Few Modern Facebook Best Practices 2015

Facebook has changed – a lot.

It’s no longer in its infancy. It has matured and is now in the teenage phase, constantly updating its look and its friend groups to maintain its popularity.

You, as a Facebook Marketer, need to be updating with it. When it dyes its hair purple or starts wearing nail polish on only one hand, you need to follow suit (because this cool kid is a powerful friend to have).

But how do you make sure you’re as tight with Facebook as possible? How do you make sure Facebook will share your content, let you talk to your own Friends?

How do you make sure you’re getting as much out of this relationship as Facebook is?

In this post I’m going to share with you 7 modern day best practices to ensure that you’re still in the “in crowd” on Facebook.

Check it out!

1. Utilize Facebook Page Insights

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Facebook Insights is an incredible tool that will help you gain valuable information about the people who Like your page. You’re able to see the demographics of your fans by gender, location and age range.

Not only can you see the insights of your Fans but specifically you can look at those Fans who are most engaged with your page and your content. For Wishpond, for instance, you can see that the majority of our fans are in the age range 25-34. Knowing this will help you when you’re targeting (see how to do this in the next section).

You’re also able to see, from week to week, how you’re doing in comparison to the previous one.

Another really cool feature of Insights is the ability to see how you’re doing compared to you competition. This allows you to determine if you need to change your approach (if they’re doing better than you) or pop champagne if you’re kicking their ass.

2. Target the right audience on each post

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With the information gathered on Facebook Insights you’ll be able to target your posts and make sure they’re shown to the people who want to see them.

Each Facebook post you share on your Facebook Page can be narrowed down by segment of your Fans.

Here’s how I target posts on Facebook:

• Gender, Relationship status, Education, Age: Our post engagement isn’t affected by these targeting capabilities, though could be really effective for brick-and mortar or ecommerce businesses.
• Location: The majority of people who’re engaged with our page are from the US. India is third and Canada fourth.
• Language: We have dedicated English, Spanish and Portuguese customer support specialists. Therefore I target the language to those three even though all of our posts are in English. Why? So that even if someone has their language setting to Spanish or Portuguese they’ll potentially see my posts and traffic to a site that can work with them.
• Interests: Your target Interests may vary based on the type of content you’re sharing. For example, as a SaaS company that creates simple marketing tools, we will always want to target marketers. However, if I was sharing this article (for instance) I’d also want to target those who are interested in Facebook ads, Facebook marketing etc. It’s important to note that it will target each interest individually. Therefore the more interests you pick the larger your target audience will be. Here’s what my Interest targeting might look like for this article (you’ll understand why by the end of it).

  

• Post end date: Post end date is great if you’re posting something like a webinar. If you post about your webinar on the Monday and the webinar is on the Wednesday you could set your post end date for when the webinar starts.

  

3. Incorporate videos into your posts

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In case you didn’t hear, video posts are getting way more organic reach (and engagement) than any other type of post on Facebook.

Why is this happening?

While I can’t be 100% sure, I think it’s a combination of two things: Firstly , Facebook will have done extensive customer feedback and questionnaires, determining that their users want to see videos more than they do images, links, or text posts (so they’ll genuinely be rewarding Pages which post that content).

Secondly , Facebook favors posts that keep a Facebook user on Facebook rather than taking them to an external link. This just makes sense. Facebook want posts that ensure users remain on the platform (where they can see more ads, equalling more money in Facebook’s pocket).

How does this work?

When you upload videos directly to Facebook (don’t use Youtube – remember, that’s an external link) they automatically start to play but without sound. I’ve seen our engagement double for video posts over any other type of post.

Best Practices for making a Facebook Video

Captivate your target audience within the first three seconds without sound: This means be as visually appealing as possible. Include things like: graphics, movement, colors, signs and anything that will make the video visually grab the attention of a Facebook user in their News Feed. It needs to be captivating enough to get someone to stop and press the volume button in the bottom right corner.

Include a call-to-action: Facebook allows you to create a call-to-action that will appear at the end of the video. You can insert any link, a landing page, your blog etc. Make sure it’s directly related to the video. Keep in mind that your call-to-action will not appear until the end.

Your video should be able to speak for itself: Does the main message come across in the video or is audio necessary in order to get the gist of the message? Again, if possible use visuals to communicate your message.

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4. Create a series of Facebook ads aimed at the same goal

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Facebook recently ran an experiment which examined the difference between sequenced (what I’ll be explaining in this section) and non-sequenced ads (one ad at a time):

“Among those who were exposed to the sequenced ads compared with those who were exposed to the non-sequenced ads, there was an 87% increase in people visiting the landing page.”

Showing a series of ads around the same goal is essentially telling your target audience a story to pique their interest. They might not like the first ad but over the series of ads they’ll be more likely to see an ad that resonates with them.

Best practices for creating an ad sequence:

Determine a single goal : The goal you choose can be anything from a specific product to a designated landing page. For this example we’ll say that you’re looking to drive traffic to a landing page that offers a free trial of your products.

Create a series of at least 3 ads. Depending on your target audience you would show different ads based on how far along they are in the sales funnel.

For example if they had no idea who your company was but they were interested in similar companies it would go like this: Ad #1 : Brand awareness, Ad #2 : Key benefit of your product, Ad #3 : An ask to start free trial. At any point they could click your ad and be directed to the same landing page but if you do it in three stages you’re warming them up.

