Why Content is So Important to SEO

Content, content, content....a word that seems like nagging to many of my clients.

The major search engines are focusing on creating the best possible user experience, which means sites that offer relevant (new, creative and unique)information stand to gain the most visibility.

This following image provides a graphic explanation of the importance of content. To see the enlarged size, click here.

If you think  your SEO needs an overhaul, let's talk. Click to email us. We'll listen first, look at your online presence and then offer our recommendations.  One size does not fit all.The solution for you should be unique to your business and goals. Maybe you only need a refresh.

How often do you visit your own website?

I asked this question at a presentation last week, and was surprised to hear that most people fail to visit their own website, and worse fail to check the traffic analytics and feedback. Just because your webmaster (or you) have designed a nice website, the job isn't over.

A few days before this presentation, I visited the websites of two acquaintances. One had missing images and no alt text, and missing text color in the navigation. The other had three typos and a several broken links. (See Focus Group Pet Peeves below.)

Your website, and especially your home page is the first impression a visitor has of you, your expertise and professionalism. Even though you may have hired a webmaster to design your site, the ultimate responsibility falls upon you, after all - it is your image and your business.

Once your site is online, it still requires maintenance. Changes in search algorithms can require changes in your source code, keywords or content in order to stay visible.

A competent webmaster will keep you appraised of the changes that need to be made to keep up with the search engine algorithms, and will consistently check their work for broken links and missing information or images. No one is perfect and mistakes can be made, however, errors should be corrected without delay. The longer a page stays online, the more likely it can become part of a cache page in search results.

Your web designer/SEO/marketer should be working with your success in mind. If they are analyzing your traffic, they can work with you to understand which pages and links are popular and respond to pages that are losing ranking with changes or fresh content.

It is essential to know what your customers and prospects are seeing when they visit your site. Are they impressed with how well your website represents you? Do they bookmark, share or +1 your site? Is your content fresh, giving them a reason to return?

One of the best ways to determine if your site is working for or against you and your goals, is to utilize a focus group. Unbiased, unrelated (no friends or family) selection of people to give honest feedback on what they saw, felt and learned from your site.

From the many focus groups I run on my clients and prospects websites, the top pet peeves are:
1. Tiny Text.
2. Text too hard to read against the page background. Least favorite: gray text against white background,
3. Sound that launches automatically, whether it's music, a greeter voice on the website, or the auto responder telling you to check your email.
4. Outdated websites with no current content and several broken links.
5. Finding themselves opted-in to receive additional information, usually an e-zine, after they responded to a free offer with no advance indication that they are being opted in.

The number of websites on the internet is growing everyday. Even if your market is only your local area, you still need a consistent plan of action, and consistent changes in order to stay as visible as possible in the search results.

Wishing you awesome and continuing success !

Sumner M. Davenport is a Solutions Consultant.
Best Selling Author and Keynote Speaker
Solutions, not just answers.
Solutions are not one-size-fits-all.
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Facebook News Feed - are your friends getting your updates?

Facebook has changed its News Feed, so that by default, you can only see updates from people you've "recently interacted with." This also means that if you are not interacting with your friends, they may not be seeing your posts either.

To fix this click on the arrow next to "Most Recent."

From the dropdown menu, click on "Edit Options."

You will see the default is "Friends and pages you interact with the most".

Select "All of your friends and pages."
Click "Save."

Be sure to tell your friends because they might be missing your posts until they make this same change.

MANAGE YOUR NEWS FEED:

1.) If you only want to see posts in your news feed from friends who have made recent status updates, then start again at the drop down menu under "Most Recent".

Select "Status Updates".

2.) If you only want to see posts in your news feed from selected friends, then start again at the drop-down menu under "Most Recent" to "Create a friend list."

A window will appear with your friends images. Make a name for this list and select the friends you want included.

Click Save.

Now when you return to your page, and click "Most Recent", you will see your new customized friend list added.

By clicking this, your news feed will only show posts from the friends in this list.

Be sure to tell your friends because they might be missing your posts until they make this same change.

REMINDER: Your friends may find it difficult to find your custom business page unless it is correctly linked from your profile. You can still have your privacy controls set so that only your friends can see your posts, however, visitors can more easily find your business page. See my blog post titled: "Are you making it difficult for people to find your business on your social media profiles?".

Wishing you awesome and continuing success !


