Archives : 2011 : February
How Yelp Can Help Your Business Grow
Yelp’s purpose is “to connect people with great local businesses.” It was founded in 2004 and as of August 2010, had over 12 million reviews on their site. Around 38 million people visit Yelp in any given 30 days.
Yelp is basically a business review site, a search engine for local businesses and a social network combined into one. Yelp users can rate, provide pictures, write reviews and update information on local businesses.
So that’s the user side of it, what about the business? How would a business profit from using Yelp?
The answer is simple: find out what people think about you. Whether your business is a coffee shop, a hair salon, a fine dining establishment or a dog groomers, Yelp allows users to rate your business and write reviews about what they thought about their experience.
But what can you do to promote your business through Yelp?
Another thing that people do on Yelp is search for services they require, based on customer reviews. They might see your company on Yelp, but they won’t necessarily want to go there unless they see good ratings and reviews.
We suggest getting reviews in the easiest way possible: asking for them. Now, we certainly don’t mean bribing (“Give us a good review on Yelp and we’ll give you a free coffee next time you stop in!”), but rather by shooting out an email to past customers, asking them to tell you what they think… on Yelp.
Every time you go to write a review on Yelp, they’ll tell you the same thing: “Please don’t review this business if you received a freebie for writing this review, or if you’re connected in any way to the owner or employees.” And they mean it. Their tagline says it all: “Real people. Real reviews.”
Don’t give (or give bribes for) fake reviews, no matter how much you need them! A past customer is fine to ask reviews from, but don’t ask your family or employees to review your business.
Here’s what you need to do to get started on Yelp:
- If you don’t have an account, start one. Review other businesses, establish a following, find people you know and befriend people like you.
- Claim your business. Head over to https://biz.yelp.com/signup/ and see if your business is already on Yelp. If it is, great! If it isn’t, you’ve got a clean slate to start with.
- Get all the information you can onto Yelp. Don’t be too wordy, but make sure you include all that your business encompasses.
- Shoot out that email! Tell your past customers that you’re now on Yelp and that you’d love to hear what they thought of you!
So that’s Yelp in summary, but the site certainly has a lot more to it than what we’ve mentioned here, so we suggest taking some time to get to know the site and what it’s all about!
Who Controls Your Facebook Page?
Disgruntled former employees can be a scary thing. Disgruntled former employees controlling your business’ Facebook page is a whole new level of scary.
Facebook can be a great way to market your business, but it’s important that you know what you’re doing as you set it up. Many companies have made the mistake of letting an employee create the business Facebook page from his or her own account. Why is this a mistake? Well, it’s not, if this employee is trusted and likely to be with the business long-term. If, however, he or she isn’t, you as the business owner might be in trouble.
There are a couple things you want to keep in mind when you begin your Facebook’s business page:
- The creator is unchangeable.
Yes, if you create the page, you will forever be in charge of that page (or at least until Facebook updates that area of their site). So, if Stacey from Marketing creates your company page, she will forever be in charge of that page, even if she quits or is fired, she still has control. - Create the page yourself or choose a loyal employee who is in it for the long-run.
Stacey from Marketing might only be here for the next couple of months, but Johnny, the president or CEO, will likely be with the company for much, much longer. Johnny would be a good choice for the creator of the Facebook page because he’s likely to be with the company long-term.
What if it’s Too Late?
Maybe you’re already past the point of creation. Maybe you let Stacey from Marketing create the page. Maybe Stacey from Marketing is no longer with the company and did not part on good terms. How do you get your Facebook page back? Try these three steps to regain your Facebook page:
- DMCA Notice of Copyright Infringement
If someone else owns your Facebook page and is not willing to give it back or allow you to have access to it, you may be able to gain it back with this Facebook form. Only fill this form out if you are willing to give an electronic signature and are able to prove that you own the name of the business. - Notice of Intellectual Property Infringement (Non-Copyright Claim)
Signing this and proving that you own the business could help you get back your business’ Facebook page. - Username Infringement
This final step may ultimately be your best bet in gaining access to your Facebook page and successfully regaining ownership of your online reputation.
With any of these three steps, be sure to read and answer the questions carefully and honestly. Remember that an electronic signature is just as valuable as a written one. You will also need to show proof, so be sure to fill out all of the questions asked of you, and provide information that identifies you as the owner of the name and business.
Try all three of these steps to raise awareness of your case. Nothing is more important than protecting your brand, so be persistent – and with some initiative and luck you might just find victory.
On the other hand, if Stacey from Marketing left on good terms, it would probably be best to have her delete the page and then recreate it under someone else’s account. A lengthy process, certainly, re-acquiring “likes” and getting all your information back up there, but it will be worth it to have your Facebook page back in your own hands.