Source : https://www.facebook.com/business/news/Multi-Product-Ads-and-Enhanced-Custom-Audiences-from-your-Website

5. Use Facebook’s Multi-Product Ads in your retargeting strategy

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Facebook multi-product ads are like dynamic Google Ads but better. This is because the ads will look and feel the exact same as a Google Ad but because of the slew of information Facebook has on its users, the ads will allow for better targeting.

Facebook multi-ads allow you as an advertiser to show up to three products in a single ad on desktop or mobile.

How does this work?

You set up a bit of code on your website so you can track which pages a person went to on your website. A person comes to your website and they visit different pages but never purchase anything. Next time they go back to Facebook they’ll be shown different items they viewed on your website in a carousel-style advertisement.

For example, let’s say you have an online travel site and a person searched for three different destinations to visit but they never book a flight. You could set up a multi-product ad of the three destinations (with pricing) to remind them of the flights they looked at with the headline, “Last minute deals to your favorite destinations” and the CTA “Book While Prices Last.”

6. Facebook content needs to be familiar, timely or novel if you want it to be shared

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It doesn’t matter if your post gets a ton of reach if you’re not creating posts that people want to click. You need to create a variety of posts, with different lengths of headlines, pictures or videos that strike an emotional chords and links that are valuable to your target audience.

Not sure what to post? Here are some guidelines for creating the right type of post on Facebook:

• Familiar content: This is catering to people’s emotions. Humanize your posts so that people are able to relate. One post we recently used was aslideshare on Seinfeld quotes that related to online marketing. There has been a resurgence in the popularity of all things 90s recently (timely as well) and we used this to evoke nostalgia and familiarity with our Fans.
• Timely content: Look at what’s trending and use relevant hashtags so that when people search for something they’ll find it on your Facebook Page. Just make sure that you know the full story before creating your posts in case you’re not using the content in the right way.
• Novel content: When you create original posts, Facebook users will feel more excited about clicking on your post and engaging with your business. Try using a new tone, format or something that is in stark contrast to your competitors to stand out.

7. Run a Facebook Contest with a specific goal in mind

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Running a contest on Facebook is a great way to nurture existing relationships and get awareness of your business to spread like wildfire.

Here are some specific contests you can run for contest goals:

• Get new emails and leads by running a sweepstakes contest : This is the lowest barrier to entry and therefore the quickest way to grow your list. Combine it with a prize that is relevant to your business and you’ll get leads that like your products.
• Grow brand awareness with a photo contest : A photo contest will encourage your entrants to share with their friends and family so that they’ll win your contest. You’ll also be getting extra leads.
• Keep your fans engaged by running a vote contest : Take two or three of your most popular items and get people to vote on the one they like best. Award a winner by random.

Conclusion

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There you have it, 7 new ways that you can utilize Facebook in your social media marketing strategy. Have you been keeping up-to-date with Facebook as it’s changed over the years?

Are there any new Facebook best practices you’ve found work? Start the conversation below

#facebook, #internet

Promoting Business through Facebook

Facebook Basics

Facebook can help you to reach all of the people who matter most to your business

If you’re looking for a general overview of how to use Facebook to help your business grow, these fundamentals will set you up for success. You can also focus your activity on Facebook to meet specific business goals.

In-Page Navigation

• 1. Set up your Page
• 2. Identify your audience
• 3. Create compelling content
• 4. Advertise
• 5. Measure and adjust

1. Set up your Page

Create the hub for your business on Facebook

Your Facebook Page makes your business:

• Discoverable: When people search for you on Facebook, they’ll be able to find you.
• Connected: Have one-to-one conversations with your customers, who can like your Page, read your posts and share them with friends, and check in when they visit.
• Timely: Your Page can help you to reach large groups of people frequently, with messages tailored to their needs and interests.
• Insightful: Analytics on your Page will give you a deeper understanding of your customers and your marketing activities.

When you set up your Page, you can request a web address such as “facebook.com/yourgreatcompany”, which makes it easy to find. To maximise the impact, include this address on your business card, website and other marketing materials.

Remember: Your Page is an extension of your business. It’s an easy way to share updates and more with the people who matter most. It’s ready to help you engage your customers on desktop and on mobile.

Learn how to create a Facebook Page.

Create Page

2. Identify your audience

Think about who you’d like to meet, and introduce yourself

Not only can you reach more people through Facebook, you can reach the specific people who are most likely to become your customers.

To help you connect, consider:

• What do your ideal customers have in common?
• How old are they and where do they live?
• How can your business help them?
• Would one group be more interested in specific messages, products or services? A sale or a timely offer?

To build your audience, encourage your current customers and supporters to like your Facebook Page. They’re the people who are most likely to see your posts in their News Feed. Also, explore the options under the Build Audience button:

• Invite your friends: Let the people in your life know about your Page so they can support you by liking it. This initial audience helps you to establish credibility and spread the word straight away.
• Share your Page – and make sure you like it yourself. Be a spokesperson for your business.
• Invite your businesses contacts: Upload a list to send people an email so they know about your new Page.

Remember: It isn’t about the number of likes. It’s more important that you genuinely connect with the people you engage with on Facebook. If you do, they’ll help tell your story.

