The Maine SEO Blog

Dear Florida SEO,

I just launched a new website two weeks ago and haven’t seen it show up in the search results yet. It’s been optimized for all of the keywords my customers are searching for. How long will it take to see the results (excuse the pun) from SEO?

- Frustrated in Fairbanks

Dear Frustrated, it’s possible that it will take a while for a brand new website to be found. In fact, there are some things you can do and check to make sure your website is as visible as possible to the search engines.

That said, I’ve seen search engine optimization start to work in as little as one week and as long as three months. To be safe, allow your website to take up to three months to show more visibility from SEO. For existing websites that have been optimized after (and even long after) launch, we’ve even seen dips in statistics (both rankings and traffic) for up to three months due to all the changes made, before there is an increase – and benefit – from SEO.

What takes Google so long to recognize my changes?

Think about it. You just made a major change to the Interwebs: you either just launched a new website or you drastically changed a lot on your current website. Google and the other search engines now have to take a moment to reevaluate the changes and re-rank you accordingly. Unfortunately, that takes time.

Tried and true methods will help get your site to the top of those search results in no time and faster than if you didn’t do them; here are just a few:

• Gain more incoming links
• Blog, blog, and blog some more
• Acquire directory listings
• Incorporate a sitemap
• Sign up for and install Google Webmaster Tools

I recently discovered the Top 100 Most Popular Facebook Pages and took a look at the top few – 5, to be exact – and saw both variations and similarities in their strategies. Let’s take a closer look at the pages and what we can learn from them.

1. Facebook

Likes: 52,227,065

Custom landing page: No

Cool Wall Details Worth Mentioning:

• Links to Facebook Live events
• Featured stories on how Facebookers have used Facebook (e.g. to find a job)
• Updates from their blog
• Information about new products and links for more information on them
• Photos of new innovations (e.g. grouping similar stories in news feed)

2. Texas Hold’Em Poker

Likes: 49,833,957

Custom landing page: Yes, with quick link to play Poker via their Facebook App (see right)

Cool Wall Details Worth Mentioning:

• Custom profile photo with a player of the week. (In order to become the player of the week, players must participate in the site’s forums.)
• Poker chip giveaways and other gamer awards
• Mentioning top players by name
• Photo albums that link to new games
• Mentioning VIP club, where players will receive additional perks and deals

3. Eminem

Likes: 46,644,195

Custom landing page: Yes, complete with embedded video (see right)

Cool Wall Details Worth Mentioning:

• Links to official Eminem videos
• Specials and deals for concerts
• Photos with promotions for concerts and albums
• Links to albums and songs in iTunes, Facebook App, website

4. YouTube

Likes: 44,777,937

Custom landing page: No

Cool Wall Details Worth Mentioning:

• Links to articles that mention YouTube
• Popular YouTube videos
• Links and videos to the YouTube blog
• Asking questions that require answers via video

5. Lady Gaga

Likes: 43,312,927

Custom landing page: Yes, complete with embedded video (see right)

Cool Wall Details Worth Mentioning:

• Posts to fans, seemingly from Gaga herself; some imported from Twitter
• Photos of Lady Gaga in the press
• Links promoting fellow celebrities
• Links to music videos

What can we learn from them?

The way I see it, all of these pages have a few major things in common, that can be summarized in just a few steps:

• Define your audience.
• What would your audience want to know about?
• How can you provide that in bite size pieces?

What have you learned from the more popular pages out there?

Nicki Hicks
Learn from those doing it the right way

If you haven’t heard, the East coast got hit with a very interesting series of weather events recently. Hurricanes in the south and earthquakes in Virginia, oh my!

But…what does that have to do with web marketing, you ask? As is turns out, natural disasters and web marketing have quite a bit in common.

They’re fascinating and exciting

People can’t stop talking about them. Like Irene, a photo or video can quickly go viral and is all anyone can talk about. (Remember the Old Spice guy?)

Even smaller marketing campaigns can really take off, just like a seemingly small tropical storm. There’s just something about a big storm or the right campaign angle that you can’t take your eyes off of it.