The best way to avoid this situation altogether? Choose your creator wisely.
Twittonary
“Tweeps! That was a twitterific twoosh of twitterage in twitterese from this Twitterholic, yeah? Can I get a retweet, here?”
If you’re confused reading that sentence then you’ve come to the right spot. The ever-evolving world of Twitter just gets more and more intricate as it grows, and if you’re not on top of it yet, well… now’s the time to get there!
We recently stumbled upon a web-page full of words; many, many words. Words that would astound you, confuse you, and potentially just frustrate you if you weren’t up with the play. http://twittonary.com/
It is what you think it is – a dictionary of Twitter words.
Searching the “T” page, specifically, there were over 400 – over 400 words starting with the letter “T” relating to Twitter. It is truly mind-boggling to look through this list and realize just how much time people spend on this site we call Twitter.
So, we’d like to inform you of a few words that stood out to us – some of the words that we thought might be a little more ‘useful.’
Let’s start with the basics. The most important word that you’ll have to know in utilizing Twitter is this one: Tweet. Easy, isn’t it? The official definition is “The singular version of the name given to all posts on Twitter.” Basically, it’s any news update.
Going a little deeper, we find Tweetaholic. Now, you might be able to guess this one, but the official definition? “Someone addicted to Twitter, so much that it may be an actual problem.” This is the user who tweets that he is going out to get the mail, that he iss now coming back into the house, and that he just started opening the mail.
Twirgin, “Virgin to Twitter – new to Twitter.”
Twitsomnia, “When you have difficulty falling asleep and/or difficulty staying asleep because you’re so into twittering!”
Twitternope, “A term, phrase or tag yet unused on Twitter. Such that searching for the exact phrase on Twitter results in ‘No results for.’”
Tweepish, “Feeling sheepish or regretful about something you tweeted.”
That’s six. Six silly words that will get you a little more involved with the wonderful world of Twitter. And in case you were wondering… the sentence at the top of the page, in English, means “Friends! That was a terrific 140-character post of rage in the Twitter language from this man addicted to Twitter, wasn’t it? Can someone re-post it, please?” OK, we admit it, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense either way.
20 Things…
Have you ever wished that someone would just write a book about the internet? A book that would answer questions such as, “What is the Internet,” for instance?
If, hypothetically, such a book were to be released, who would write it? A well-informed corporatio, certainly; a power player in the Internet world, definitely; a company that everyone knew enough about to trust, for sure.
Who better than Google?
The Google Chrome Team has put together a book all about the internet. The simple, easy-to-read book that thousands of internet-users across the nation have been holding their breath to read has finally arrived. Not only that, but it features the illustrations of the award-winning German illustrator and children’s author, Christoph Niemann.
Still not convinced? Well, one more thing… it’s free.
20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web, describes itself as “a short guide for anyone who’s curious about the basics of browsers and the web.” It discusses topics as basic as ‘the internet in general’, all the way to things such as ‘protecting yourself from malware and HTML5.’
The combination of Neimann’s illustrations and the Google Chrome Team’s knowledge has led to a clever and informative booklet, full of information that everyone browsing the internet ought to know.
Unfortunately, like everything else, 20 Things has some problems. Although the pictures add to the fun of the book, it does have a total of 62 pages. It doesn’t seem like much, but to our attention deficit society, that might prove to be a drip too long. However, this is an e-book (of course) so if you leave and come back, it will ask you if you’d like to resume reading where you left off! That should help people get through the full content.
So take a moment and head over to http://www.20thingsilearned.com/ and look through the book! If you don’t have time to read it, at least take the time to enjoy Neimann’s colorful drawings.
5 Important Things to Note about Social Media Marketing
Here are a few things you should keep in mind when using internet social media marketing to promote your business.
- Integrate Social Media into your Broader Marketing Strategies:
Like any marketing campaign, your social media presence needs a strategy, and this strategy cannot work in isolation of your broader marketing strategy. The lifeblood of any successful social media campaign is internal collaboration, where social media objectives and techniques must be integrated into a broader marketing plan.
- Go Global, Stay Local:
The internet has global reach and can send your brand across the oceans with very few additional costs. However, to attract and more importantly, engage your target audience in discussions, you need to identify their interests, issues and lifestyles. This requires you to have a local perspective.
- Build Your Brand Through Relationship Building:
First you need to attract readers, friends and followers by creating a buzz around your product or company. People are not interested in being advertised to, so in order to grab their attention, you could initiate discussion around current trends and hot topics. Alternatively, organize competitions, provide humor and offer freebies. Once you have built a fan base, keep them involved – respond to people promptly and regularly; provide helpful information; and continue discussions.