See more Facebook Advert targeting options.

3. Create compelling content

Make your business come alive on Facebook

As you post updates, photos and more, think about what your customers find interesting and inspiring. Experiment with different kinds of posts. Does your audience love photos or prefer it when you share useful links? You’ll find out quickly by looking at your Facebook Page Insights.

• Be authentic: Share what you’re genuinely excited about and your customers will be excited too.
• Be responsive: When people comment on your posts, show that your business is listening and that you care. If you need more time to answer a question, let them know that you’re looking into it.
• Be consistent: The more regularly you post, the greater an opportunity you have for connecting with people and building trust. Setting a schedule for your posts can also help to maximise your team’s time.
• Do what works: Replicate your success on posts that get more engagement.
• Make successful posts into successful promotions: When you notice that a post is getting a lot of engagement, promote it to reach even more people. When people like, comment on or share your posts, their friends are also eligible to see those posts in News Feed.

Remember: Your recipe for success is to create Page posts and adverts that are interesting and valuable to your customers – and to target your messages so that the right people see them.

Learn how to create engaging posts on your Facebook Page.

4. Advertise

Reach more of the people who matter most to you

Once you’ve started connecting with your customers on Facebook, you’ll want to find other people who are likely to be interested in your product or service. You can use Facebook adverts to send the right message to the right people, just when they’re most open to discovering your business.

Create Advert

Creating Adverts

• You can create an advert directly from the admin panel of your Page to engage more people, or you can use the Advert Create tool.
• Once you’ve built a community around your Page, use the Advert Create tool to target your adverts to reach the friends of the people who already like you. It’s a way to naturally grow your customer base through word of mouth.
• Be specific about the audiences for different adverts. You can create sets of adverts to connect with different target audiences. People are more likely to respond to a message crafted just for them.
• To make sure that your adverts look great wherever they’re seen on Facebook, you can see the Facebook Adverts guide for detailed specifications such as image dimensions.

Fine-tuned Targeting

• Add a private list of your current customers to Facebook usingCustom Audiences and then use Lookalike Audiences in the Advert Create tool to find other people who are similar to them.
• When you create an advert using the Advert Create tool, use “interest targeting” to reach people who already like or have a connection to other things on Facebook that are similar to what you’re offering.

Remember: You can maximise the return on your investment by creating adverts for specific audiences.

Learn more about creating Facebook Adverts.

5. Measure and adjust

Find out what’s working well so you can maximise the impact of every post and advert

Facebook has a lot of different tools to help you measure how you’re doing.

• Your Page Insights will keep you up to date on activity on your Facebook Page.
• Use Page Insights to understand who responds to your messages. Make sure that you look at the gender, age and location of the people who are the most engaged with your business so you can continue to engage them through targeted adverts and promoted posts.
• When you create your adverts, try out different images and headlines to see what works. Facebook will automatically optimise your campaign so that more of your budget goes to the advert that’s performing the best.
• Ask how people heard about you – at the end of a call, in a survey or at the point of sale – and keep track of what they say. It will supplement the data Facebook’s tools provide.

Remember: Marketing your business is all about helping you achieve your goals.

#facebook, #internet

Google Docs: Advantages and Disadvantages

Google Docs is a publically available free service that permits collaborators to jointly develop and edit documents.

Advantages of Google Docs:
1. Documents on Google Docs are saved to Google’s servers. Therefore if your computer’s hard drive crashes, you won’t lose the document that you’ve been working on.
2. Google Docs offers the feature of allowing people to view past edits.
3. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple users at the same time.

4. Google offers one of the best services for cloud computing document sharing.

5. While other cloud computing services charge fees, Google Docs is free.

Disadvantages of Google Docs:

1. Google Docs is cloud computing and with cloud computing there is no physical location of the documents shared.

2. Security is paramount to a financial adviser and many companies may prefer the idea of data stored on site where they are in control of it, rather than at a remote location where someone else is hosting it.

3. There is a lack of quality in Google Docs.

4. Starting March 1, Search will know the contents of people’s email and the videos you watch on YouTube.

5. If you use Google Docs for work, Search will know which company they work for and which industry they work

#google-2, #internet, #searchengine

Google Tips part 2

17 of the coolest hidden Google tricks

By Rohan on 27 March, 2015

Google is awesome. Yes, there have been questions raised about its new privacy policy and creepy Safari tracking and frankly, it just knows way too much about everyone who has ever created a Google account. But let’s put that aside for a moment and focus on all its cool quirks, shall we?

They’re built into practically every Google product — if you look hard enough, you’ll find that entering the right search term or typing a code can make Google collapse, spin or create fictional characters. Here are 15 easter eggs (hidden, entertaining things developers build into a website or program) for you to discover the next time you’re Googling.

1. Walking to Mordor:

If you’ve ever watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (or just seen various versions of the meme) you may never stop laughing at this Google Maps quirk (or maybe it’s just me). If you try to get walking directions from “The Shire” or “Rivendell” to “Mordor” (just type in the words and ignore all the auto-complete suggestions that pop up), Google will give you the route… and a warning. In other news, according to my Google Maps, Mordor is located just outside Cape Town, South Africa. Nice.