They can be destructive

We all know how destructive natural disasters can be. Just look at the hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis from within the past five years.

Just like Mother Nature, marketing campaigns can also go awry. They can quickly and easily be taken the wrong way or cause a company to get a bad rep within moments. It’s for these reasons companies have taken measures like creating Twitter accounts, like ComcastCares.

They can miss you (or your audience) by mere inches

Originally, St. Augustine, Florida was supposed to be hit directly by Irene, but she ended up 200 miles off the coast at the last minute. Sometimes the same thing can happen with your marketing campaign. If it’s not put in front of the right audience at the right time, they may never see it.

Nicki Hicks
Metaphors ‘R’ Us

Photo credit: gsfc

This is a recap from the Guinness Book of World Records’ Largest Webinar Ever: The Science of Social Media, put on my Hubspot’s Dan Zarrella.

MYTH: Ideas spread because they’re good.

An idea – good or bad – goes viral and spreads quickly at first, then slows down over time.

Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness

Exposure > Attention > Motivation

Exposure

MYTH: ‘Engaging in the Conversation’ is the most important thing on social media.

Dan found the more followers a Twitter account has, the less replies/mentions they make. Instead, highly followed accounts tweet far more links than less followed accounts.

Tweeting a lot of links has a correlation with having a lot of followers.

Don’t go after a lot of comments/views with sharing links on Twitter…you won’t get ‘em.

More Facebook conversation does NOT mean more views. (It may even be negative.)

TAKEAWAY: If you can choose anything to do, post interesting content before chit chatting.

Make sure you use photos in your profiles.

MYTH: Don’t call yourself a guru.

Effect of using the following buzz words (better to ok):

• Official
• Founder
• Speaker
• Expert
• Guru
• Author

TAKEAWAY: Identify yourself authoritatively.

However, the more you talk about yourself, the less followers you’ll have.

TAKEAWAY: Stop talking about yourself.

There’s a power to positive thinking. You’ll have fewer followers and less sharing with negativity.

Linguistic types and Facebook sharing (negative vibes to positive):

• Negative (negative)
• Leisure (negative)
• Anxiety (negative)
• Numbers (negative)
• Self-reference (positive)
• Constructive (positive)
• Work (positive)
• Media (positive)
• Learning (positive)
• Positive (positive)
• Sex (positive)

Most of your audience aren’t social media dorks, but they will help you spread your message.

Influence is contextual. It may not come from popular social accounts.

Attention

The more links you share, the less attention they’ll get.

TAKEAWAY: Don’t crowd your own content.

MYTH: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are bad days to post.

More Retweets happen on Thursday and Friday. Higher CTRs are on Saturday and Sunday. Higher unsubscribe rates happen on Monday and Tuesday. More Facebook shares happen on Saturday and Sunday.

TAKEAWAY: Use contra-competitive timing. [When the rest of the world is quiet, your message is a little bit louder.]

Motivation

There’s a lot to social proof.

• Adjectives/Adverbs: not so great
• Nouns/Verbs: much better

The lower the readability, the more shareable content is. Don’t try to sound smart, try to sound readable.

TAKEAWAY: Utilize combined relevance. (like Marketing and Zombies)

MYTH: Please RT doesn’t work.

Please RT gets 4 times more RTs. If you ask for comments, you’ll tend to get more comments.

TAKEAWAY: Don’t forget your social CTA.

Buy the eBook here.

More often than not, I get questions about what to do when you haven nothing to blog about, but what if you have too many post ideas? What if you’re so inspired that you’re overwhelmed with ideas? [Don't laugh. It's a serious medical condition and researchers are currently looking for a cure!]

Having too many post ideas can be just as troublesome as having no ideas at all. It could lead to long, drawn out posts that no one will spend the time to read. It could lead to losing some of those ideas without making the right arrangements. Never fear, there are a few easy ways to manage all of these ideas!