- Use Social Media for Customer Service:
Good customer service can significantly aid marketing. Follow up with customers, even if there are no complaints. Communicate new offers, schemes and deals to them. Social networking sites can be used to form a client community that can be used to share ideas and educational materials.
- Use Social Media to Identify Gaps:
A lot of information about your market and competition is available through social media sites. Internet social media marketing should focus on analyzing the information and identifying where your competitors fall short and you can immediately start filling the gap.
The Basics of SEO Copywriting
1. Content is King!
Before you begin copywriting make sure you have done your keyword research and assigned a selection of keywords (ideally shoot for five or six) to each page of your site. Try to utilize each page’s target keywords at least once within the body content. Use the primary keyword (you might choose the one you deem the most important or relevant to the page, or the keyword with the highest search volume) for each page in the first paragraph, the last paragraph and as many times possible throughout the rest of the body text (without getting ‘spammy’ of course – the script should still make sense).
2. Carefully Consider your Title Tags
There are a couple of things to consider when writing a title tag. For SEO purposes you want a title tag to be succinct and keyword rich. The more diluted a title tag becomes, the less emphasis each keyword is given. So… if for a particular page you really want to hit home for one certain keyword, try stripping everything else from your title tag. Alternatively, in a less competitive market, you might wish to target a few different keyword phrases on a single page. Ultimately the choice is yours, just be sure to separate each keyword phrase with a comma (or a symbol of the like). The second point to consider is that most frequently the title tag will be displayed as the ‘heading’ for your listing in the search engine results. Is your title tag going to ‘convince’ a potential consumer to click through to your site over the others? Lastly, to maintain brand identity you may also wish to end each title tag with a dash followed by your company name.
3. Descriptive Description Tags?
Search engines often pull a page’s description tag to act as the short ‘blurb’ in the search results. There are two main points to consider when writing a description tag.
1) Ideally, your description tag will contain your main keyword phrase within the first few words. Words from the ‘search query’ will be in bold in the search results (i.e. if a user searches for ‘brown dogs’, each time the word ‘brown’ or ‘dogs’ appears in your description it will be in bold) and likely catch the eye of a potential visitor to your site.
2) The description should be enticing in order to persuade a potential customer to click through to your site over the others.
4. Utilize Header Tags
Headings should be catchy (from a ‘traditional’ marketing standpoint) to draw in a reader, but also include your main keywords to emphasize these words in the ‘eye of the spider’. You will also want your heading to relate to your title tag (so as to minimize bounce rates) and remain relevant to the overall content of the page (to maintain your site’s reputation for reliability).
5. Internal Linking – Set Yourself Up for Success
Internal linking (a link from one page of your site to another) is very important to your overall SEO efforts. Try to create at least one internal link to every page of your site. But don’t just go adding links willy nilly, using vague phrases such as ‘click here’ and ‘learn more’ – for an internal link to be truly valuable the link text needs to include a keyword for the destination page. This will be easy if you keep the idea of internal linking in the back of your mind whilst writing your copy. When opportunity arises for you to include a keyword for one of your ‘other’ pages, highlight this keyword in another color, that way when it comes time for content placement you’ll have a visual reminder of all the spots where you had intended for an internal link to go.
6. Emphasize Your Keywords
Search engines consider bold text to be important text, so… put a few of your keywords in bold. But don’t get too carried away! You don’t want to your site to look ‘spammy’. Try opting for one bold term in the introductory paragraph, one in the closing paragraph, and a couple more throughout the body text (depending on the length of your page).
7. Don’t Duplicate!
Keep your content fresh! The search engines want to see that you have new, interesting and relevant information, and they don’t look kindly on websites that copy content from other sites (not to mention the plagiarism issues this raises). Search engines also don’t want to see same content across all the pages of your website. Be sure to write new content for each individual page, relevant to the assigned keywords. If you need to talk about similar points on multiple pages, try taking a different angle and paraphrasing your text rather than repeating it word for word.
Website Fonts Get a Push in the Right Direction
Thanks to the efforts of type designers, web developers and browser companies’ web sites now can use high-quality typography to enhance their company brands and make pages even more readable for users. This is great news for the industry—and for customers of Smart Solutions. Here’s why:
For years, web developers have wanted to use a broader selection of fonts similar to what’s available for print, but many issues blocked their path. One was the fact that commercial font licenses were only for desktop computer use; others were rendering inconsistencies across multiple browsers and huge increases in page size and loading times.
Beyond these technical issues, the idea faced similar piracy controversy that hit the music recording industry, which is how to protect intellectual property over the web—be it music or a unique type font.
