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

The end of the world, as we know it.

Apparently, only a small subset of us are being affected. However, it seems the masses are having issues with everything from Gmail, to Google Talk, to Google Search.

Our saga begins when Twitter shows signs of trending, distressed Tweeps, and of course the ever popular hashtag (#gfail and #googlefail in this case).

Not to worry, I think to myself, I can live without Google for a little bit while they fix the problem.

Thinking I’m high and mighty in such a catastrophe, I soon remember I’ve been patiently awaiting an email from a client whom, I happen to know, exclusively uses only Gmail. I had to wait a solid hour for that blessed email.

The ego continues to slowly chips away as I realize just how much I use my Google Docs.  Not only that, but I actually do use my Gmail, and even a basic Image search to find a picture of Earth imploding becomes utterly impossible.

I decided I could forget my own egotistical Google issues for long enough to pleasantly watch the most recent blogpost I’d written be tweeted and retweeted. But to add insult to injury, I found Google’s issues went deeper: to Google Analytics.  I saw that as my blog loaded and transferred traffic data, it got stuck and timed out.

Since then, the problems have been fix, per Google’s official Twitter account,

The issue affecting some Google services has been resolved. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, and we’ll share more details soon.

And here it is explained via the Official Blog.

It is amazing though, and got me to thinking: what would we do without Google? @JackLeblond jokes we might actually switch to Yahoo:

Perhaps the google servers on ebay were failed attempt to raise $$ and now they are shutting down….quick everyone optimize for Yahoo now!

At least yesterday, when Twitter shut down for maintenance, we had something to do while we waited.

Nicki Hicks
I blog while Gmail is down

Photo credit

Yesterday, Google introduced Searchology, the newest line of Google products. Some of the technology will not be released until the end of the month, but search options and rich snippets are here!

Search Options

On Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP), click “Show options…” and refine your search by…

Results: Choose to search only videos, forums, or reviews.

Time: Choose recent results or from the past 24 hours, week, or even year.

Results View: You can choose to view images from the page or even include more text

View:

• Related Searches: self explanatory – suggestions for related searches.

• Wonder Wheel: Being a visual person, I think this option is by far the coolest. Google creates a “Wonder Wheel” of related searches, and you can drill down further to refine your search, all the while viewing results down the right margin.

• Timeline: search archives as far back as 1920.

Rich Snippets

Local search optimizers and review junkies rejoice! Rich snippets incorporate reviews and price ranges for restaurants and other services. So far, the only reviews seem to be coming directly from Yelp; but from the sounds of it, this feature will soon be expanded.

Nicki Hicks
Ready to play with even more Google creations

As a rule of thumb, I don’t pay attention to Alexa rankings. Primarily, it’s because we deal with mostly small business, so their rankings aren’t going to land them under the 100,000 range. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

What does the Alexa ranking mean? Alexa measures your traffic (and popularity) by way of their toolbar (not unlike Keyword Discovery), and measures your site accordingly. The lower the number, the better. To give some perspective, the Maine SEO blog’s Alexa ranking is 1,051,645. Flyte has an Alexa rank of 140,350; CNN’s is 52, Google’s is 1.

Alexa also provides some Google Analytics-esque statistics which aren’t nearly as accurate, including: pageviews, bounce %, time on site, and incoming links.

I don’t suggest using Alexa because you can get more relevant statistics using tools like Google Analytics and Yahoo Site Explorer.

However, Alexa can be helpful if you’re comparing several large websites. Alexa makes it easy to compare popular websites to gain some quick insight on their differences:

And if you absolutely insist on using it…

• Remember that, like most search stat tools, these numbers are relative
• Realize that you can get far more accurate statistics using your Analytics
• Recognize Alexa rank is not unlike PageRank: where it’s easy to become too focused on where you are today compared to yesterday

Nicki Hicks
SEO Stat Scrutinizer – try saying that five times fast

Yes…

…because they’re easy. Typically, all you need is the link to your site and a one- or two-line sentence describing what the link talks about.

…because most are free. Some major directories (like DMOZ) and most niche directories are free to submit to. Many of them have freelance editors who sort through and edit submissions.

…because it gives you one more incoming link. We all know the importance of having strong, incoming links.

No…

…because they’re time consuming. Researching what directories can often take some time, especially sifting through the bogus niche directories. Plus, it’s always nice to submit to quite a few to make a big impact (which takes time).

…because they’re expensive. When they’re not free, that is. Sometimes paying for the incoming link isn’t worth what you get, which brings us to…

…because they’re not worth a lot. It’s difficult to guage how much an incoming link, even from a Yahoo directory, is worth. It is, however, worth a test.

Nicki Hicks
Directory Critic

First of all, what does your bounce rate mean? The bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on a particular page and then leave the website from that very same page. For instance, if I search for “maine seo”, land on my blog, decide that it wasn’t what I was looking for, and then go back and try my search again…that would count as apart of my bounce rate. At the same time, if I searched the very same query, find this blog, find what I’m looking for by reading a post or two, then leave…that again would count towards by bounce rate.

For this reason, bounce rates can be misleading. A person could spend 5 seconds or 5 minutes on the page before “bouncing”, you don’t know. They could very well have found what they’re looking for and decided to call you or email you. Google Analytics goals, in this case, wouldn’t help with this disconnect. Only by asking your customer with something like “How did you find us?” would you know they actually ever visited your site.

But I digress…the only additional information Google provides if you drill down into the bounce rate section is the bounce rate per day:

If you go into the Content section, you can see the bounce rate for individual pages. Typically, the pages with the most pageviews (or the top content pages) will also have the highest bounce rate. You can also see that the % Exiting is often similar to the bounce rate:

So, what’s a good bounce rate? It really depends on your industry. My blog has almost an 80% bounce rate. This is fairly typical for both my industry and for blogs in general. With blogs, searchers will read a post or check out the homepage and then move on – hence the higher rate.

In particular, I’ve notice that websites for hotels, inns, and motels tend to have a low bounce rate – something in the 30% range, since people searching for hotels know specifically what they’re looking for when they click on the result. Furthermore, when you’re perusing a hotel’s site, you want to check out more than one page. At a minimum, that includes something that resembles amenities and rates pages.

When are you in trouble? In general, the bounce rate isn’t the most important stat to pay attention to. But there a few things you should keep your eye on, including:

• If your bounce rate increases or decreases dramatically. Did you change something for the better – or worse?
• If the bounce rate on one particular page is significantly higher or lower. This might cause you to change that page (for a higher-than-average rate), or other pages on the site to replicate it (for a lower-than-average rate).
• If the % exiting far exceeds the bounce rate. This means that people have visited more than one page on the site, but something is causing them to leave the site from this point. Should they be?

Your bounce rate is heavily dependent on both your industry and your site architecture. But if you bare the above in mind, you can effectively manage it.

Nicki Hicks
Bouncing is what Tiggers do best