Write them down

Sounds pretty simple, right? But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been driving or at the gym and thought of an idea for a blogpost that I ended up forgetting because I never wrote it down. Having a running list of ideas is a great way to have some inspiration for those times when you are feeling less than inspired. Whether it’s just an idea for a post, the title of the post, or even some notes on what it will include; you’ll never regret jotting your ideas down!

And when there isn’t a piece of paper handy…

Record them

These days, most phones have a recording application on them. I find that while driving tends to be the perfect time to record ideas – or even full posts – to later write down. Thinking out loud is a great way to get your thoughts together, or maybe it’s easier for you to…

Outline, outline, outline

A great number of blogpost ideas may start out general, with no direction, and have to be whittled into something far more specific. Having been a slave to thinking I have the perfect post, only to realize it’s far to vague or far too long; it’s best to outline your thoughts beforehand to see where this post is really going.

Break them up

If you find that your post ideas are going to be upwards of 750 or even 1,000 words, that’s great news! Why? You’ve got yourself more than one blogpost, my friend! Break your post idea up into 2, 3, 4…however many parts it takes and now you have a series.

Nicki Hicks
More is better, but only if you prepare

Google comes out with a new social network, what, every 5 minutes? Don’t get me wrong, I love Google just as much as the next person…maybe even more.

Really? Another place to go?

2 years ago, social media was still in its infancy. We’d all willingly go separately to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Plurk (what, you never had a Plurk account?!), the list goes on and on.

Then something beautiful happened. Some smart people decided that was unnecessary. They decided we should save 30 seconds for every post and status update, post it to one platform (like Ping.fm or TweetDeck), and have it magically transported to multiple social networks.

Unless I’m wrong (and that happens more often than I’d like to admit), Google+ has yet to integrate their platform with anything like TweetDeck or Ping.fm so that you can post the same status to multiple platforms.

Strike one, Google+.

I’ve been hurt in the past.

Remember Buzz? Remember Wave?! Google’s tried this before and I always willingly jumped on the bandwagon. This time, however, I’m way more skeptical. Who knows, though, maybe the third time really is the charm for them.

For the moment, though, only my professional contacts have jumped on Google+. That’s all well and good, but I can keep in touch with them on a ton of other networks…or at least two big ones.

I believe that’s strike two.

It’s a Facebook copycat…for the most part.

I know, I know. There are elements of Twitter in there too. For the most part, though, this is a recreation of Facebook. News feed, profiles, security settings, and all. Even the circles (while way cooler looking) are reminiscent of Facebook lists for me.

Don’t get me wrong, Google+ has certainly done some things to set itself apart from the crowd. The simple fact that it’s a Google product and therefore automatically synced with all of the other Google products is very cool. But at its core, I don’t see anything different enough to be worth it…now.

And if my math is right, that’s strike three.

I will admit…

I haven’t really given Google+ a chance. I’ve played around a bit, but nothing major. I automatically saw all of these things within the first few hours of using it and have essentially dismissed it since.

However, since I work remotely, I’ve found that the hangout function is pretty cool. I can chat with several of my coworkers at the same time and – gasp! – can see them all at the same time too!

I’m more than happy to be proven wrong, but for the moment, I think I’ll stick to Twitter and Facebook. What about you? What has your G+ experience been like so far?

Nicki Hicks
Maybe you’ll convince me by adding me on G+

Recently, I moved from the beautiful state of Maine to sunny Florida. I’m lucky enough to have been able to keep my job and work remotely for flyte. One of the most frequent questions I get is how it is working from home. In a word, it’s great. But I will say, I’ve learned a lot. If you’re thinking about working from home, read this first or if you already work from home, let me know if you’ve had the same experiences!

1. The transition may take more time than expected

My move went great. I jam packed everything from a going away party, to packing up my entire house, to selling everything I couldn’t take in a huge yard sale in just one weekend. The two day drive from Maine to Florida went smashingly, and when I arrived in Florida, everything settled down – including my dog – very quickly. Overall, I was really happy with the way things went.

