Before I started using social media, if I Googled my name, I would find about four listings for a couple sites where I’d written an article or two, and results from 5K road races I’d run. That was it. Most of the other entries on the page were about other people with my name. One is a doctor. I wonder if anyone has mistakenly thought I was a doctor. That would be uber cool.
As I opened my business, Tekkbuzz Internet Marketing, I knew, if I was going to have any success as a business, I needed to be found when people Googled my name or the name of my business. I, of course, started my blog, adding posts each week about social media. I made sure I used keywords in my post titles, such as social media, entrepreneurs, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
As a social media consultant, I am active every day on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I’m even starting to use YouTube (which is a whole other post).
Now when I Google “Deborah Richmond” or “Tekkbuzz”, I see ELEVEN PAGES of search results that directly relate to my business and myself. What are the results showing? They are showing links to pages of my website, links to specific blog posts I’ve written, to my social media profiles, to guest posts I’ve written for other blogs. The road race results now appear on pages 6 or 7, which is too bad because my results were good!
This is a clear indication that social media is working to make me more visible to search engines. Now a searcher will find all kinds of information about me and my business. They will have a very good sense of what I am all about. And luckily, there are no questionable photos of me and an Elvis impersonator anywhere in the results.
Here are some key ways that using social media helps your search engine optimization:
1) Getting quality, relevant inbound links
A successful social media marketing campaign can result in thousands of new inbound links to your site. Inbound links are one of the most important things that influence the rankings of your site. Put two and two together, and it’s easy to see how social media can be a great way to improve your rankings.
The best thing about this is that the majority (if not all) of the links that come from a social media marketing campaign are natural links; they’re not reciprocated, bought, or solicited.
2) Fresh content = more hooks in the water for search
The more content you have on your site, the more traffic you will snag from search engines. Also fresh content keeps your site updated, which gives users a reason to come back. People don’t want to visit static sites, we’re already too used to sites being social.
3) The engines like frequently updated sites
Feed those indexes with fresh content and get rewarded with frequent visits by the search spiders. Search engines love fresh new content. They will see new content in your Facebook stream, LinkedIn profile, Twitter updates and blog posts. And they will direct traffic to all of those places for you.
When you Google your business name, are you seeing the results you want? Leave me a comment.
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Site visitors 1230
Facebook Friends 105
Twitter Followers 977
LinkedIn Connections 177
Email List Members 207
Inbound Links 819
I’m pleased that my site received a few more visitors than last month. My traffic efforts certainly seem to be consistent, bringing me roughly the same amount of traffic each month. In the next few weeks, I will be implementing a new strategy to, hopefully, grow that traffic.
Twitter is growing again. I made a change this month. I set my account to automatically follow people who follow me. I knew it would increase my followers a little because some people unfollow if you don’t follow them back. I now see how many people that really is because those people are now staying with me, and my number of followers did grow. I haven’t done anything else to grow my followers this month.
Inbound links continues to baffle me. I don’t know why this is growing so rapidly. But I’ll take it!
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Are you concerned about your online privacy when using Facebook? Did you know you can decide exactly who sees the separate pieces of your Facebook Profile?
Setting your privacy settings is easy to do. While you are on your facebook page, go to the upper right-hand side of the page. Click on the menu on “Settings”. Click “Privacy Settings”. Now click “Profile Information”.
You will see the following categories:
- About Me
- Personal Info
- Birthday
- Religious and Political Views
- Family and Relationship
- Education and Work
- Photos and Videos of me
- Photo Albums
- Posts by Me
- Allow friends to post on my Wall
- Posts by Friends
- Comments on Posts
Each of these sections gives you the opportunity to change settings. The following are your choices:
- Everyone
- Friends of Friends
- Only Friends
- Customize (allows you to exclude individuals from seeing these areas)
By using these different privacy settings you can control exactly who sees each piece of information that you put on your Facebook profile.
Remember, you always have the choice to leave sections of your profile blank if you do not want to share certain information with anyone.
How do you use your privacy settings?
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Let’s say you have someone from your past that you never want to see again. Not only that, you never want them to be able to find your page on Facebook. Facebook allows you to block that person so that they cannot get to your page. Not only that, but they will never know you blocked them. They may search for you, but will never be able to find you.
How do you block someone from your Facebook page? Easy! When you are on your page, in the upper right-hand corner, you will see a menu item called “Settings”. Place your cursor over the word “Settings”, then choose “Privacy Settings” from the drop-down menu.
In the list of items, click on “Block List”. Here you will be given a field to enter your unwanted visitor’s name and email. Simply fill in one or both of these fields and click “Block”.
The only way your unwanted visitor will find you is if you have some mutual friends on your list that are also on their friend list. If you appear on a friends’ wall, your unwanted visitor may see that entry if they are also friends with that person.
But aside from that type of situation, you are no where to be found even if your unwanted visitor searches for you.
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Announcing the Social Marketing Machine Podcast! If you are looking for more information on how you can use social marketing to build your business, then you’ll want to check out this podcast. I will be releasing a new one every month. Each episode will be packed with good useful information on building our own social marketing machine. Just click the Play button below.
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Before I started using social media, if I Googled my name, I would find about four listings for a couple sites where I’d written an article or two, and results from 5K road races I’d run. That was it. Most of the other entries on the page were about other people with my name. One is a doctor. I wonder if anyone has mistakenly thought I was a doctor. That would be uber cool.