Sumner M. Davenport is a Solutions Consultant.
Best Selling Author and Keynote Speaker
Solutions, not just answers.
Solutions are not one-size-fits-all.
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Buyer Be Aware - How Online Retailers Motivate You To Spend More

How To Create Your Own Facebook URL or Username

If you are trying to figure out how to get your own custom Facebook fan page URL for your Facebook business page here’s how you do it.


You must have 25 or more fans (people who have liked your page), before you will be able to set a username. If you do not yet have 25 fans on your page, start suggesting to your friends to like your page. Underneath your Facebook fan page profile picture there is a button labeled “suggest to friends.” you can use this button to invite your friends to come support and like your fan page. 


After you are logged into your Facebook account, go to http://facebook.com/username.


If you have not yet verified your account, You will be prompted to do so before you can create a username.

Once on the username page, select your profile, business page, Group (that you started) or Facebook App that you created from the drop-down menu.

If you have not yet met the requirement of 25 fans, you will see a message that your page is not eligible for a username at this time. Gain your 25 fans and return.

After you have obtained a minimum of 25 fans, return to http://facebook.com/username. From the drop-down menu to select your profile, business page, Group (that you started) or Facebook App that you created. 


A new text box will appear asking you to enter your desired username.

Here is where you want to give it some thought.


Your Facebook username is one of the most important factors to getting your page, profile, or Facebook group ranked in search results. You want to make sure that your username is both short and descriptive and includes keywords that users might be using to find pages like yours.


Facebook has a few defined limitations:
1. You cannot change the name once you have selected it for this page.
2. You cannot transfer ownership to anyone else
3. You cannot violate anyone's trademark. They also do not allow you to use Facebook in your name.
4. You  cannot obtain page names with the intention to sell them.
5. Facebook can delete or claim your custom name for many other yet undefined reasons according to their Terms& Conditions.

After creating your custom URL you can now use this web address to hand out to your customers, prospects, e-mail list, and website visitors so that they can easily find your Facebook page and spread the word.


You also want to make sure that this custom page is connected to your profile so your current and new friends can find it.  See my blog post titled: "Are you making it difficult for people to find your business on your social media profiles?"

Wishing you awesome and continuing success !


Sumner M. Davenport is a Solutions Consultant. 
Best Selling Author and Keynote Speaker
Solutions, not just answers.
Solutions are not one-size-fits-all.
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Google launches Instant Pages on Chrome

Instant Pages is just one part of Google’s new and revised overall Instant platform. With Instant Pages in Chrome, you can skip the extra seconds waiting for a page to load and get to the answers you're looking for faster with webpages that load instantly.

Are you using it?
Does it make a difference in your search activities?

Smart webmasters and marketers will be making significant changes to websites to get them to the top of the first page results, including buying ads.

What is SEO? How has it changed?

Every week I meet someone who asks if I include SEO in the services I offer. I answer yes, followed by the question "what is your understanding of SEO?"

The answers usually include something similar to " making it easier for search engines to find my website, changing keywords or meta tags, etc" While that answer is a partial explanation of SEO, it fails to answer the full picture and the best way to accomplish it.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of your website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Search engines don’t read text, view images, or watch video the same way a human being does, so your website must include certain instructions so that the search engine can not only find you, but can also deliver visitors to your specific content.

What once worked in the past, may not work as effectively today, as the search engines consistently change their search algorithms; the method that they find and rank a website and web page. With the introduction of “instant search”, “plus 1” and results from social networking sites being delivered, your website must consistently change to keep up with the changes in the search engines practices.

In the beginning, SEO was as simple as changing a few meta tags and keywords in your website code. Then as the internet grew with millions of websites, and thousands in your niche, SEO had to evolve. Some of the previous efforts for SEO no longer work today. At one time, cross linking your website (I’ll post your link on mine, if you post me on yours) was popular and for some websites it created an increase in traffic and interest in their products; especially if those linking websites were in their niche. Then the search algorithms changed again and these cross links just washed each other out. For a long time (and still), many SEO companies started placing their clients website on hundreds and thousands of non-specific directory sites. Although this “might” increase the traffic to a website, it has no positive effect on page ranking or earning authority ratings with search engines. Plus, search engines many times either ignore or block these non-important sites, so your link becomes worthless. On the other hand, placing links on high authority sites, especially in your niche area, have a greater potential of delivering better visitors to your site, and increasing your overall ranking.

For years we have been telling clients that content is important, and current content is essential, yet many websites are still launched and left to sit for months and even years, A website with no new activity will soon fall to the bottom of the sandbox, and then take extra efforts to relive it. Internet searchers are becoming more specific in their request, and demanding quicker results. Keeping your content current gives you a better chance of answering those search inquiries.

