Effective Blog Commenting

If you’ve read anything about SEO, you’ve probably learned that link building is a way to help your website’s search rankings. One tactic of link building that is frequently used is blog commenting.

Blog commenting, in terms of link building, means posting a comment on a blog post, while at the same time including a link back to your site. It is, in fact, a quick and easy way to generate links. But where do you find quality blogs to comment on? And what do you say when you do find them?

First, let’s find some quality blog commenting opportunities with this simple 5 step process…

Step 1) Download either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browser if you haven’t already done so.

Step 2) Visit SeoQuake.com and download and install their free plugin extension.

Step 3) In your browser, go to http://www.google.com/blogsearch

Step 4) Enter +”keyword” +comments in the search box, where “keyword” is the name of one of the keywords you would like to rank for. For example, if you wanted your site to rank for the term “dog food”, you would enter +”dog food” +comments in the search box…

Step 5) Using the SEOQuake plugin you installed, your search result should look something like this…

Of course, it may not look exactly like this, but the point is the SEOQuake plugin now shows the PageRank (PR), among other things, of each page in the search result.

It takes a minute or so to load all of the details for each page, but once it does, what we want to do now is sort by PageRank…

Once you’ve done this, you’ve now found a list of some great blog commenting opportunities!

The reason this works is because PageRank is one of Google’s quality indicators for a page. And by doing a search using a keyword you would like to rank for, you’ve found highly relevant blogs, too.

Quality + Relevancy is the magic formula when doing blog commenting, and with this process you’ve just compliled a nice, clean list of blogs that are highly targeted for the keyword(s) you want to rank for!

Now, the second question is… I’ve found some blogs, what should I say?

Here are a few DOs and DON’Ts in regards to blog commenting that you may find useful.

DO…

1) Add to the conversation. One of the great motto’s with SEO is keep it real. Read the article and read what other’s have commented already. Then, add a blog comment that is both informative and useful, while at the same time naturally linking back to your site.

2) Vary your anchor text (the text the link is composed of). If you’re building links for the term “dog food” don’t make the text link say “dog food” on every comment you make. Use your company or a product name occasionally in order to have a nice diversity of anchor text.

3) Link to your most relevant page. In our example, link to your “dog food” page instead of just your homepage.

4) Try to build a relationship with the blog owner. This could lead to an interview or other link building opportunity down the road.

DON’T…

1) SPAM! Posting “Nice blog, check out my site here” will have a negative impact on you and your site in a multitude of ways. Simply don’t do it.

2) Use your keyword in the name field. Sure, the name field is often automatically made into a link. However, this reeks of spam and is not recommended. Instead, naturally link to your site from within the comment itself.

3) Post something without reading the article and/or the comments. You can’t provide value unless you read word-for-word what the author is trying to say.

Bottom line on blog commenting, have a goal of providing as much value as possible. By doing so, not only will this improve the quality of links/traffic coming to your site, but it may lead to new link building opportunities from fellow commenters and/or blog authors.

The Power of Social Media for Social Good

I am an Online Community Specialist here at Webbed Marketing and am an advocate for pancreatic cancer awareness and spend a lot of my free time volunteering for the cause. Anyone who knows me, knows I insert pancreatic cancer into conversations way more than I should. I saw that Carson Kressley had tweeted a picture of a purple Empire State Building. I responded and let him know that the building was purple to raise awareness for pancreatic cancer. Later that night, Carson retweeted my tweet.

Now, I am not one to get overly excited about celebs, but if anyone saw Carson Kressley on Dancing with the Stars, you couldn’t help but love him and be inspired by his positivity and individuality. I love Carson Kressley, and I love that he raised awareness for a cause so important to me. But, this also serves as a testament to the power of social media.

My tweet to Carson Kressley resulted in him retweeting to over 48,000 followers. This led to 24 more retweets from his followers and conversation about the disease.

Social media not only gives you access to your favorite celebrities, but it also gives you the opportunity to spread your message. This particular example shows that relevant conversation is key. Because I responded to a picture Carson had posted in a relevant way, he was much more likely to retweet my tweet. Paying attention to what others are saying and engaging in the conversation can really pay off!

Tags: Carson Kressley, pancreatic cancer, power of social media, social good, social media, twitter

Advertising on Facebook

You know that you and your friends spend a lot of time on Facebook, but have you ever considered advertising your business there?  Facebook is fun, but do people actually pay attention to the ads and are they willing to learn more about your business?  Facebook ads come in many varieties, and it’s very likely that your future customers are there right now.  The trick is to create the right ad, and target the right people, who would benefit from your business.

Why Use Facebook Ads? Unlike AdWords, on Facebook, you can target people by their interests or choose demographics who would likely be interested in your product or service.  You can reach people who aren’t actively searching for you, and find them where they are – on Facebook.

In addition to interests and demographics, when selecting your target audience, you can choose people based on their location, connections, education or work.