2. Barrel roll:

Endlessly entertaining, this one trended worldwide on Twitter in November. Simply search “do a barrel roll” — if you have Google’s instant results functions enabled, your results page will be spinning before you’ve completed the instruction.

3. 42:

What is 42, you ask? Geez, it’s only the answer to life, the universe and everything. Ok, so if you’ve never read or watched The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you won’t get this one. But Google’s built-in calculator will.

4. Gravity:

If, by any chance, you feeling like searching “Google gravity” and hitting “I’m feeling lucky”, don’t be surprised if Google comes crashing down around you the second you move the mouse. (Hint: you can disable Google’s instant results in your account preferences page to make sure you get the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ option).

5. Recursion:

Google pokes fun at its own “did you mean” suggestions if you search recursion(repetition or returning) by questioning your spelling even though you didn’t make a mistake.

6. Klingon:

So “GoogleDaq ylnej” means “Google search”. Hmmm. Who knew? Well, you, if you speak Klingon. Yes, there is a Klingon version of Google. There is also a pirate and Elmer Fudd version, if that’s more your thing.

7. Kerning:

Designers will love this one — kerning is the spacing between letters in a word. When you do a search for kerning, Google changes the spaces between letters in the word ‘kerning’ in all the results. Heehee. You see what they did there?

8. Hello, Nessy:

Picture this: You’re working under a tight deadline, your clock is slowly counting the minutes past 3AM and your coffee and Red Bull combo is failing. The sleep deprivation is starting to affect you — you are starting to see things. You click to your home page, and there, rising gracefully from the dark waves in your iGoogle theme, is the Lochness Monster.

No, you’re not hallucinating — you really did see Nessy. If you are ever awake and online at 3:14 AM (those are the first three digits in Pi, by the way), and have the iGoogle beach theme installed, Nessy will come to visit for a minute. If you’re not an insomniac, you can always just change the timezone on your computer and in your iGoogle settings and just wait until 14 minutes past the hour (I was in Bangkok last night, as far as Google knows). Unfortunately, it looks like the monster will be no more after iGoogle is retiredin November 2013.

9. Nagging Rams:

Similar to the ‘recursion’ response, if you search for ‘anagram’ (rearranging the letters in a word to make a new word or phrase, in case you didn’t know), Google rearranges the letters to suggest you were really searching for ‘nag a ram’.

10. Antarctic Penguins:

If you ever want to creep the Antarctic on Google Maps, you may be surprised to find the little orange peg man you drag and drop to change to Google Street View has transformed into a fat little penguin. Awwww.

11. Doodles:

What do you get if you don’t actually search for anything, and just hit ‘I’m feeling lucky’? A catalogue of all the Google doodles — all the way back to 1998. There were just three in that year — there have already been 69 in 2012.

12. Konami ninja:

If you type in the Konami code (a cheat code used in Konami games) in Google Reader, the side panel will turn blue and a cute ninja will appear on the left of your screen. Use your arrow keys and keyboard to enter the code — it’s up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, followed by the letters B and A. Like iGoogle’s Nessy, this one is going away after Reader is retired in July 2013.

13. Street View team:

Ever wanted to see the people who work at Google doing cool things like Google Street View? Well, if you hop along to the back of the Google offices in Mountain View, you can see them all.

14. Laundry:

There are a lot of things Gmail can do for you — filter spam, flood you with ads, apply a plethora of pretty coloured labels to your messages — but, as yet, it can’t do your laundry.  However, it is an option on the ‘suggest a feature’ page for Gmail.

15. Pacman:

It started out as a Google doodle to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of Pacman in 2010, but the Google Pacman game was so popular, it was given a permanent home.

16. Zerg rush:

Google “zerg rush” and prepare to defend your browser against hordes of the letter ‘o’ in Google’s logo, which will start to destroy your search results. They’re apparently undefeatable, but you can try to fight them off by clicking on them and share your high score on Google +. For those who aren’t familiar with StarCraft, a ‘zerg rush’ is a tactic where swarms of aliens known as ‘zergs’ descend in multitudes in order to overwhelm their enemies.

17. You’ll never find Chuck Norris

Because Chuck Norris jokes never get old, there is a warning hidden in Google search results to ward off those who dare to attempt to find him. Just search ‘find Chuck Norris’ and hit ‘I’m feeling lucky’ and you’ll see what I mean.

Update:

#google-2, #internet, #searchengine

Google search: few hidden features

Google is used by millions of people to navigate the web every day, but how many of us really put it through its paces? The Techkhabarsite digs out a few of the search engine’s hidden gems.

1. Calculator

Google’s calculator function is far more powerful than most people realise. As well as doing basic maths (5+6 or 3*2) it can do logarithmic calculations, and it knows constants (like e and pi), as well as functions like Cos and Sin. Google can also translate numbers into binary code – try typing ’12*3 in binary’.

2. Site search

By using the ‘site:’ keyword, you can make Google only return results from one site. So for example, you could search for “techkhabarsite.wordpress.com” and only get stories on techkhabarsite.wordpress.com by Rohan Chataut

3. Conversions

Currency conversions and unit conversions can be found by using the syntax: <amount> <unit1> in <unit2>. So for example, you could type ‘1 GBP in USD’, ’20 C in F’ or ’15 inches in cm’ and get an instant answer.

