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Time for a Tune-Up: 8 Simple Updates to do Today

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by Rosemary O’Neill

Social profiles have gotten a lot of tweaking in the past year.  Have you kept up with all of the updates?

Today’s the day to roll up your sleeves and get it done.

Here’s a handy cheat sheet:

1. Twitter header

A few months ago, Twitter started including a photo header at the top of your profile.  It should be a graphic 1252 pixels wide by 626 pixels tall, maximum size of 5MB.  You can easily change it by going to your Twitter profile settings page.  Here are the details straight from Twitter: https://support.twitter.com/articles/127871.

2. LinkedIn company page header

Not to be outdone, LinkedIn now allows you to have a profile header for your company page.  The graphic should be a .png, .jpg, or .gif no more than 2MB.  Size recommended is 646 pixels wide by 220 pixels tall or larger (you can crop on the page). Here’s a handy video on setting up a company page: http://youtu.be/WiTQL_M_fv0.

3. Facebook cover photo

You should already have this one nailed, but just in case…your Facebook cover photo should ideally be 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall, and under 100KB (for fastest load time).  Here are Facebook’s recommendations: http://www.facebook.com/help/125379114252045/.  Remember that Facebook frowns on calls to action or overtly promotional content within the cover image.  It’s intended to be a compelling photo or graphic, not a banner ad.

4. Pinterest business pages

Your favorite slack-time hangout just put on a business suit. If your business is suited to graphic imagery, or you want to flex your creative juices, you might want to create a business account (or convert your existing personal account, if you’ve been using it to support your business). Learn all of the details from the Pinterest announcement: http://blog.pinterest.com/post/35710687813/new-tools-for-businesses-in-the-pinterest-community.

5. Your own site needs some tweaks

When is the last time you spiffed up your own blog or home page? Do you have a widget on there from last year’s conference? Take 10 minutes and look at your own site with a newcomer’s eye, or have a friend look — a refresh might end the year on a high note.

6. Update your avatar

I’ll step forward and say “guilty” on this one.  My avatar is from a favorite photo that was taken 7 years ago.  Ouch.  It’s time to cowboy up and get a new picture taken.  How old is your avatar?

7. Forum signatures

If you participate in online communities around the web, you probably have customized forum signatures in some of them. Usually these are appended to the end of your posts, and include a favorite motto, sometimes a link to your site, or your bio information. These can get totally forgotten in the day to day hustle. Take a moment today and fix the broken links, update your job title, or breathe some new life into your forum signatures.

8. Stop procrastinating on Google+

I know, it involves “code” and it seems really tricky (it sortof is).  Many posts have been written about how to implement the author tag for Google+, but the best one I found (and the one that actually worked for me) was this step-by-step from Social Media Examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/google-author-tags/.  Do this one today.

If you systematically go through and complete these 8 minor tasks, you’ll get a bounce into the new year with a fresh face to the world.

How to Your Boost Quality Content in Organic Search Results

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Basic SEO

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Jun Raisun Llamera

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How To Generate High Organic Search Results

While search engine optimization (SEO) is widely used in the online world, particularly in the internet marketing industry, there are still many internet marketers struggling to get their pages visible. Most of the popular search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) offer two types of search results: paid results (mostly at the top) and organic results. The only difference of the two is that paid results are “paid placements” and organic results occur naturally through searcher interest in the page topic.

Often internet marketers prefer the former since you’ll only have to do a little bit of work, and your cash will do the rest of it – an instant visibility assurance on search engines they say. Organic results, on the other hand, do not require cash. To get organic results, the key is producing relevant, up-to-date content worth sharing from your Web site. That means you have to be original and well versed on the topics you are publishing on your site.

The height of producing high organic results does not end there. No matter how relevant and latest your page displays, you can give your work a boost getting to the top.

Use of Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools can give you detailed statistics and reports about your Web sites’ visibility on Google, depending on how you manage them to aid you. Such as why you are getting 404 and 503 errors (page not found or unavailable), and which URLs are linking to your web site. Webmaster tools also offer to verify the status of your XML sitemap flow (like how it is submitted or how your pages are being indexed so users can find them).

You’ll only need a Google account, sign up, add your site, and then create your XML sitemap. And if you are using WordPress (http://www.wordpress.com/), you’ll be able install its WordPress plug in version.

Thorough and Keen Keyword Research

Unless you haven’t heard it repeatedly, keyword research is still the best way to produce relevant content. These are the natural or organic search keywords (or phrases) that you want to be optimized so people who are searching for those terms will eventually find you (immediately). Many webmasters rely on two main factors to work this: optimizing your pages for these keywords (avoid the temptation to overstuff your work with the same keyword), and getting inbound links that use link anchor text matching the keywords you’ve targeted.