Types of Facebook Ads

Once you choose your target audience, you need to decide what kind of ad to show them.  Would you rather send visitors to your website instead of your Facebook page?  With these Facebook ads, you can specify your URL, write a headline, ad copy, and choose an image for your ad.

If you would like to send them to your Facebook page, you have plenty of options there as well.  Select the tab on your page where you would like to send them.  It could be an event page, your wall, or a customized tab.  Write ad copy and choose an image that stands out, and you’re all set.  These ads even include a “like” button so your visitors will know what to do!

Do you have amazing wall posts that you would like to show people who aren’t already fans?  Create a page post ad to show your most recent or a favorite wall post in the ad copy.

Sponsored stories are like recommendations from a friend.  Friends of your current fans will see that their friend likes your page and they will be encouraged to like it too.  Using page post like stories, when a fan likes one of your posts their friends will see it.

Helpful Hints about Facebook Ads

When you write your ads, try several versions to test different ad copy, images, target audiences, or types of ads to see which best meets your goals.  Once one ad starts performing better, apply the things that worked to your other ads to continually improve them.

With Facebook ads, you have complete control of your ad budget.  You decide your maximum daily or lifetime budget, and the maximum you are willing to pay per click.  Facebook will show your ads as much as possible until you meet your budget, so keep the size of your target audience in mind.  If you are targeting 1,000,000 Facebook users, a budget of $5 per day won’t go far.

The purpose of any marketing campaign is to get visitors to meet your business goals, whether it is to make a purchase, learn more about your service, or something else.  How do you know if your campaign is helping your business, or if it is wasting your limited budget?  It is important to have clear goals in mind.  Do you want to send visitors to your website to make a purchase or to get more people to like your Facebook page?  Continually try different ads to see which best meets your goals.

For more information about Facebook ads, sign up for Webbed Marketing’s free webinar, The Ins and Ous of Facebook Advertising on November 30th at 2:00PM EST.

Tags: facebook, Facebook ads, Facebook advertising

How Will a Google+ Page Affect Your Business?

Since the initial release of Google+ back in the summer, people have been waiting for the moment when it would finally be opened up to businesses.

That time has finally come, as Google made pages available to businesses last week.

Now that you are able to give your company or organization a presence on Google+, it’s imperative that you set up a page. You might be asking yourself, “With so many other social networks to worry about, why should we now get involved in Google+?”

It’s a valid question, but think of it in this way: Google+ is obviously a Google product, and they will do anything to compete with the social networking giants (i.e. Facebook and Twitter).

While Google+ figures out the best way to do that, there is one monumental factor for creating a Google+ page for your business. That is, of course, the SEO benefits of it.

There is no doubt that Google will begin to find ways to put Google+ pages at the top of search results, making it imperative that your company develop a presence on the platform.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: business, google, google plus, social media

Small Business SEO

Affordable Small Business SEO Packages

As a small business owner, you are looking for every edge you can get, and using the endless possibility of the internet is one way to feed your pipeline with sales leads. And while most internet marketing agencies require a retainer to work with you, most small businesses don’t have the budget to pay for their services each month. Webbed Marketing, winner of a shelf full of small business awards, feels your pain.

We offer small business SEO packages with business owners like you in mind. The packages are project based and vary based on the level of involvement that you’d like after the research and analysis phase.

• Our Basic SEO Package offers the research and analysis of your site, along with some on-page recommendations for your site pages.
• The Advanced SEO Package provides the Basic components along with off-page work to promote your newly optimized pages.
• the Custom SEO Package is designed to implement all of the Basic and Advanced components as well as start a Local Search presence for your business. We’ll need CMS or FTP access to your site if you select the Custom package.

And all of our small business SEO packages include access to our Webbed Marketing University, SEO101 online course.  The material will take you through the basics of on-page optimization and show some of the technical aspects of SEO that can adversely affect your site.

To learn more, contact our team of SEO Experts to learn more about our affordable small business SEO packages.

Tags: search engine marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, small business seo, webbed marketing

The Ins and Outs of Facebook Advertising

Are you looking to boost your online advertising strategy for the new year, but just aren’t sure where to start? Or maybe you’ve seen the power of Facebook as part of your marketing strategy, but want to take it one step further? Facebook advertising may be the key to increase your conversions, as well as build more awareness of your brand online. There are several advantages to advertising on Facebook – audience of more than 800 million people, ability to target a specific market and a lower cost than other online advertising platforms – if you utilize the ads effectively. Join Webbed Marketing President Bill Balderaz and SR. PPC Specialist Karen Schneider to learn the ins and outs of Facebook advertising.

In this webinar we will discuss:

• Why use Facebook ads
• Types of ads
• Ad setup
• Tips and best practices
• Measuring success

Register for free today!

Tags: Facebook ads, Facebook advertising

Happy Birthday, Vonnie!

Yvonne celebrates her <insert politically correct guess at how old she is> today, we wanted to say Happy Birthday! To celebrate with our old pal, we dug through the WM archives to share this oldie by goodie (the song, not the gal).  Help us spread the word of this soon-to-be National Holiday.