4. Time zones

Search for ‘time in <place>’ and you will get the local time for that place, as well as the time zone it is in.

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5. Translations

A quick way to translate foreign words is to type ‘translate <word> to <language>’. So for example, ‘translate pomme to english’ returns the result apple, and ‘translate pomme to spanish’ returns the result ‘manzana’.

6. Search for a specific file type

If you know you are looking for a PDF or a Word file, you can search for specific file types by typing ‘<search term> filetype:pdf’ or ‘<search term> filetype:doc’

7. Check flight status

If you type in a flight number, the top result is the details of the flight and its status. So, for example, typing in BA 335 reveals that British Airways flight 335 departs Paris at 15.45 today and arrives at Heathrow Terminal 5 at 15.48 local time.

8. Search for local film showings

Search for film showings in your area by typing ‘films’ or ‘movies’ followed by your postcode. In the UK, this only narrows it down to your town or city. In the US this is more accurate, as results are displayed according to zip-code.

9. Weather forecasts

Type the name of a city followed by ‘forecast’, and Google will tell you the weather today, including levels of precipitation, humidity and wind, as well as the forecast for the next week, based on data from The Weather Channel.

10. Exclude search terms

When you’re enter a search term that has a second meaning, or a close association with something else, it can be difficult to find the results you want. Exclude irrelevant results using the ‘-‘ sign. So for searches for ‘apple’ where the word ‘iPhone’ is not used, enter ‘apple -iPhone’.

11. Public data

To see trends for population and unemployment rates of different cities and counties, type ‘population’ or ‘unemployment rate’ followed by the location. So for example, typing ‘unemployment rate uk’ returns the answer 7.7 percent, and shows a graph of unemployment rates over the last 10 years

12. Related search

To search for web pages that have similar content to a given site, type ‘related:’ followed by the website address into the Google search box. For example, typing ‘related:telegraph.co.uk‘ gives a list of other UK newspaper websites.

13. Package tracking

If you have a package tracking number from the USPS, UPS or FedEx, simply plug it into Google Search and it will provide a convenient link for you.

14. Define

Google’s dictionary function allows you to type define:term and get definitions of words. So a search for define:discombobulated tells you that it is the past participle, past tense of discombobulate, which means to disconcert or confuse.

15. Barrel Roll

Simply type “do a barrel roll” into the search bar and Google dutifully obeys. Warning: this Google trick is known to make grown men squeal with delight.

#google-2, #internet

How Do I Make Money From Facebook… Exactly?

If this is not your first time attempting to monetize from Facebook, I’m guessing you’ve done one or more of the following before:

You tried posting up ads using the Facebook Ads feature… and you got back mediocre results. You experienced a gazillion impressions with very few click throughs let alone sales!

You tried creating a group or a fan page and you can count your members with your fingers, even after inviting your existing friends on Facebook (with a lot of them clicking the “ignore” button!)

And when you message the few members you had scrambled to get them to “like” your group or fan page, the response is far from being poor!

Maybe you also tried creating profiles or pages for your business in an effort to sell your merchandises or digital products. And you tried to get the word out by tagging your FB friends to notes, photos, videos, and whatever else you can tag them to. Only to be labeled a spammer! And thus your popularity dropped before the night.

Can you relate to any of the above mention statement?

Look, I believe in a few fundamentals to success. For one, if you do mediocre work you should expect to get mediocre results in return.

Conversely, if you take specific steps, you will get more specific results that can deliver a deep impact to your overall bottom-line.

This is not just applicable to using Facebook to propel your current business venture. It’s about how you do anything and thus how you do everything. Posting up ads blindly and simply setting up a group or fan page with no specific goals is not going to cut it.

#facebook, #internet

“Fun Facts About Facebook…”

“Log On To Facebook…”

I’m guessing there’s more than a 50-50 chance you’re already signed onto Facebook. (Not yet? Oh man, where have you been??)

• As of July 2010, there are more than 500 million users active on Facebook.That’s nearly half of the world Internet population! This is an amazing exponential growth as just the year before, Facebook doubled MySpace’s social network count, which stood at 100 million users.
• The number of unique applications on Facebook has gone well into hundreds of thousands. Some smart authors have become millionaires from selling applications, while others leverage to build their business.
• Today, the average Internet user spends 4 to 6 hours on Facebook alone! Now you know where to find your customers as that’s where they likely spend most of their time.
• The day Facebook introduced Facebook Ads changed everything for marketers and business people alike. Now the power to target any customer you want, and at anywhere in the world, is at your fingertips!

As said, the possibilities are endless. But this begs the million dollar question:

#facebook, #internet

Facebook Smilies

#facebook, #internet

10 Secret Facebook Features You Need To Be Using

We all use Facebook, and we all get annoyed by the miscellaneous new “features” Facebook often imposes upon us.

But what about the awesome features that don’t get as much attention?

We put together a list of our favorite Facebook features to help you take advantage of everything Facebook has to offer.

Create a group of people to hide your photos from

Create a group of people to hide your photos from
Using Facebook’s “Lists” feature, it’s easy to make a list of people you want to hide your pictures from.

Whether it’s parents, coworkers, or anybody else, all you need to do is put them all into a “List.” To do it, click Account in the top right corner, then click “Edit Friends.”