SEO works when it is included in your overall marketing plan, which includes your website, your blog, your videos, your email newsletter and all your social networking sites, (ie: Facebook, LinkedIn, industry specific sites, etc.), tied in with your offline marketing efforts as well. Working on only one area can be more costly in time, potential designer fees and low returns.

Internet marketing returns better results with (1) a strategic plan; (2) Analytics; (3) Analysis of results vs goals; and (4) Adjustments. Rinse and repeat.

Wishing you awesome and continuing success. Happy Internet

How secure are your passwords? (and therefore your accounts!)

Over this past weekend it was breaking news that Apple's survey website had been hacked and a collection of accounts and passwords were then posted on the internet. Fox News Twitter account had been hacked and erroneous news stories posted.

If the passwords of these giants can be obtained by serious hackers, how safe are the passwords you use on your online accounts from the identity thieves? Despite numerous warnings about easy passwords, or the need to change passwords regularly, many people still ignore the warnings.

A network software security company found that 1 percent of the 32 million people it studied had used “123456” as a password. The second-most-popular password was “12345.” Others in the top 20 included “qwerty,” “abc123” and “princess.”

The most popular (and easily hacked) passwords still used today:
1. Your birthday
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10.(your first name, or any part of your name)
11. 12345
12 123456789
13. Password (with and without capitalization)
14. iloveyou
15. princess
16. jesus (with and without capitalization)
17. jesus saves
18. 1234567
19 12345678
20. abc123
21. babygirl
22. monkey
23. Lovely
25. michael
26. Ashley
27. 654321
28. Qwerty
29. (the name of the website you're on)
30. letmein

The advice is to stay away from common and easy passwords, especially for your critical online accounts that have sensitive and/or financial information about you.

I read a hint somewhere that can be helpful: Take a sentence and turn it into a password. Something like "This little piggy went to market" might become "tlpWENT2m". (Now that I've given you this example, please don't use it, compose your own creative sentence). You might find an online password creator tool easier if you have several passwords you need to create.

PLUS, when setting your "secret questions" for an email reminder of your password, use your own questions or answer only the ones that most people wouldn't know about you.

Yes, it may feel aggravating to have to remember different passwords for different accounts, however, compare that to having your account hacked and your identity violated, or your money stolen.




Conversation is encouraged and expected. However, moderation of comments is necessary to prevent spam, profanity or litigious content, and off-topic commentary.

Are you making it difficult for people to find your business on your social media profiles?

Social media has become one of the most popular avenues to promote your business. Smart marketers are adding social media (more than using social media exclusively) to their marketing plans.

There are a few common mistakes on these sites that may be working against you instead of supporting your business. Interestingly enough I seen social media "experts" and "strategists" making some of these same mistakes, which means they may be missing great tools to assist their clients.

There are many social media sites, some niche exclusive which can be a great addition to your marketing, however, my next two blog posts will focus on your company listings on Facebook and LinkedIn.

FACEBOOK:

Setting up a profile and a business page is easy. You can choose to use your profile to chat with friends or business associates or both.

Separate from your profile is your business Page. Hopefully your business page is set up as a page and not a profile. Facebook T&C disallows using a profile as a business, and can delete your account and all your hard work if you violate this. This point is addressed is a separate blog post.

When setting up your profile, the info section asked for your Education and Work.



If you have a Custom Business page set up, the system will attempt to connect you to your page. Otherwise it will create an empty placeholder page. You will not be able to edit this placeholder page. You can "like" this page, and also have others "like" it, however, as it is has no value to your marketing.



It is at this point that many people set up a business Page.

When you have a business Page established, the system will attempt to connect you to your page. It is not automatic. If your page was set up after you initially entered your Employment, you will need to go back and manually change the link.

When logged into your Profile, go to your "Edit Profile".



Click on the section Work and Education as shown in the above image.

Begin typing your business name EXACTLY as you named it when you set up the page. Here's where many errors take place. Facebook can only find your correct page when you enter the EXACT name you gave it. Sometimes it may be the same name as you previously entered, however this time Facebook will attempt to find your new correct page. Sometimes it will be the same exact name you originally entered, however, Facebook assigned numerical digits after the name and your correct page has different digits which has created a completely different URL.



When you see your correct company name in the drop down list, click on it.This will add it to your Employment section.



Fill in the remainder of the information and be sure to click "Save Changes" before exiting.



