Tag Archives: Google Plus

Quick Updates on Social Media Efforts

A few weeks ago I decided to work on pushing out my blog content to social media sites via a publishing plugin for WordPress. For the most part it’s been great, and I’ve even had some interaction come from the use of it. One weird thing that I’ve seen, is that my tweets get favorited a lot, more so than retweets.

It’s frustrating, because I’ve seen little traction from both in that regard. That being said, I’d much rather have a retweet than a favorite when it comes down to it. A favorite is simply a nod and a bookmark to me, and that’s not a guarantee that the person that marked my tweet as a favorite will go back and look through my site (haven’t seen any indication of that anyways).

A retweet however, can do wonders. I enjoy it much more when I see that a tweet gets blasted out to another 400+ followers of that person’s account. Of course, that’s the logical thing to say anyways. I’d prefer the eyes of many over one, unless that one person had a 100% conversion rate.

Another thing that I’ve been trying to get into the habit of, using Google Plus and making sure I interact on a daily basis with things that interest me. It’s been a help with referral traffic and being placed within other people’s circles. It’s been great for networking and establishing a voice on that site as well. The converstations there are way more rewarding than they have been anywhere else in the social media sphere.

Facebook, is something that I haven’t done too much of. I really need to build a quality group or something and just can’t get into it. Maybe I’ll accomplish that in a few weeks and start promoting it as much as possible.

Speaking of, Facebook introduced larger images for link share posts. That’s a bonus, because I felt that if someone felt it was worth sharing, it should display a larger prominence within their timeline as a show of support to the given link.

Related posts:

  1. Social Media and Your Small Business
  2. Hashtag Support enabled by Facebook
  3. Good Content…Does It Really Trump SEO Efforts?
  4. FTC’s Ruling On Endorsed Tweets

Building a Google Plus Community

Google Plus has grown exponentially in the past year or so. The funny thing, is that I don’t feel it’s seriously used outside of people in the tech fields, specifically even the SEO field. The hard part, is that Google has made Google Plus an important factor in social signals and ranking growth. I’ve made it a personal goal to learn more about Google Plus, the best way to use it, and the most efficient way to get the most eyes on something quickly. What that means, is that a majority of my time has been spent on learning how to correctly build, promote, and use a Google Plus Community.

I’ve joined a few Google Plus Community groups over the past few weeks. I can safely say I’ve seen an increase in my website visits, interaction, and social reach as I become more responsive with Google Plus. Sure there’s a lot of random SEO fluff from some joke company that wants to promote its services online. Getting past all of that and reaching out to help people who have serious questions is incredibly beneficial, to myself, my website, and them.

Join my Google Plus Community!
Google Plus Community

Shameless plug for my created Google Plus Community – “Local SEO and Small Business SEO” Click the image to join! – Local SEO and Small Business SEO

I know, I know. It’s a shameless plug bug it needed to be done. I’m looking to create a community while growing my outreach while providing a place for users new to local SEO or people in the industry to post their information, ideas, and questions. Google Plus is something that took a hit at the start, and seeing that it’s becoming something completely different than what Facebook/Twitter is, really is a good thing. There should be distinct differences between social media platforms. It was only common sense that Google would make anything Plus related influence rankings and site visibility.

Related posts:

  1. Knowledge Graph Carousel For Local Search Announced By Google
  2. Google Authorship Even More Important Now
  3. Link Building Through Relationships
  4. Google Penguin 2.0 Thoughts…

Knowledge Graph Carousel For Local Search Announced By Google

The Google Knowledge Graph Carousel has been announced Google, and has started appearing for local user searches for “restaurants, bars and other local places.” The knowledge graph carousel was announced in a Google+ post billed as it’s official release.

The knowledge graph carousel simply removes the map listing from searches, and places them above the organic results displaying images, reviews, how expensive it is, and what category it falls under. All in all, local SEO became a whole lot busier in these upcoming months. Luckily, I’ve been able to preach the necessity of getting your Google+ Business page verified and updated prior to this release, because we’re moving past the realm of just showing up in the map section of organic results. Local is now front and center, and will easily take all of the eyes away from the organic structure and place it directly on to the carousel.

This is what you see when you search “italian restaurants Pittsburgh”

google knowledge graph carousel

Another thing that’s clear, is that these Google business pages and map listings are created with or without your consent, giving the user the ability to post reviews/comments for everyone to see. The importance of claiming these listings so you can respond and react to these situations will also be magnified now that more people will surely be clicking throughout those listings.

How to claim your Google+ business page and the Knowledge Graph Carousel
  • Logged into your Google account visit this link: http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/business/
  • Add all the applicable info and save the page
  • Select the option to verify by postcard(if option for phone isn’t available)
  • Once the post card arrives, type the link on the card and enter in the pin number, your business should then be verified.