Click “Create a List,” then find friends and add them to your new list and name your list something you can remember. Next, click Account again but this time click Privacy Settings afterwards.

Click “Custom” in the left panel, then “Customize settings” below the chart. Scroll down to anything you want to hide, click the drop down menu next to it, then click “Custom” yet again. Yes–this takes a while. Facebook likes people to be open.

Finally, under “Hide” enter in the name of the group you just created, and you’re done. To be extra sure, go back to the top of this screen and click “Preview my Profile,” then enter the name of a person in the list you created to see how your profile will look to them.

Use these quick tips to make viewing photos a lot better experience.

Use these quick tips to make viewing photos a lot better experience.
Does anyone actually like the new photo viewer on Facebook?

I’m talking about the one that makes Facebook look like a slideshow.

If you hate it, all you need to do is wait for the picture to finish loading, then click refresh in your browser. You’ll be taken to the old fashioned photo page that looks like the one pictured at right.

Another useful photo-browsing tip is using your arrow keys to navigate a ton of pictures. Hold down the left or right arrow key to see your life flash before your eyes.
Remove apps you aren’t using anymore–they still have access to all your information

Remove apps you aren’t using anymore–they still have access to all your information
When you install Facebook apps or permissions, the apps often get access to your wall, pictures, friends, and more.

It’s easy to change your privacy settings, but not as easy to remember that apps can still mine your information even when you’re not using them.

Click Account in the top right corner, then Privacy Settings, then “Edit Your Settings” under Apps And Websites in the bottom left of the privacy screen. Then click “Edit Settings” to the right of the Apps You Use panel.

Click the little gray “x” to the right of any apps you no longer use, and they’ll no longer have access to your information.

Enable these handy security features to make sure your account doesn’t get compromised

Enable these handy security features to make sure your account doesn’t get compromised
Two features we had no idea existed (until we scoured Facebook’s settings) were the HTTPS setting and the Login Notifications setting.

If you enable HTTPS, it greatly reduces your chance of getting your password swiped when logging into Facebook on a public Wi-Fi at Starbucks.

If you enable Login Notifications, you’ll get an email whenever someone logs onto your Facebook account from an unrecognized.
Personalize your Facebook URL, making it easier for people to find you

Personalize your Facebook URL, making it easier for people to find you
Many people use Facebook and LinkedIn as the bases of their business lives, and it’s nice to have an easy to remember URL you can refer people to.

Click “Account” in the top right, then click “change” next to Username. Type in something you like, then check the availability to see if anyone has taken it.

Your new username will create a URL for you, facebook.com/ellishamburger is an example.

See a picture you like? Download it in full quality

See a picture you like? Download it in full quality
Since Facebook switched gears to their new slideshow-ish picture browser, you can no longer drag pictures to your desktop to save them.

Screen grabbing is annoying, so look down in the bottom corner of the picture viewer and click “Download” to get a full-quality copy of the image you’re looking at.
Wish you could see all your friends’ birthdays in iCal, Outlook, or Google Calendar?

Wish you could see all your friends’ birthdays in iCal, Outlook, or Google Calendar?
This could be a little overwhelming for people with tons of Facebook friends they don’t talk to, but for many, this quick tip could be a big time-saver.

All you need to do is access your birthday page by clicking here, then scrolling down to the very bottom and clicking “Export Birthdays.”

Click the link to subscribe to the Birthdays calendar using your computer’s default calendar app. Or, open up your favorite calendar app and add a calendar subscription. If you don’t know how, Google how to add subscriptions for your calendar. Then, copy in the link from Facebook.

Grab Facebook’s Desktop Notifications apps to always stay up to date

Grab Facebook’s Desktop Notifications apps to always stay up to date
Facebook
MAC

Using the official desktop notifier for Mac, you’ll get a Facebook icon in your menu bar that turns blue when you have a new notification. It’s a

PC

Grab Internet Explorer 9 and pin the Facebook website to your taskbar. You’ll see a red asterisk whenever you have a new notification. Or, try Facebook Desktop, a more feature-packed solution.
Wish you could post to several friends’ walls at once?

Wish you could post to several friends’ walls at once?
via Tech Explorer
All you need to do is tag friends in a post on your wall, or on anyone else’s wall. Your post will show up on every persons’ wall that you tag.

When you’re typing a status or wall post, type the @ sign and then a friends’ name. It will tag them in your post, and they’ll see it on their wall as if it were a normal wall post.

Facebook’s new Groups feature is a lot more powerful than it used to be

Facebook’s new Groups feature is a lot more powerful than it used to be
With Facebook’s new Groups (which you create by clicking “Create Group” in your left navigation bar), you can essentially create your own listserv for a group of friends.

When you view a group, you’ll see updates from friends, have the ability to edit documents together (“Create Doc” in right bar inside your group), chat together in a private chat room, and send out updates.

Create a group for your closest friends, or for your fantasy baseball team, or for anything else. If you want to leave a group, all you do is click the little gray “x” next to its name in the left navigation bar of Facebook

#facebook, #internet, #technology

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine‘s unpaid results – often referred to as “natural,” “organic,” or “earned” results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search,video search, academic search,^[1] news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

History

Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all webmasters needed to do was to submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a “spider” to “crawl” that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed.^[2] The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine’s own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.