Apparently, there is no specific tool that can tell you what keywords will be on top search in the upcoming hours or days, but the Google Keywords Tool is a good place to start. Write about what really interests in ways that will get other people interested in it too. Use the tool to find the words and search language people use to find information like what you wrote.

Producing high organic search results is not an easy thing to do, that’s why others choose the paid results or a combination of both. But one good thing that makes it a lot better that the others is that people mostly prefer relevancy and not advertisements.

—-

Author’s Bio:
Jun Raisun Llamera writes about ways to promote your business online and how to generate traffic to your websites at Ardor Backlinks . He is also the author of “Tips To Maximize The Effects Of Your Social Media Presence”. You can find him on Twitter as @JunRaisun

Thank you for adding to the conversation!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

What Google Penguin and Panda Updates Mean for Blogs

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by
Jen Thames

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Google Penguin and Panda Updates and Blog Search Engine Results

In the blogging world Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and placement in Google Organic Search isn’t usually at the top of the priority list. Bloggers blog to add value to the lives of other people. Google seems to have finally recognized this with their newest algorithmic update (still in progress) called Google Penguin.

Google has released two major updates recently in an effort to combat spam. They are called Google Panda and Google Penguin. It’s over simplification but basically:

Google Panda attacks the misuse of keywords
Google Penguin attacks the misuse of links

Great articles about Penguin’s affects on SEO in general can be found on the websites SEOMOZ and Search Engine Land . This article looks at what Google’s Penguin update means specifically for bloggers.

Bloggers Were Helped by the Google Penguin Update

Bloggers who are just out there producing great content may find their numbers skyrocketing after Google Penguin (most recent May 25th/May26th and June 7th/8th). Why? Well, the update looks to take away credit from linking strategies that have created unnatural organic placement for websites in the past.

Google uses more than 200 separate ranking factors for organic search. One of the results of Penguin’s update is that more “professional” sites are now trumped by smaller blogs especially for targeted keyword searches. As the larger websites fall the smaller blogs rise.

For example, researching a Lean Management book entitled Toyota Kata returned several small blogs in the top search positions. The author’s University of Michigan personal page for the book actually ranked below the blog reviews when searching for the words Toyota Kata Reviews.

Generally, longer blog posts seem to be doing well post Penguin update. Widely shared posts are doing really well.

Post Google Penguin: Things Bloggers Should Know

Despite the positive sides of Penguin for many bloggers the new updates can also cause a blog’s placement in organic search to decline. Here are some of the reasons your blog rankings may have declined post Penguin.

Penguin has hit many directories hard. Google has decided that many of the directories and bloggers rolls were just too spammy. They have lowered the ranking of many directories and this in turn can lower the ranking of your own blog.

Comments that have links to spammy sites and bad incoming links can negatively affect your ranking. Google is supposedly developing a disavow tool as we speak to give websites the power to remove unwanted incoming links when they occur. The ETA on this new disavow tool is 6 months.

Specific Blogs will do better post Penguin. Your blog may be too general and this can hurt your organic rankings. Here is why. Google places a higher value on incoming links that come from websites that are similar to your own. If your blog topic is too general the likelihood of other sites linking to you from unrelated sites is higher. For example, lets say you have a home improvement blog and somewhere along the line you wrote a large series on building doghouses. Through that series a group of pet supply stores started to link to your blog to show their customers how to build doghouses. Google’s computer bots might not get the connection between pet supplies and DIY.

Paid affiliate links can hurt if the ratio is too high. Provided the ratio of paid links to unpaid links is not too high the blog should be ok. However, this is something to watch.

Things Bloggers Can Do to Boost Traffic and Take Advantage of Panda/Penguin

Update! Update! Update! Do what you do and do it well. Google is completely on board right now with blogging. The more you update the better you will do in organic search.

Produce amazingly useful content that is widely shared. Here are three examples from blogs in different industries.

Accept posts and ask for guest posts from bloggers within your own industry. The links that connect guest posts are organic, useful for readers and OK by Google!

Do sign up for good blog rolls and directories. The safe list on SEOMOZ is a great place to start.

Learn Google’s rules and use their tools. Google tools are useful and they can quickly keep you up to date on all the new things happening at Google.

Don’t put all of your marketing eggs in one basket. Google is not the only search engine out there, and organic search is not the only way people will find your blog! There are a variety of other ways to market your blog that may be just as good at driving traffic as Google organic rankings. Alternative marketing strategies include:

  • Mobile marketing (for phones and tablets)
  • Local marketing (Google Places, Bing Business and Yahoo! Local)
  • Promotional product marketing (using real promotional products like green shopping bags)
  • Social Media Marketing
  • PPC marketing

Have a mixed basket and no matter what Google does in the future viewers will find you and the blog will grow!

