Positive Thoughts for a Positive World
One common SEO mistake small business owners and solopreneurs fall victim to is building poor quality backlinks. Often times, these business people maintain their own websites, yet they don’t fully understand what backlinks are. Continue reading “Why You Should Avoid Building Poor Quality Backlinks”
With 2013 on the horizon, I think it’s a good time to take a look back at 2012. It was certainly a tumultuous year for… Facebook! (Yes, it was an election year here in the U.S. but there are plenty of other blogs that can comment on that front.) The social networking site made headlines all year long: switching business pages to Timeline, launching an initial public offering (and seeing its share price tank), and then struggling to monetize its business by introducing new advertising initiatives. Of course, Facebook wasn’t the only big story of 2012. Pinterest introduced business pages to tap into its growing popularity as a social network. Google+ struggled to stay relevant by introducing communities (I’m still not convinced!), while Twitter and LinkedIn both updated the look of their profile pages. Continue reading “Gloria Rand’s Top 10 Blog Posts of 2012”
by Gloria Rand
Ever get stuck for blog article ideas? Client questions are a great resource. In fact, that’s exactly what sparked the topic for today’s article!
One of my clients recently asked me, “Can comments on web-based articles help with rankings in Google as far as SEO is concerned?” The reason for his question is because he had just received this comment from his webhost: “Content” does influence SEO but it’s only the content inside an article or post. Google, Bing, and Yahoo do not look at the comments to determine any type of SEO ranking.” Continue reading “SEO Value of Blog Comments”
By Gloria Rand
If you’ve read any of my blog articles on LinkedIn, you know that I stress the importance of using keywords in your profile. Including keywords in your headline and summary, in particular, will help anyone searching on LinkedIn to find you. Continue reading “Black Hat SEO and the New LinkedIn Profile”
Want to get the word out about a hot new product or a new client you just signed? Write a press release! A well-written press release can help your company in several ways: Continue reading
Do you belong to any LinkedIn Groups? If you do, when is the last time you participated in one? By participating, I don’t mean that you shared your latest blog article in a group, or posted the link to your newest webinar. I’m talking about taking the time to read through other people’s posts and commenting on them, and providing useful information. If you’re not doing that, you should start and here are 3 reasons why: Continue reading…
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.
What a year 2011 has been. The U.S. economy seems to be improving. Social media continues to thrive as a medium for businesses to connect with their audience. And for me personally, I’ve been blessed by the fact that my business has grown, and I’ve added new followers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ — as well as adding as new subscribers to this blog. For that, I owe you all a big THANK YOU!
Before we move forward to new and exciting challenges in 2012, let’s take a look back at my most popular blog posts of 2011. Just like in 2010, the articles that resonated the best with you involved (you guessed it) Facebook!
iFrame App Alternatives to FBML for Facebook Pages
Creating custom Facebook tabs became a little easier after the switch to iFrames, especially with the introduction of these useful apps.
How to Tag Your (Friendly) Fans on Facebook
This article generated a ton of comments since Facebook kept changing the rules on how to tag, and I had to keep updating to stay on top of the changes!
How to make the most from LinkedIn Company Pages
LinkedIn’s company pages may not be as popular as Facebook, but they can be a powerful marketing tool when used properly.
When to post on Facebook for best engagement
The answer to the Facebook timing question ultimately depends on your audience, but this article gives some great clues on optimal times to post.
My top 5 free keyword research tools
The key to good search engine ranking starts with finding the words and phrases your audience uses.
3 ways your business can strategically use the Facebook tag
Facebook pages can’t easily tag people as we’ve seen, but tagging other pages can be a good marketing strategy.
Facebook deals and places
A first look at Facebook’s attempt to allow local businesses to offer “Groupon-style” deals.
3 new Facebook changes that benefit marketers
Facebook made a few tweaks in May that improved engagement.
Facebook to end discussion and review tabs for business pages
This article offered solutions to companies who want to continue offering discussions and reviews on their Facebook page.
New Facebook page changes – the good, the bad and the ugly
My initial reaction to the Facebook page format change at the beginning of the year wasn’t that positive, but I like it now. (I wonder when pages will get the “Timeline” makeover… Any bets?)
What was your favorite blog post of 2011?
[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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
[tweetmeme]With all the recent outcry over Facebook’s latest changes, it might be time for you to give Twitter another look. Twitter can be a key ingredient to your online success as a marketing tool and because of the impact it has on social search.
When you share great content, conduct contests, and leverage offline promotional efforts through Twitter, you not only increase traffic to your website, but you send valuable signals to search engines. Here are a few ways to make sure your tweets are reaching your target audience.
1. Create a username – While it’s best practice to use your own name for your Twitter username, that may not be possible if someone else is already using it. An alternative strategy is to combine your name with a keyword related to your business, or use a keyword in place of your name. My primary Twitter username is @GloriaRand. But I have another Twitter account called @GreenSEOCopy to promote myself as a SEO copywriter for the green products niche.
2. Bio section – Use keywords in your bio to help you connect with your target audience. You only have 160 characters to convey your business and your personality, so make it concise!
3. Use keywords in your tweets – This may seem like a no-brainer, but few companies develop a keyword strategy for their tweets, even though they do it for their business websites.
4. Ask for retweets – Search engines watch to see what content spreads through social media, because that’s often a strong measure of credibility for the web page linked to within the tweet. If your keyword-rich tweets get retweeted, you’re getting the best bang for your SEO buck! The key to getting retweets is to ask for them. Hubspot’s Dan Zarella found that when you ask your followers to retweet the message, you’ll get 4x more retweets:
5. Write awesome blog post titles – Sharing your blog articles on Twitter provides interesting content for your followers. Take time to come up with compelling, keyword-rich titles for your blog articles to spark interest among your Twitter followers. If you share great content, you’re sure to see a boost in traffic from Twitter and the search engines.
If you’d like to learn how to leverage Twitter’s 100 million active users to improve your organization’s marketing results, sign up for my free webinar: Twitter Tactics to Grow Your Business on Thursday, Sept. 29 at noon EDT.
During this brief session, you’ll learn how to:
* Find the right people to follow and attract new followers
* Use Twitter for business, marketing, lead generation, PR, and customer service
* Understand Twitter’s role in social search
* Track and analyze your campaigns
Seats are limited. Register today. https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/378979422
Gloria Grace Rand 