Site owners started to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked and visible in search engine results, creating an opportunity for both white hat andblack hat SEO practitioners. According to industry analyst Danny Sullivan, the phrase “search engine optimization” probably came into use in 1997. Sullivan credits Bruce Clay as being one of the first people to popularize the term.^[3] On May 2, 2007,^[4] Jason Gambert attempted to trademark the term SEO by convincing the Trademark Office in Arizona^[5] that SEO is a “process” involving manipulation of keywords, and not a “marketing service.”

Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines like ALIWEB. Meta tags provide a guide to each page’s content. Using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster’s choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site’s actual content. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches.^{[6][dubious – discuss]} Web content providers also manipulated a number of attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.^[7]

By relying so much on factors such as keyword density which were exclusively within a webmaster’s control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search, poor quality or irrelevant search results could lead users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.

By 1997, search engine designers recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and that some webmasters were evenmanipulating their rankings in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as Altavista and Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms in an effort to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.^[8]

In 2005, an annual conference, AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web was created to bring together practitioners and researchers concerned with search engine optimisation and related topics.^[9]

Companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported on a company, Traffic Power, which allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.^[10] Wired magazine reported that the same company sued blogger and SEO Aaron Wall for writing about the ban.^[11] Google’s Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.^[12]

Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences, chats, and seminars. Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with site optimization.^[13][14] Google has a Sitemaps program to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website.^[15] Bing Webmaster Tools provides a way for webmasters to submit a sitemap and web feeds, allows users to determine the crawl rate, and track the web pages index status.

Relationship with Google

In 1998, Graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed “Backrub,” a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, PageRank, is a function of the quantity and strength of inbound links.^[16] PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web, and follows links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random surfer.

Page and Brin founded Google in 1998.^[17] Google attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design.^[18] Off-page factors (such as PageRank and hyperlink analysis) were considered as well as on-page factors (such as keyword frequency, meta tags, headings, links and site structure) to enable Google to avoid the kind of manipulation seen in search engines that only considered on-page factors for their rankings. Although PageRank was more difficult to game, webmasters had already developed link building tools and schemes to influence the Inktomi search engine, and these methods proved similarly applicable to gaming PageRank. Many sites focused on exchanging, buying, and selling links, often on a massive scale. Some of these schemes, or link farms, involved the creation of thousands of sites for the sole purpose of link spamming.^[19]

By 2004, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation. In June 2007,The New York Times’ Saul Hansell stated Google ranks sites using more than 200 different signals.^[20] The leading search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Some SEO practitioners have studied different approaches to search engine optimization, and have shared their personal opinions.^[21] Patents related to search engines can provide information to better understand search engines.^[22]

In 2005, Google began personalizing search results for each user. Depending on their history of previous searches, Google crafted results for logged in users.^[23] In 2008, Bruce Clay said that “ranking is dead” because of personalized search. He opined that it would become meaningless to discuss how a website ranked, because its rank would potentially be different for each user and each search.^[24]

In 2007, Google announced a campaign against paid links that transfer PageRank.^[25] On June 15, 2009, Google disclosed that they had taken measures to mitigate the effects of PageRank sculpting by use of the nofollow attribute on links. Matt Cutts, a well-known software engineer at Google, announced that Google Bot would no longer treat nofollowed links in the same way, in order to prevent SEO service providers from using nofollow for PageRank sculpting.^[26] As a result of this change the usage of nofollow leads to evaporation of pagerank. In order to avoid the above, SEO engineers developed alternative techniques that replace nofollowed tags with obfuscated Javascript and thus permit PageRank sculpting. Additionally several solutions have been suggested that include the usage ofiframes, Flash and Javascript.^[27]

In December 2009, Google announced it would be using the web search history of all its users in order to populate search results.^[28]

On June 8, 2010 a new web indexing system called Google Caffeine was announced. Designed to allow users to find news results, forum posts and other content much sooner after publishing than before, Google caffeine was a change to the way Google updated its index in order to make things show up quicker on Google than before. According to Carrie Grimes, the software engineer who announced Caffeine for Google, “Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index…”^[29]

Google Instant, real-time-search, was introduced in late 2010 in an attempt to make search results more timely and relevant. Historically site administrators have spent months or even years optimizing a website to increase search rankings. With the growth in popularity of social media sites and blogs the leading engines made changes to their algorithms to allow fresh content to rank quickly within the search results.^[30]

In February 2011, Google announced the Panda update, which penalizes websites containing content duplicated from other websites and sources. Historically websites have copied content from one another and benefited in search engine rankings by engaging in this practice, however Google implemented a new system which punishes sites whose content is not unique.^[31] The 2012 Google Penguin attempted to penalize websites that used manipulative techniques to improve their rankings on the search engine,^[32] and the 2013 Google Hummingbird update featured an algorithm change designed to improve Google’s natural language processing and semantic understanding of web pages.

Methods

Getting indexed

Search engines use complex mathematical algorithms to guess which websites a user seeks. In this diagram, if each bubble represents a web site, programs sometimes calledspiders examine which sites link to which other sites, with arrows representing these links. Websites getting more inbound links, or stronger links, are presumed to be more important and what the user is searching for. In this example, since website B is the recipient of numerous inbound links, it ranks more highly in a web search. And the links “carry through,” such that website C, even though it only has one inbound link, has an inbound link from a highly popular site (B) while site E does not. Note: percentages are rounded.