However, even though it took my dog no time at all to get used to living at the beach, it took me a little longer than I expected to settle into a routine (we’ll cover that next). Nearly a month after moving, I can honestly say that I’ve settled in and have made the transition. So for those of you who are planning on moving and/or working from home, it may take some time to make the transition…and that’s ok.

2. You still need a schedule

Even if you have an open schedule (and therefore an awesome boss), it’s still important to keep some schedule. Personally, I’ve tested out a few options that I like: whether it’s waking up early and working for 3-4 hours, having a midday break to run my dog on the beach, and then pick things back up for the rest of the late afternoon. I can also work later in the morning and later at night.

As long as you can figure out a schedule that works for you, make sure you stick with it. That schedule also means planning work around family time and “me” time. I’ve found “me” time is particularly important when you work from home all day. I promise, it will keep you sane. Which brings us to…

3. Location, location, location

It helps to find nooks and crannies in your house that you can work in. A few of my favorite spots are at my desk, the dining room table, and the stool at my breakfast bar. This obviously depends on what you work on (laptop vs. desktop) and what you work with (if you have to write a lot on pads of paper or draw things on an easel e.g. an architect). Defining these “work spaces” will keep things flexible so that you can move around your house if that’s what you like to do.

In addition, staying at home all day every day (and in my case, having staring contests with my dog all day) can get boring and cause you to lose touch with the human race. It may just be me, but I love the feeling of Internet cafes. I’ve been to a few already and plan on scoping out more within the coming weeks. That way, I can camp out with my giant coffee and work with free Wifi to my heart’s content!

4. Don’t forget to get up and move

One of the biggest things I’ve felt since I’ve started working from home is having to force myself to get up and do something. Whether it’s a lunch time walk or a break to make a trip to the gym, it’s important to include exercise into that schedule we talked about. There’s not necessarily anyone across the cubicle to go for a lunch time walk or the ride home to make it easy to stop by your gym anymore; so you have to be even more proactive about getting up and out of the house!

Do you work at home? What has your experience been like?!

Nicki Hicks
Former commuter, current telecommuter

Photo credit: ishane

A few weeks ago, I was accepted as one of Examiner.com‘s examiners: the Jacksonville Social Networking Examiner. Based on what you write and how often, you actually have the opportunity to make money from your content. This got me thinking: what other websites offer you money for your content and, more importantly, are they really worth it?

Examiner.com

To start, you must submit work, and why you want to become apart of Examiner.com. It can take up to a week to be approved. From there, you’ll receive the power to create content from within their platform. They like to keep things local, so make sure your content covers topics specific to the location you’re assigned to. Since I haven’t done much with my account so far, I can’t tell you whether you’ll make much from this particular site.

Ready to sign up? Go here now.

Podcasting

According to this article in the Social Media Examiner, setup is key. Choosing the right host, the right platform (like PowerPress), setting up your feed and analytics will ensure you have a successful podcast. Last, but not least, pop your work on iTunes and start making money. The important takeaway though? Make sure you’ve crossed your t’s and dotted your i’s first.

Yahoo Contributor Network

Similar to Examiner.com, the Yahoo Contributor Network offers you the chance to get paid for the content you create for them. Set up more like an actual news desk, the Yahoo Contributor Network offers both the option to create your own content as well as assignments. The assignments are varied and many are of a more creative nature (short stories, essays, etc.). What’s more is you’re able to share more than just copy; you can also share your videos and photos as well.

Skyword’s Skywriting

Skyword promotes allowing writers to create search and social content for large, well known brands. Without joining, it’s hard to learn more about the program and all of the perks.

Seed.com

Similar to the Yahoo Contributor Network, Seed.com offers opportunities to not only provide content and get paid like our other examples, but also includes current assignments to give you a specific rundown of what they’re looking for.

All of these – and many more – websites offer great opportunities to make money on the content that you create. Whether they are worth it or not, that will have to wait for a little more experimentation! If you’ve had experience with these or other networks, please share in the comments below!

Nicki Hicks
Make Money Blogging

If you haven’t heard, Google launched yet another social network: Google+. Now available to anyone with a Google account, G+ is a new way to share content through Google.

