Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

Is Social Media Taking Over News Searches?

While on Face­book I read that the Health Care Bill in the US passed.  I wanted to learn more about it so did a search through Google and could not find the lat­est news (this was last night).  I then went to Twit­ter and there were lots of post about this.

So a ques­tion, where are folks get­ting the infor­ma­tion that is posted on Twit­ter and Face­book before Google, Yahoo, Bling, etc. have it listed.  If it is on the TV, radio, then how does it hit in social media first before the news wires pick it up and have it posted — OR — is it all related to search?

So are we the reporters now, and if so, can we trust what is being reported?  I know / I know… but think about it.  It’s not just the top news sto­ries, it is also what is being reported for the lat­est issues with SEO, search engine updates, and so much more.

So my ques­tion, do we trust what is being reported in social media or do we trust what we even­tu­ally see in news reports through search engine searches?

Jan

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So What Do You Think Of Facebook's Feeds?

I went into Face­book yes­ter­day and noticed at the top it now had News Feed and Live Feed.  Wasn’t sure what it was except that Live Feed looks very much like Twit­ter with benefits. 

Facebook’s Ray­lene Yung  explains: “While see­ing real-time activ­i­ties is extremely valu­able, we also want to be sure you don’t miss other inter­est­ing con­tent. After hear­ing feed­back from many of you and explor­ing some new designs, we decided with today’s changes to move what you used to see in High­lights from the right-hand side to the News Feed view in the main col­umn so you can more eas­ily engage with both views.”

Chris Crum’s arti­cle states they are test­ing so this may change due to how users react. 

What do you think?

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Changes announced with Facebook and Twitter re: Searches

There are a num­ber of good arti­cles out there about what is going on with Google and Bing when it comes to Rank­ings and search results.

Google and Microsoft have both inked deals with Twit­ter, and Microsoft has also inked one with Face­book to inte­grate Twit­ter and Face­book updates into Bing search results. Google will be adding tweets to search results.” says  Chris Crum.

Google’s Marissa Mayer says, “We believe that our search results and user expe­ri­ence will greatly ben­e­fit from the inclu­sion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look for­ward to hav­ing a prod­uct that show­cases how tweets can make search bet­ter in the com­ing months. That way, the next time you search for some­thing that can be aided by a real-time obser­va­tion, say, snow con­di­tions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and shar­ing the lat­est and great­est information.”

Click here to read more of his article.

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Do you know what long tail keywords are?

I have been read­ing a lot about long tail key­words lately. In truth, maybe the phrase is new but the con­cept is not.

When you think about it, would you search for “car” if you were look­ing for a car? I doubt it. You would prob­a­bly type in car, model, color, fea­tures, etc. That is basi­cally what long tail key­words refer to.

So why use them? The best descrip­tion I read is:

The core idea of long tail key­words is that there is less com­pe­ti­tion for them, so it’s eas­ier to get good search engine rank­ings. As well, peo­ple who search cer­tain long tail key­words are much more likely to be poten­tial pur­chasers. By opti­miz­ing your web­site and deliv­er­ing con­tent to match these search queries you will be attract­ing vis­i­tors who are search­ing for spe­cific (my note: spe­cific is impor­tant) service/product information.”

So, for exam­ple, if you are a coach, don’t just use coach, or career coach, as your key­words, use some­thing like “coach to help with career goals” or “need a coach to help with career goals”. But — but– take it one step fur­ther, for exam­ple, “coach to help with my career goal as a pub­lished author in children’s books”. Now that is long tail!!

Read more here:

http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/SEO.html

Jan

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Authority Sites and FAQ Pages

In pre­vi­ous blog posts I have explained to you that author­ity sites are what you should be striv­ing for if you are inter­ested in top posi­tions on the search engines and a few key things to do to get you there. In a new post, one item I read about today (which I do on my own site) is a FAQ page.

FAQ page con­tent answers real user ques­tions about your prod­ucts or ser­vices. One page may work but you also may want to look at hav­ing mul­ti­ple FAQ pages if it fits your products/services.

In a recent WebProNews post Chris Crum states “Web busi­nesses may ben­e­fit by cre­at­ing FAQ con­tent that is tar­geted at answer­ing real user ques­tions about their prod­ucts.” Read more here:

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/03/05/why-faq-pages-could-boost-your-google-rankings

Check out my FAQ pages here for the basic idea of FAQ pages:

http://www.jbcr-virtualsolutions.com/faq.html

Jan

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Jan Carroll

Jan Carroll
Web Guru

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