The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically. Two major directories, the Yahoo Directory andDMOZ both require manual submission and human editorial review.^[33] Google offers Google Webmaster Tools, for which an XML Sitemap feed can be created and submitted for free to ensure that all pages are found, especially pages that are not discoverable by automatically following links.^[34]Yahoo! formerly operated a paid submission service that guaranteed crawling for a cost per click;^[35] this was discontinued in 2009.^[36]

Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.^[37]

Preventing crawling

Main article: Robots Exclusion Standard

To avoid undesirable content in the search indexes, webmasters can instruct spiders not to crawl certain files or directories through the standard robots.txt file in the root directory of the domain. Additionally, a page can be explicitly excluded from a search engine’s database by using a meta tagspecific to robots. When a search engine visits a site, the robots.txt located in the root directory is the first file crawled. The robots.txt file is then parsed, and will instruct the robot as to which pages are not to be crawled. As a search engine crawler may keep a cached copy of this file, it may on occasion crawl pages a webmaster does not wish crawled. Pages typically prevented from being crawled include login specific pages such as shopping carts and user-specific content such as search results from internal searches. In March 2007, Google warned webmasters that they should prevent indexing of internal search results because those pages are considered search spam.^[38]

Increasing prominence

A variety of methods can increase the prominence of a webpage within the search results. Cross linking between pages of the same website to provide more links to important pages may improve its visibility.^[39] Writing content that includes frequently searched keyword phrase, so as to be relevant to a wide variety of search queries will tend to increase traffic.^[39] Updating content so as to keep search engines crawling back frequently can give additional weight to a site. Adding relevant keywords to a web page’s meta data, including the title tag and meta description, will tend to improve the relevancy of a site’s search listings, thus increasing traffic.URL normalization of web pages accessible via multiple urls, using the canonical link element^[40] or via 301 redirects can help make sure links to different versions of the url all count towards the page’s link popularity score.

White hat versus black hat techniques

SEO techniques can be classified into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques of which search engines do not approve. The search engines attempt to minimize the effect of the latter, among them spamdexing. Industry commentators have classified these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO.^[41] White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing.^[42]

An SEO technique is considered white hat if it conforms to the search engines’ guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines^[13][14][43] are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see. White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility,^[44] although the two are not identical.

Black hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking.

Another category sometimes used is grey hat SEO. This is in between black hat and white hat approaches where the methods employed avoid the site being penalised however do not act in producing the best content for users, rather entirely focused on improving search engine rankings.

Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines’ algorithms, or by a manual site review. One example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices.^[45] Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google’s list.^[46]

As a marketing strategy

SEO is not an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be more effective like paid advertising through pay per click (PPC)campaigns, depending on the site operator’s goals.^[47] A successful Internet marketing campaign may also depend upon building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure results, and improving a site’s conversion rate.^[48]

SEO may generate an adequate return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.^[49] Search engines can change their algorithms, impacting a website’s placement, possibly resulting in a serious loss of traffic. According to Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, in 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes – almost 1.5 per day.^[50] It is considered wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.^[51]

International markets

Optimization techniques are highly tuned to the dominant search engines in the target market. The search engines’ market shares vary from market to market, as does competition. In 2003, Danny Sullivan stated that Google represented about 75% of all searches.^[52] In markets outside the United States, Google’s share is often larger, and Google remains the dominant search engine worldwide as of 2007.^[53] As of 2006, Google had an 85–90% market share in Germany.^[54] While there were hundreds of SEO firms in the US at that time, there were only about five in Germany.^[54] As of June 2008, the marketshare of Google in the UK was close to 90% according to Hitwise.^[55] That market share is achieved in a number of countries.

As of 2009, there are only a few large markets where Google is not the leading search engine. In most cases, when Google is not leading in a given market, it is lagging behind a local player. The most notable example markets are China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the Czech Republic where respectively Baidu, Yahoo! Japan, Naver, Yandex and Seznam are market leaders.

Successful search optimization for international markets may require professional translation of web pages, registration of a domain name with a top level domain in the target market, and web hosting that provides a local IP address. Otherwise, the fundamental elements of search optimization are essentially the same, regardless of language.^[54]

Legal precedents

On October 17, 2002, SearchKing filed suit in the United States District Court, Western District of Oklahoma, against the search engine Google. SearchKing’s claim was that Google’s tactics to prevent spamdexing constituted a tortious interference with contractual relations. On May 27, 2003, the court granted Google’s motion to dismiss the complaint because SearchKing “failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.”^[56][57]

In March 2006, KinderStart filed a lawsuit against Google over search engine rankings. Kinderstart’s website was removed from Google’s index prior to the lawsuit and the amount of traffic to the site dropped by 70%. On March 16, 2007 the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose Division) dismissed KinderStart’s complaint without leave to amend, and partially granted Google’s motion for Rule 11 sanctions against KinderStart’s attorney, requiring him to pay part of Google’s legal expenses.^[58][59]

See also

• Blog network
• List of search engines
• Search engine marketing
• Trackback submitter
• Website promotion

#searchengine, #seo