When you next see that both your correct Business Page and the placeholder page are listed, you can delete the one that you don't want.



If you have other company's you are affiliated with or employed by, you can add them here as well the same way. Note that the first one you add will be the primary one shown at the top of your profile and top of the list under your Work and Employment tab.


When you have a set up a Business Page, you are designated as the "owner" and you maintain the ultimate control. You can add administrators through your manage permissions and these Admins are limited to posting and editing. They will not have access to your profile or any other pages you own. I am an "Admin" for several client Facebook Pages, and my clients have the control to change that permission at any time.

When you attach your Business Page to your profile, it has the potential to extend your marketing reach. If you are using your profile for personal communications, you may consider setting up a different profile for profile for professional use and make sure your Business Pages are linked.

Someone from your personal profile may be able to visit your Business Page from your personal or professional profile, however, they will only find your profile if you have it listed as owner of your Business Page. If you are keeping personal and professional separate, then your professional profile should be listed as page owner on the page. You also have the option of not posting the page owner on your page.

Remember to set and monitor the security settings of your Business Page so you control if users can post content, versus only being able to comment on your posts.

Check back for a follow-up post on how to get the maximum exposure for your business on your basic LinkedIn profile.

Happy Networking.

About the Author:

Sumner M. Davenport is a Solutions Consultant. More than general answers - SOLUTIONS! As there is no one-solution-fits-all, when appropriate, she suggests her clients add social networking to their marketing mix. Among her services she offers creation of standard as well as custom Business Pages, plus management of content and exposure. For more about her services, follow Sumner M. Davenport on Facebook.

Security on Facebook

Yesterday a number of people found malicious and offensive posts on their profiles and pages. Unfortunately these posts were not from the persons indicated. Some form of hacking had taken place.

An excellent article was written in March on PCMag.com on two apps that can protect your Facebook account.

One app, Norton Safe Web for Facebook  is bundled with the Norton products, but anybody can use it for free. It scans your Facebook page's links and reports any bad ones.

If you're concerned about dangerous links (and you should be), there is also another app recommended and more info in this article at PCMAG.com .

Happy and safe networking

How important is your email address?

Small businesses look to the industry leaders for examples of how to best represent themselves as they strive to grow. Companies spend thousands of dollars making sure their logo, company colors, message and image are consistently and professionally represented. Their successful examples can usually be followed by other business as a template of professionalism.

One area that seems to be overlooked is the importance of your email address being consistent with your business. New businesses starting out are signing up for free email accounts, (ie:Gmail,Yahoo, etc.) as their business email, instead of using an email address with their company website name. Many people will add a second “business” email to an existing personal AOL account. Free email addresses say: I’m new, I’m small and I’m cheap; which is usually not the image a small business wants to project. 

Websites mirror the image of the company, many times with the company name as the website and/or domain name. To maintain a consistent professional image of your business your email address should be the same as your website address. Christine@mycompanyname.com, has a more professional image than mycompanyname@gmail.com

This shows not only a level of professionalism, but also assures your customer that you really are with the company. With growth of email scams, this one little area may make a huge difference to the very prospect you are attempting to reach.

Most website packages come with a minimum of at least one email address, which your webmaster could have forwarded to your free or aol address if you only want one area to check emails. This way it can still be convenient for you, yet show the most professional image for your company, large or small.

We placed a poll on a previous blog and the results seem to say the same thing:

How important is it to your professional image to have a business email address (yourname@yourbusinessname.com) instead of a free email address.

Essential 48%
Very Important 25%
Not Important 7%
No Difference 11%
Don’t know 9%

More concerns about Facebook security with address and phone number sharing

Despite congressional criticism, Facebook is planning to resume the aborted rollout of a feature that allowed the optional sharing of addresses and mobile phone numbers.


You can read their letter to congress here.


After their initial announcement, Facebook temporarily delayed the update, however it now appears that they will go forward with their original plans.


Are you aware how this effects your privacy? especially  on specific Facebook apps? Are you concerned or does it even matter?


Comment here or click the Facebook link below to comment on Facebook.


Happy, safe networking.

Facebook HTTPS:// How secure are you?

After Facebook announced its HTTPS browsing security, many people went about their day posting comments, playing games and using other applications, all the time thinking that all their activity and comments were hidden from anyone except the chosen few. Not true.


Facebook comments are still visible in many search results, as are “likes, and “places” and many Facebook app activities.