Yvonne Rayburn is the Director of Online Communications at Columbus Internet Marketing Agency, Webbed Marketing (a Division of Fathom).  She manages all things social media, online PR, and promotion for WM. In her free time she is a wine enthusiast, personal training coach and enjoys the wildlife of Delaware, Ohio.

Tags: social media, social networking, social networks

Get LinkedIn Recommendations Without Being Annoying

We know LinkedIn recommendations beef up our LinkedIn profile (help get that bar to 100% complete), are great for job opportunities, and help with general networking.  So, with everyone’s busy schedules and hefty work loads, how do you manage to get people to write those glowing recommendations?  Here are some tips to help you ask for (and get!) the recommendations you deserve, without annoying everyone you know.

1. Ask the right people. Don’t just go through your LinkedIn contacts, asking everyone to write you a recommendation. Be selective with who you ask to do this for you; would you do it for them?

2. Send them a personal email/LinkedIn message. Recognize that they are busy, and you would greatly appreciate the time this will take them to help you professionally.

3. Always offer to give a recommendation back to them. If they know you will return the favor, they will be much more likely to spend 15 minutes writing your recommendation.

4. Give them an example. You can either reference a situation when you two worked together, or a project that yielded excellent results.  Or, you can even draft a brief paragraph for them.  Be sure to let them know they can modify or adjust your draft.

5. Don’t bug them every day about it. If you don’t get the recommendation as quickly as you had hoped, be patient. Don’t send them a million “reminder” emails to write it.  In fact, don’t send them any reminder emails.  If you think they are busy and it slipped their mind (and not that they just don’t want to recommend you), go ahead and write your LinkedIn recommendation for them.  This will remind them to return the favor, and you won’t look obnoxious.

6. Be appreciative. Thank them for writing a sincere recommendation for you, and boosting your professional presence online. And if you haven’t already, return the favor by writing a recommendation for them (or for their business!).

Tags: linkedin, LinkedIn recommendations

Google+ is now open for business(es)!

Since summer businesses have waited patiently for the opportunity to join in on Google+ and yesterday Google officially opened the doors to Google+ business pages. Previously Google+ was only open for personal profiles. Google discouraged businesses from using the profiles for businesses and even shut down a few businesses trying to use Google+ profiles as business pages.

So what now?

Businesses who want to join Google+ should head out to https://plus.google.com/pages/create to create a page. The process is simple:

1. First, it is important to decide what Google+ profile you want connected to this page. For now, Google+ business pages do not have admin rights like Facebook pages so the login used to create the page will be the only login with access to update the page. So make sure you are logged into a business Google account before creating your business page.
2. Choose a category that best describes your business (Local Business; Product or Brand, Company, Institution or Organization; Arts, Entertainment, Sports or Other).
3. Enter the basic information for your business and click Create.
4. Next Google+ will ask you to customize your page a bit with a tagline and profile picture.
5. Then you will be prompted to spread the word about your new page to your circles. Remember, this is all done through the Google+ profiles you used to create the page.
6. Click Finish and you are taken to your Google+ business page. The Get Started page provides some useful information about how to update and promote your biz page. You can then easily toggle between your personal profile and any pages you have created.
7. Once your page is complete you can add a Google+ badge to your website to connect your website to Google+.
8. Don’t forget to also add a +1 button to your website to allow users to share your content on Google+.

Now start updating your page! The process from here is similar to personal profiles. Pages can share posts and add photos and videos. A few Google+ pages that have already been created are:

Macy’s
Angry Birds
Anderson Cooper 360

Have you created a Google+ business page yet? How do you plan to use it for your business?

Tags: business pages, google, google plus

Optimize Your Landing Page

What makes a good PPC landing page great?  It is one where visitors complete your goal, whether its making a purchase, sign up for a webinar, request more information, or something else.  The only way to continually optimize your landing page is to test new versions of it.  We’ll give you some tips to start creating a better landing page.

• Clean pages are better than cluttered pages. Don’t have too much copy on the page, but don’t tell new visitors too little either.  About 100-300 words in short paragraphs, bullet points, or lists is best.
• Focus on conversions. The best place for a call to action is on the right side of the page.  Make the conversion button bigger and brighter than you think you need and place it above the browser fold.  Keep things simple by only providing 1-2 options and remove all other links.  Only include fields in your contact form that are absolutely necessary.
• Include action verbs in the headline and submission button. Make sure your visitors know what to do.  Keep your message consistent throughout the text and use the same verb on the submission button instead of the word “submit.”

Once you have these basics down, test a few versions of the landing page.  Try changing the color of the submit button, the action verb, copy, or images to see how visitors react.  The Google Website Optimizer is a fantastic free tool that allows you to test these elements.  Google provides great tutorials and tips to help you get started.

Run an experiment on two landing pages to see which converts best, but don’t stop there.  Take the better performing one and test it against a new version.  Continue to run these experiments and your landing pages will get better and better over time!

Tags: landing page, landing pages, online marketing, ppc, search engine marketing, sem