This verification process should then merge your local map listing as well as verified Google+ business page listing. Once that’s complete, you’re then able to update information, change the business name, add blog posts, images, and anything else you can think of to help promote your business. Having this page verified is essential to providing a very good step forward in attaining customers throughout Google local search.

The knowledge graph carousel may be new, but it’s a much-needed step in the right direction for Google. Sure, it makes doing SEO that much harder, and it’s another thing to troubleshoot and figure out, but it brings the process of finding a local business away from a website, and directly into Google for the direct result.

Related posts:

  1. Connect Your Google+ Business Page To Your Google Maps Listing
  2. Google Penguin 4.0 Announced and Rolling Out
  3. 5 Local SEO Tips You Shouldn’t Pay For
  4. Google Penguin 2.0 Thoughts…

Hashtag Support enabled by Facebook

As of June 6th 2013, Facebook officially became a hashtag friendly website. Facebook will now allow users to post and search by “#keyword.” The good thing about this, is that Facebook is also making hashtags searchable, even if they’re on different social media platforms like Google+, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

Facebook Hashtag SupportIf you’re new to the social media and inbound marketing game and wondering how it can work with your business, I’ll provide you a few tips to help you get started with this hashtag function.

Creating a hashtag – A ‘hashtag’ can be created by simply putting a # in front of a word, or acronym with no spaces. For example “#keyword,” or “#keyphrase.” The good thing, is that Facebook and the other social media websites all follow the uniform standard when it comes to creating hashtags.

If you’re looking to use hashtags for your business, keep the same ideals when you’re looking for keywords as well. Don’t use anything ridiculous like #cheapshoesnobodyremembers. Nobody will remember or type in a hashtag that long, so refrain from using it. Keep it simple, stupid!

Click on hashtags – By clicking on the hashtag that you posted, or clicking on another one that is relevant to you or your business, you’re then able to find everyone else posting about things like you. Doing this not only gives you more ideas to write about, but also gives you the ability to become the authority on a keyword if it aligns with your business correctly.

Personally, I’ll say to never pass up on being able to answer a question if you know it. You never know what could happen with that post and it could potentially be shared or seen by more than one person.

Check for hashtag trends – Finding trends, or being able to see trends to hashtags can help you create content and continue on with communication. Sure, hashtags don’t always translate to your business. If they do match though, you already know it’s being talked about, so you might as well hop on board and see how much traction you can create with content created for that hashtag. To learn more about what tags are trending, visit Hashtags.org.

Hashtags and the use of them are meant to be simple. Social Media is mostly unexplored with small business owners, or even used incorrectly. The use of hashtags and social media can benefit your business and help you expand out further than you imagined.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Updates on Social Media Efforts
  2. Google Penguin 2.0 Thoughts…
  3. Building a Google Plus Community
  4. Link Building Through Relationships

Google Penguin 2.0 Thoughts…

In today’s world, simply being just an SEO isn’t enough. I’ve been able to teach myself the necessary requirements to understand both the adaptation of SEO, and the websites that are fueled by it. On top of SEO, as Google Penguin 2.0 was just released, we’ve gone even deeper down the rabbit hole with the use of social media and Google Plus as the driving reason behind getting ourselves seen in different markets.

Google Penguin 2.0Google Authorship(get verified for authorship now) , is now more important than ever. Google has seemingly pushed the use of Google Plus upon us, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Personally, I think Google Plus has gotten loads better since it’s original release. Not to mention that now when you’re verified for Google authorship, it has had the ability to rank your pages faster, and even give them top priority in some cases. Making my goal on the SEM side of things to become more known in Google Plus and make my way throughout more friend’s circles.

Another fantastic thing that has come with Google Penguin 2.0 is that the keyword trend graph from Google has some more traction, and appears to work more than half the time when I use it. I still prefer doing things the older school way and going by referred and comparable searches, but the trends map has a purpose now, and it gives us that extra juice for being able to find rising keywords and getting the jump on our competitors out there.

Changing the way we think with Google Penguin 2.0…

Probably my favorite throughout the entire Google Penguin 2.0 release is that we don’t have to be so reliable to spam keyword phrases anymore. We’re rewarded(always were, just more-so now I feel) for actually cultivating content that can rely on phrasing of the subject instead of relying heavily on “Keyword Keyword City.” I’ve come to really detest that line of thinking anymore. Seeing articles that are forced with that kind of keyword phrasing really turn me off, and show me that the progression of their SEO hasn’t changed. Now of course, it’s not all going to change at once and even in some instances won’t ever change(we’re still going to use the phrases), but maybe we’ll all do it a bit less out there!

I’m excited and ready to see what else Google Penguin 2.0 has to offer the SEO community. I think it’s a great thing with some of these fundamental changes in the way we produce content. Totally necessary and exciting!

Related posts:

  1. Knowledge Graph Carousel For Local Search Announced By Google
  2. Upcoming Google Penguin and Panda Updates…Oh Boy!
  3. Google Penguin 4.0 Announced and Rolling Out
  4. Google Authorship Even More Important Now