Facebook uses HTTPS whenever your password is sent to them, and according to Facebook’s announcement: “Starting today [January 26, 2011] we'll provide you with the ability to experience Facebook entirely over HTTPS. You should consider enabling this option if you frequently use Facebook from public Internet access points found at coffee shops, airports, libraries or schools.”


The word “entirely” can be confusing to many folks. The HTTPS is not turned on by default therefore you must manually activate it from your “Account Settings” page on Facebook.


The “entirely” confusion relates also to Facebook Apps which are not included in the HTTPS (in my experience so far). If you visit a non secure app in Facebook, and want to return to HTTPS, you should re-check your account settings to see if it unchecked itself.


While on Facebook, look at your URL address; if you see http: instead of https: then you don't have a secure session and you can potentially be hacked if you are using a public computer or a wi fi connection in a public place.

https:// ( HyperText Transfer Protocol with Secure Sockets Layer.) The data transferred is encrypted so that it cannot be read by anyone except the recipient. Https:// is used by website that are collecting sensitive customer data such as banks, financial groups and most online stores, and, you may have noticed a small “lock” icon appear in your address bar on these websites.

Go to Account|Account Settings|Account Security. FB defaults to the non-secure setting.
Click Change. 
Check the first box for HTTPS and the second box if you want to be notified whenever someone from a mobile device or new computer accesses your account. (This also means you at a new computer or your phone, etc)
and then click Save. 

Remember,:
...If you visit a non secure app in Facebook, and want to return to HTTPS, you should re-check your account settings to see if it unchecked itself.

... and most important: what you post on Facebook, whether your page or a friends is public, and in many way can be returned in search results or other tools.



.
To stay abreast of trends and technology advancements, Sumner Davenport continues to participate regularly in developer forums and expands her knowledge through training courses sponsored by large internet marketing companies, developer forums and the internet search giants, as well as industry related events in her clients' areas of practice. By consistently monitoring trends, events and news, Sumner is better able to assist them in selecting the best venues for marketing their firms.
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A Little Humor

Hello, thank you for calling Computer Repair.


Caller : Hello, our printer is not working.


Customer Service: What is wrong with it?


Caller : Mouse is jammed.


Customer Service: Mouse is jammed? Printers don't have a mouse!


Caller: Mmmmm??.. Oh really?... I will send a picture.


Scroll down:
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No opt-out from your address & phone number being given to Facebook apps

Your friend just suggested that you join them in a new game or accept a hug, a card, a link to your photos and activity or some other Facebook app. It may look like harmless fun, but is it worth it? 


Last Friday, Facebook rolled out new permissions that give applications access to individuals’ addresses and phone numbers.  In a Facebook developer blog post, they announced that it is adding it to the company's "User Graph object," or the permissions required to install an app.

Surprisingly many people still give out their home addresses and phone numbers on their profiles.  This makes sense for businesses who want their location known, but for individuals who are constantly finding their privacy invaded, placing your home address on any social network can be too much exposure.


When you agree to an app, a window pops up where you must click to allow it access to your profile, so you can use the app. Now these apps get more personal info about you than ever before.


Come apps require access to your friends information, through your profile and others access your data whether you re online or not.

It is important to review the terms and privacy policy of the app before clicking approve. Check to see if this app will openly share your information with their affiliates or 3rd party suppliers.  


Facebook can be a platform to boost your business connections, or a place where you chat with your friends. In either case you should select the apps you agree to with case and make sure your privacy settings are current. 


If your spam has increased in your inbox, you may want to check your apps and your privacy settings.


Happy networking...

Facebook crowned as the top-visited site in 2010

 According to a report from Internet analytics company Experian Hitwise, Facebook accounted for 8.93% of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010. Google.com ranked second with 7.19% of visits, followed by Yahoo! Mail with 3.52%, Yahoo! with 3.30%, and Google-owned YouTube with 2.65%.

The Experian analysis found that the most frequently searched term this year was "facebook."

"Facebook" was the top-searched term overall for the second straight year, followed by "Facebook login" and "YouTube," says Experian.

What does this mean to your 2011 marketing plan?   In today’s competitive market, marketers who maximize the free and customizable Facebook platform may find staying connected with their customers and gaining referrals surpasses their paid marketing channels.

To stay abreast of trends and technology advancements, Sumner stays current with the news and continues to participate regularly in developer forums and expands her knowledge through training courses sponsored by large internet marketing companies, developer forums and the internet search giant, Google, as well as industry related events in her clients' areas of practice. No time or expertise to do it yourself? Contact Sumner.

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