Most people don’t like change. And these changes caused quite an uproar amongst users, even to the point that users were fighting with each other about whether or not the changes were good. I must admit, I joined the debate.

Tickers, Timelines and Top Stories

Personally, I really like all the changes, except one…top stories. There are some pros and cons to this one.

Basically, Facebook picks which status updates/posts should be your “top stories” based on the relationship, number of people who like it, etc. and puts those at the top in the news feed. Most would argue they would rather see ALL of their friend’s updates, as well as updates from the pages they’ve liked, chronologically. That’s certainly how I feel.

What does this do to marketers who have worked so hard to grow their audiences and cultivate communities on their Facebook pages? The jury is still out, but I see some issues.

Pros and Cons

The bad thing: This means the likelihood of their audience seeing their posts will go down. In fact, I can see in the analytics where site traffic from Facebook has already started to decrease.

The good thing: Marketers who count on their business pages for website traffic and customer interaction will now have to work much harder to generate relevant, interesting, sharable content. Better content means more people will “like” it and be more likely to share that content with their friends.

Where Should We Focus?

The biggest takeaway for me in regards to the explosion of Google+ and the significant changes/updates to Facebook is the fact that regardless of social media evolution, everything always comes back to your website. Social media will continue to change and develop, as it should. Your website should also  improve on a regular basis, but IT should be your top priority…not mastering social media marketing. Your website is Base Camp. It’s a platform that YOU can control. The visitors generated from Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. should land on a website that doesn’t look like its straight out of 2004. Basically, it’s very important that your website doesn’t suck.

Make sure your website is at the top of its game. It needs to be visually appealing, have modern architecture, be search engine friendly (do the keyword research) and social media friendly, incorporating all the latest widgets and buttons that make for easy sharing. Your website should have a blog integrated within the site, not separate. It should also have analytics installed and you should be posting on the blog regularly, if not often.

Roll With The Changes

Don’t freak out when Facebook makes changes. This wasn’t the first and won’t be the last time they do. Also, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Get active on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, YouTube, etc. and get familiar with Google+. But, most importantly…have a website that stands out amongst your competitors. Make “Base Camp” your top priority and then put the icing on the cake with an awesome social marketing campaign.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or to learn more.

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Inbound links, or backlinks, are essential for helping your website rank higher in the search engines. The more QUALITY links you have to your website, the greater the chances are that you will rank higher than your competitors.

By now you should be posting regularly on a blog. Regularly meaning at least once a week. The post should be original content (your content) and you should be taking that post and publishing it on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and any other social network or bookmarking sites you use.

However, there are many other free sites that will help create more inbound links that you may, or may not know about. Try these on for size…

1 – Pitch Engine
2 – Free Press Release
3 – Ezine Articles
4 – Articlesbase
5 – Free Article Submission
6 – Geckoe
7 – E-Articles
8 – WebProNews
9 – Buzzle
10 – GoArticles

How popular is your website? What things do you need to implement to increase your search engine rankings?

To find out more, contact us for a free website analysis.

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Social Marketing campaigns work best on sites that are designed and developed effectively with landing pages and conversion points in mind.

I see websites every day that scream 1998…and it’s 2010. It boggles the mind.

Here are 6 quick ways to know that your website needs help:

1 – Your design has too many bright colors, flashing boxes and/or scrolling marquees. Please, this went away at the turn of the century. Go with softer colors that are easier on the eye. Ever read a website with a black background for a length of time and then looked at something else?

2 – You have multiple navigations. You don’t need a nav down the left side, across the top and at the very bottom of each page. Stick with one simple, yet thought out navigational structure.

3 - Your site only loads right in Internet Explorer. It’s time to re-work the site if  there are pieces of  it all over the screen when yours opens in Chrome. Just do it.

4 - Your metadata doesn’t change from page to page. This is SEO-101, but still important. Your keywords should reflect the page you’re on. If you’re on the “services” page, the keywords in the metadata should contain those services.

5 – Your site takes too long to load. Page load time should be cut down to 3-4 seconds. Google does pay attention to this. So, if you can run to the grocery store while the site is loading, it’s time to make some changes.

6 – Your site is not social media friendly. The site should have links to ALL your social media profiles and pages. Also, be sure to integrate as many social media widgets as possible, especially the Facebook “like” button.

This is another topic that we could discuss for a long time. There are definitely more than 6 things to pay attention to when assessing your website’s short-comings.

To learn how we can help, CONTACT US!

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Here are five key ingredients your site must have in order to be successful:

1 – Page Titles: The blue bar at the top of every page of your site should contain the name of your site and the title of the corresponding page. This will aid in SEO.

2 – Clear, Concise Navigation: Your nav should be simple and short, but specific. It needs to be laid out in a logical manner with layers kept to a minimum.

3 – Quality Links: Your site should link out to specific websites and pages/articles of interest to your readers and users. Additionally, your site should have as many inbound links as possible for better SEO. These are links coming to your site from other quality websites.

4 – Contact Info: Are you making it easy for your users to contact you from anywhere on your website? Google may find a particular page of your site to distribute to a user. Will that user be able to locate your phone number, email address and simple contact form easily from that page? Put this info on every page, if possible.

5 – Content: Keep it to 250 words per page. Make it simple, specific and easy to read. Remember, your users are looking for pertinent information, not a novel. One of the secrets to SEO has always been GOOD CONTENT. Make sure you use a keyword research tool and incorporate those keywords into your content.

This is a short list, but if you implement these five key parameters your website will be more successful. There are certainly more things you need to include for optimal performance. We’ll touch on these soon.

To learn how we can help, CONTACT US!

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