter and Facebook. I will work hard in 2011 to come up with new articles that will be informative, interesting and infinitely shareable! 🙂

In the meantime, I thought I’d share with you my Top 10 list of most popular blog articles for 2010.

Top Categories: Social Media & SEO

Just like last year, the most popular posts dealt with social media, followed by search engine optimization.  As you scan the list, you’ll notice many articles shared a common trait: they contained numbers in the title. I’ve written about this phenomenon before as an excellent way to get your blog noticed. The proof is in the stats. So, keep that in mind when you’re writing your own blog articles in 2011.

Facebook Leads Top 10 List

1. 10 Ways to Build Your Facebook Fan Base This article was the overall leader by a 3-1 margin.  No surprise, considering Facebook has been the hot topic this year among consumers and business owners alike. I suspect it will continue to be a popular topic for some time to come.

2. Keyword Tool is MIA – What Happened to Spacky.com? I wrote this article last January and reader interest suggests I wasn’t the only one who wondered what happened to this website. Spacky.com was a great keyword research tool because it included keywords from Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

3. 9 Tools for Capturing Social Media Metrics Business owners frequently complain that there’s no way to track the ROI from social media. But that’s not true, as this article showed. There are tools available.

4. Top 20 Press Release Distribution Sites – This was the most popular post of 2009 – and its continued popularity proves that companies still need cost-effective ways to promote their products and services online. This list of free online press release sites is a great resource.

5. 6 Places to Add Keywords to Your LinkedIn Profile To be an effective social networking tool, your LinkedIn profile should be searchable. This article showed readers where to put keywords for maximum results.

6. SEO Best Practices – Title Tags, Keywords & Inbound Links – This article contained a video of a presentation I gave on search engine optimization techniques and best practices to a networking group.

7. What is a QR Code and Why Should I Use One for My Business? QR codes continue to grow in popularity among marketers. This article gave some useful tips on how you can incorporate it into your business.

8. 7 Useful Facebook Apps for Business – Here’s another list-type article focusing on applications you can use on your Facebook business page.

9. 8 Core Elements of Successful Business Blogs – This is a recent article that struck a chord with readers. I’ll be focusing more on blogs in 2011, since I’m going to be speaking on the subject during a three-day social media, branding retreat in Orlando called unGeeked e’lite.

10. How to Add Video to Your Emails -Video marketing continues to surge in popularity, and this article offered some tips on how to incorporate video with your email marketing strategy.

If you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to learn more about, please comment below.

Happy New Year!

 

How to Network Effectively with Twitter – part 2

[tweetmeme] Anytime someone raises the subject of Twitter at a networking event I’ll frequently hear this comment, “I just don’t get it,” or “It seems like a waste of time.” The truth is that many people are using Twitter successfully for their business. To get started, you have to learn how to connect with people on Twitter.

In my last blog post, I explained how to show Twitter users what you want to talk about. This time, I’m going to offer some tips on setting up your Twitter profile, and how to go about following people and sending messages.

Include Keywords in Your Twitter Profile

First impressions are just as important online as they are when you meet someone in person. So, take the time to review your Twitter profile. Select the appropriate handle that represents you or your business, use a professional photo of yourself, not one taken while you were on vacation. Include a link to your website or blog and write a bio that includes keywords so when people search for your profession, they’ll have a better chance of finding you.

Resist the Urge to Automatically Follow Everyone Who Follows You

Now it may be tempting to automatically follow everyone who follows you, but keep in mind that the larger the number of followers you have, the harder it will be to stay in contact with everyone. A more effective tactic is to follow those people you want to do business with, or are effective thought leaders in your industry since you may want to retweet their content to your own followers.

Automation is NOT Your Friend

Finally, it may seem easier to send out an automatic welcome message to everyone who follows you. But you’ll have a better chance of connecting with people if you personalize your messages. And don’t automatically try to sell people something with your message. Instead, share something useful with them, so they feel like you actually care about them.

In the next installment of this Twitter Networking series, I’ll talk about the power of retweeting.