The Maine SEO Blog

Not every business is suited to be on Facebook. For example, we would suggest a law firm client of ours actually avoid being on Facebook. In that case, LinkedIn or specialty social networks are the better option.

But for those businesses where Facebook is a right outlet, there are many very cool aspects.

Be a business, look like a person.

With Facebook’s most recent redesign, business pages now look a lot more like personal pages. That means that people can write on your wall and “like” things.

Furthermore, you can write on your wall – or update your status to keep people interested in the know.

Have a blog? Blogposts are easy to incorporate with notes. You can also insert links and embed video and photos.

Fans galore.

Create a fan base for your business. Fans then receive updates you make to your page.

That includes sending blast emails to all of your fans. But be careful – don’t send too many emails – you don’t want to lose your fans!

Join/form groups.

Groups are a great way for business to bring in new fans, increase awareness for events, and simply overall awareness of your business.

Other cool Facebook features

Others see friends are fans – they, in turn, become fans. Seems obvious, but this is how your business can become viral.

Your page is indexed – it may not necessarily be what everyone is searching for; but it’s just another opportunity to rank at the search engines.

So again, Facebook isn’t for every business. But maybe it’s for yours – and maybe you’ll even get new business from it.

Nicki Hicks
Add me as a friend on Facebook

Allow me to preface this by saying: SEO is an art, not a science. So my recipe for title perfection needs to be experimented with – you will have different results with every industry. That said, titles are important. It can be argued they are the most important.

As always, start by figuring out what your customers are searching for. If you don’t optimize for the right words, then you really don’t have a shot at even being a choice on a search results page.

Keeping in mind what the page is about, here’s a hand-to-the-forehead thought: you’ll want to incorporate those keywords in the title. Now you sit down to write that fabulous title tag and wonder how long should it be? SEOs disagree about this, but: there is no correct length to a good title. Google allows for 65 characters to be shown in the SERPs and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s not a big deal if the title is 65+ characters. My rule of thumb? The same as copy writing: as long as it takes to get the job done.

That said, don’t create such a long title that expands past the width of my browser (in a wide screened Mac, to boot). Along the same lines, please please PLEASE don’t stuff the title full of every synonym for your keywords that you can think of.

Alright, so what have we got now? A bunch of really great keywords. Now, put them together in a way that makes sense – something that accurately describes the page.

This next part is your choice: your company name. The thing is, as long as you have a fairly unique name, you’ll rank well for someone searching for your name. I tend to put it in every title just for good measure.

Finally, I put in the location. Obviously this would only apply for local businesses. The thing to remember is that local search is dependent on more than just the title; but having it here is absolutely helpful.

Last but not least, is the way it looks – and most people quite honestly may not think about it, but would you click on a ReSuLt tHaT LoOkEd lIkE ThIs? My personal preference is to capitalize the first letter of words that make sense – much as you would for a blog post title. Then separate major “sections” (in this case: keywords, company name, and location) with a mixture of colons, semicolons, hyphens, and vertical lines: whichever you prefer.

So, in the end we have something that looks like this:

Really Great Stupendous Clickable Exactly What I’m Looking For Phrase: My Company – Where I Am, USA

Nicki Hicks
Page Title Extraordinaire

Step 1: Build out your profile

Add a picture of yourself. I would suggest going with something somewhat more conservative than what you’d use for Facebook or Twitter: a nice picture of yourself so people know who you are!

Include job information and descriptions. LinkedIn likes to have at least three jobs, one being current; but you can list as many as you like! Also, be sure to have extensive descriptions – think of your LinkedIn profile as your virtual resume.

Customize, customize, customize! You can create up to three links to your website/blog, and customize the anchor text. Also, be sure to customize your profile URL with your name.

It’s OK to be personal. Include some personal details, like your hobbies; you never know – you could easily make your next networking contact that way!

Step 2: Start connecting

Connect to everyone you already know who is on LinkedIn, invite people who aren’t there yet to. Convince your coworkers to create profiles, to even further build out your network.

Once you’ve built up your contacts, why not ask for a recommendation? Give your profile an extra boost or vote of confidence by acquiring recommendations from your colleagues, clients, you name it.

Step 3: Join groups

There’s a LinkedIn group for everyone. From the big to the small, there’s something for you. Within groups, add to or start a discussion – a great way to start a good conversation amongst group members and get questions answered.

Groups also have jobs areas – which is one of the reasons LinkedIn is such a great resource for job seekers. If you start joining groups your area of expertise, be sure to keep checking back at the job boards.

Step 4: Answer (and ask) questions

The Answers section of LinkedIn works much like the discussion board of Groups. By either answering or even strategically asking questions, you establish yourself as the expert.