Since there have been so many great posts on the matter, I’m not going to reinvent the wheel.

Official introduction from Google

The official introduction from Google, complete with a bit about circles, sparks, hangouts, and more.

Introduction to Google+

A post by Kevin Brooks of Forge Brands on how he has started using Google+. Kevin believes businesses aren’t ready for G+…yet, and it will be used – in the mean time – for personal reasons.

First Night with Google Plus: This is Very Cool

A post by Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web on how Google+ has really added value (that Facebook and Twitter are unable to do) around privacy. He talks a little bit about circles, photo sharing, sparks, and the mobile app. Kirkpatrick feels that Google Plus offers a “very compelling experience.”

Google Launches Google+ To Battle Facebook

A post by Ben Parr that includes screen shots and descriptions on Google+ features including circles, photos and group video chat, sparks, and mobile. Parr concludes with “only time will tell if Google has finally found its magical arrow.”

Everything You Need To Know About Google+ (Including What The Heck It Is)

This post by Steve Kovach outlines the basics of Google+ in an easy and simple way.

Google Plus: All You Need to Know About Google+

A post by our own Joan Crocker, complete with some start up information and cheat sheets about G+.

Is Google+ the Ultimate Content Marketing Platform?

A post by Brian Clark on how Google+ has the potential to become the “ultimate content marketing platform.” Clark mentions how G+ is the fastest growing social network despite its invitation only limited-access, combines Twitter and Facebook in a new and exciting way, and “+1’s” on Google can (and will) help improve search rankings. Bottom line, join Google+ and start sharing!

Now for the hard part

A post by MG Siegler in TechCrunch, in talking to Bradley Horowitz and Vic Gundotra, on how Google+ is attempting to emulate how relationships work in the real world. He goes into depth on all the different functions of Google+, including circles,  the “sandbar” (black toolbar on top), sparks, huddles, hangouts, photo sharing, social integration…complete with video tutorials.

Take the Tour

Think you’re ready to try G+, but not quite positive yet? Take the tour and play with the all new tools.

Nicki Hicks
Follow me on Google+

You already know that you should be blogging (or at least you do now), or at least creating content somehow. But sometimes, it might feel like you’re posting the same kind of blogposts over and over. Never fear, my friends, there are some fun and easy ways to spice up your content creation.

1. Videos

It’s all about video right now. [Rich recently created a few killer blogposts about video (like Killer YouTube Tactics For Your Business and What Kind of YouTube Channel Should You Have?) so make sure you check them out!]

A video doesn’t have to be long (short and sweet is actually better), and it doesn’t have to be a big production. Here at flyte, we create everything from talking head videos with screenshots to videos shot with an iPhone. The bonus for video is that it’s often far more engaging than plain old text.

2. Pictures

One of our clients, J&E Riggin, posts nothing but images on Wednesdays, a day they’ve coined Wordless Wednesdays. There, they’ll share gorgeous photos from their trips out at sea.

For a little more SEO value, it’s helpful to include some copy around the image and even alt tags. However, from a pure content standpoint, a day where you simply post a photo is brilliant. What an easy way to create content!

3. Mashups

Mashups are one of my favorite rainy day blogpost ideas. Be they a culmination of posts over time or a resource list, mashups are a quick, easy way to put content together without having to reinvent the wheel.

4. Dear Abby posts

Whether someone actually asked you the question or you make up your own, Dear Abby posts are a great way to spice up your content a little. In every industry, we all get asked the same questions time and time again; here’s the perfect opportunity to put those questions to good use!

5. Interviews

Whether it’s someone local (like a customer) or an important person in your niche, interviews are great for a number of reasons. Not only are they an interesting way to create fresh content, but it also adds a fresh, new voice to your blog.

6. Recaps or Live Blogging

Some of the most retweeted posts have been from pseudo live blogging. I took notes I would’ve created anyway and simply put them online. Take it a step further my adding your own .02 and spinning off from what you learned!

What ways do you add interesting content to your blog?

Nicki Hicks
Outletting creatively one post at a time