Author’s Bio:
Jen Thames writes about marketing and business at SixSigmaOnline. You can find her on Twitter as @SixSigmaAveta

Thank you, Jen! Great information on the update. Love having it all one in place.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Bloggy Question 86: Google Is Coming!

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Is It Evil?

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .

You’re a social media consultant. You’ve just established a working relationship with an event planning bureau. Your client provides a service — they match clients who want to sponsor international conferences and trade shows with experienced, local event planners. Your task is to develop a strategy to reach new potential sponsors and to establish a strong and visible online presence for the client company.

Two weeks into your relationship, the Chief Marketing Officer contacts sends you a link to the first page of Google Search. The search is on “Google Event Planning Center.” You read a few of the listed results — all contain the same basic information. Google has announced intentions to establish an international meeting place for event planners and sponsors to do business. . . . not much more. Some industry leaders offer speculation on Google’s strategy. No date for launch or further information is given.

How do you advice your client to respond to the announcement?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Related articles
Bloggy Question 85: Big Brother Just Bought Your Company!
Bloggy Question 84: Social Networking and Reputation — What Should Doostang Do?
Bloggy Question 83: $10MIL, Luxury Home, Would You Go Back to Web 1.0?
Bloggy Question 82: It’s the Truth, Well, Sort of . . .
Bloggy Question 81: A Nice Gesture

Google Changes the Game — 10 Sites Hit in October . . . Now Look

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NOT Just a PageRank Update

The Living Web

Every Monday, I check in to see how the web world is treating me. It seems that Technorati has left me out in the cold . . . my 180-day archives have been only 60-90 days deep for over a year now. When I wrote last week, no one answered. . . .

But it’s looking like Google may be having a change of heart . . . We could have a mutually-beneficial relationship again. Something more than a PageRank update is definitely going on. PageRank seems to be getting an entirely new definition.

  • I see it in my backlinks.
  • I see in new site links for Successful-Blog.
  • I see it in the way my SERPs are playing out and in the Webmaster tools information being reported.
  • I see it a change in PageRank for LizStauss.com, The SOBCon08 Blog and one other URL I own.

Other signs life and page rank is changing . . .

  • Live PR Live Pagerank appears to be dead. Every site is coming up 0. Note: the Alexa ranks are coming through fine.
  • The same thing — 0 PR for every site — appears to be happening at Smart PageRank
  • iwebtools PageRank Checker is reporting changes and lots of “Datacenter down” responses.

And then, of course, there are the blogs taken down hard last October . . .

10 Sites Hit in October . . . Today

Some stats collected by Daily Blogging Tips last October and the current page rank reported by more than one tool. NOTE: Google datacenters are still dancing, not all datacenters are reporting. That means numbers could go anywhere.

I love looking for patterns in Google thinking.

What does this mean? Do you care?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Dear Google, I'm the Relationship Blogger

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Dear Google,
It’s Liz.

I’m a little confused about our relationship. After two years, you dumped me from Page Rank 6 to a Page Rank 3.

I would have thought it was text-links I had — they’re gone now. I’m sorry. The world knows I’m not an SEO whiz, if I was one, I wouldn’t have 40-some categories in my sidebar. At least, that’s what folks tell me.

But you dumped my LizStrauss blog too, and it doesn’t have any ads and never did.

It’s disheartening when I think of how I advocate NOT GAMING the system.

You might remember when I said

Links and relationships are intertwined and inseparable to me. It’s about people and connections that last.

Did you misunderstand the SOB program after all of this time? Not all of these folks have all of the links you might expect, but they will, because they show the key traits of a successful blogger. I know they will because they write good content and they make good relationships.

Is it that I write creative entertainment sometimes? Isn’t that better than just regurgitating someone else’s content?

Everyone knows that a link exchange on this blog is out of the question.

I’m the kind of blogger who wants a relationship not a one link stand.

And then there was my personal stance on link trains and other valueless link posts.

Dear Emperor: A Test for Your Next Link Post

If the recent birthday party invitation to 646 blogs threw you, please know that it lived up to the “Dear Emperor” standard. So will the link posts like this first one that celebrate the links the party guests brought to show their most successful and outstanding experiences — a birthday only happens once a year. You can believe I’m checking them. I do that for you, for me, and for my readers.

So Google, that’s our history. I know you know me better. I’m the person behind the numbers. I don’t link promiscuously.

I’m the relationship blogger. I want folks to respect me in the morning.

Liz's Signature