Step 5: Rinse and repeat

For the most part, you can set up your LinkedIn profile and let it be. But, be sure to keep checking back in the Answers section to see if you can’t be a resource. Also, don’t let your status go unnoticed. Make sure you update every so often.

You’ll recieve weekly emails about LinkedIn activity within your Groups and Connections, so make sure you give them a good skim and watch for any opportunities!

Nicki Hicks
Connect with me on LinkedIn

Dear Nicki,

Are there any advantages to purchasing a domain with strong keywords and redirecting it to my website?

–Wondering in Wisconsin

Dear Wondering,

No, there are seemingly no SEO advantages. But let me take a step back. I would argue that if this was a new website, then you might as well go with a keyword rich domain. There are still discrepancies as to whether or not search engines actually pay attention to keyword rich domains. Humans, however, might click on a keyword rich URL before what I would call a spammy-looking domain.

The only way this strategy might possibly work is if a) you promote those other sites for tracking purposes or b) other websites link to your other domains (assuming they use keyword rich anchor text) and the link juice would thereby be passed to your current website. But, why waste the in-between domain and simply worry about promoting your current domain and getting keyword rich backlinks to your actual site?

The thing is, if you’re doing all the right things at your existing site, there’s no need to start building a network of keyword rich redirects.

Nicki Hicks
No Need to Red Flag Google

No time…also known as the time it takes to read this post.

Starting out: Create your personality and/or brand.

Get rid of this picture. That is, unless you happen to look like o_O. Post a picture of yourself.

If you’re representing your company, then be your brand. If you’re representing yourself, then be yourself. Simple as that.

People often hint at the question: Should I have a different persona on Twitter? I give a resounding NO. As in real life, be yourself and if someone doesn’t like it, then chances are you probably don’t want to be working with them anyway.

Offer something valuable.

Before you start following 2934 people, put up some interesting content. Allow me to let you in on the “Am I going to follow this person?” process:

1. Receive “So-and-so is now following you on Twitter” email. If name incorporates a lot of numbers, strange characters, or extremely risque verbiage, might possibly delete email. If not, continue to Step 2.
2. See so-and-so’s picture (refer to “starting out”). If it’s o_O or a risque girl, delete email. If not, continue to Step 3.
3. Look at number of following and followers. If the number of following far exceeds followers (I’m talking 3987 following and 34 followers), delete email. If not, continue to Step 4.
4. Check out the number of updates. If the number is very low and followers/following are high, I tend to question this person. If all looks normal, continue to Step 5.
5. Check out the Twitter page. (This is the one and only reason to have a really great background.)
6. Look at recent posts. If there’s only a tweet or two and one is Trying to figure out Twitter, consider yourself not followed.

That may look like Twitter snobbery, but hey, I’m just looking out for you.

At the same time, creating interesting content is an ongoing process – just like blogging or creating web copy. There’s no harm in pushing your business or tweeting about your latest article, but give more than that too.

Find people in your niche.

There are a ton of great tools to search for people talking about what you’re interested in. The best and easiest is probably Twitter Search.

Once you start following a few people, you’ll quickly find out who they’re talking to – and become apart of that community in no time.

Know the lingo.

A year ago, there wasn’t much more to Twitter than RT or DM or @. Now there are a whole slew of Twitter slang that tends to throw newcomers off – sometimes enough to give up altogether. But here’s what you need to know:

• @ – Reply: when you want to (publicly) reply to someone. As in, @davecousins congratulations on getting the house under contract!!!
• RT – Retweet: when you want to repeat what someone else says (and give them props). As in, RT @flytenewmedia The best–and most difficult–thing you can do for your company is listen to customer complaints.
• DM – Direct Message: For tweets better sent privately.
• # – Hashtag: Typically used for events, popular topics, and often for silly mentions. These will tend to become trending topics for Twitter. For example, yesterday #gfail or #googlefail was a big one.
  
• #followfriday – Follow Friday: Possibly the most popular hastag. In order to continuously expand Twitter networks, Follow Friday is used to suggest others to follow. Here’s a great Mashable post on the anatomy of Follow Fridays.

ReTweet, Reply, Repeat

Basically, don’t start ignoring your Twitter account. Keep the conversation going by constantly adding something insightful – and here are some ways to do that.

If you ever hit a rough patch in your tweeting, think of it like running. If you run, you know you hit a wall – that point where your legs seize up and your lungs scream for you to just stop already. You also know that if you run through the wall, you’ll come out the other side being just fine and suprisingly able to run for quite a while further.

I think Twitter has a wall. There’s the point where you think Is this really worth my time? And then BAM! You’re addicted, networking up a storm, and even making your next sale.

Nicki Hicks
Welcoming Newbies to the Twittersphere