Now Larger Palette of Fonts to Choose From
By using CSS embedding techniques, Smart Solutions can bring this industry breakthrough to our clients by:
- Making Adobe Photoshop fonts available for use (see options)
- Ensuring that usage is done legally
- Testing and verifying new font displays well in 90% of all browsers (IE, FireFox, Safari, Crome and Opera)
We can also work with clients who acquire a non-Adobe Photoshop font and wish to use it by converting format using the TypeKit service.
Design Considerations: The emergence of more type expression can bring some challenges especially for web designers. Smart Solutions can work with your team to choose the right type face that:
- Complements your web design
- Conveys and embodies the message you want to communicate
- And offers contrast that’s aesthetically pleasing to the eye
On the Horizon: Smart Solutions expects more progress in the typography area. W3C is actively leading discussions on a new Open Web Font Format (WOFF), which encourages even greater backing and support from browser companies and font vendors.
4 Things Small Businesses Should Know About Facebook’s New Groups
First off, you need to know that unlike Pages, Facebook’s new Groups are not made strictly for brand promotion. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t get some value out of them, either by using them to reach out to would-be clients or customers, or to facilitate communication and community inside your company.
Here’s a few things you need to know about how Groups can be used by your business.
1. Groups Are Made By Users, Not Your Business
Formerly, businesses would set up Facebook Groups that customers or clients could join for updates, promotions and other helpful information. Facebook has now moved that function over to Pages, which are specifically made for promoting brands and businesses.
The new Groups, however, are not intended for promotion. Users add each other to Groups to create communities based on interests, careers or other commonalities. Groups can also reflect real-world social groups — for example, a clique of close friends, or a family.
You have to be friends with someone to add them to a Facebook Group, so forming a Group to promote your business isn’t practical, and probably wouldn’t be widely welcomed.
2. You Can Market In Groups, But Take It Easy
You can request to join an existing Group, and if you’re admitted, you’ll be able to post items to the group’s news feed. Here, you could promote your services, but we advise against a direct approach. If users wanted to receive promotions directly, they’d “Like” your Facebook Page.
We recommend a more subtle approach such as hosting events (concerts, tastings, or what have you) that might be of interest to the members of the Group, then post notifications about the event in the feed. Don’t overdo it, or word it like a sales pitch and you should be fine.
Even better, engage in Group discussions and add something to the community besides a pitch. If you can find a Group of ideal clients or customers and demonstrate that you’re a considerate and reliable source of information, that can go a long way towards building a positive image of your brand in their eyes.
3. Groups Are Ideal for Internal Communications
Arguably, the biggest opportunity for businesses in Facebook Groups is the facilitation of communication and community inside the company.
You can add your company’s employees and partners to a Group, set it to private, and use it as a free alternative to something like Yammer (a popular enterprise-focused social network).
Employees can then share updates on what they’re working on or pass links and other items around that might prove helpful to the organization as a whole. You can also use Facebook Groups to make company announcements.
4. You Should Get Focused with Groups
Because the new Groups feature was designed for intimate settings, the setup is ripe for targeting and interacting with very niche audiences, such as consumers who may wish to leave reviews on a platform with which they are comfortable, event groups for people attending certain conferences or seminars, and groups for employees who may wish to ‘live chat’ with company figureheads.
Hardware-Based Keyloggers – Making Identity Theft Easier
Hardware-based keyloggers are making online identity theft an easier opportunity for criminals. As well, these devices can help anyone wanting to discover or monitor your online activity. It is important you are aware that these devices exist in order to take appropriate precautions regarding your personal sensitive information.
What Is A Hardware-Based Keylogger?
Hardware-based keyloggers are some form of hardware circuit attached between a keyword and computer used for logging keystrokes. The circuit records or logs all keystroke activity in its memory. The keystroke information can be later retrieved and used to extract any personal information computer users may have entered while using the computer keyboard.
These devices do not need to be dependent on a computer’s operating system, nor will they interfere with programs running on the computer. Accordingly, these devices are not detected by the computer’s software. Similarly, the physical nature of these devices is intentionally innocuous to avoid detection. While generally an external device, these devices can be installed as part of the keyboard making them more difficult to discover.
Except in the case of wireless hardware keyloggers that can be controlled and monitored remotely, physical access to hardware-based keyloggers is needed twice in order to obtain recorded information. The device must first be installed and then later retrieved. As a result, keyloggers present some risk to potential thieves (or anyone else wanting to monitor keystroke activity – like a spouse). Physical access to the device is needed while in the meantime the device can be discovered. Law enforcement can become aware of a keylogger and then monitor the computer’s physical location to ascertain who planted the device.
What Does This Mean For You?
While you might not be a criminal (let’s hope not), you might find value from the services provided by a hardware-based keylogger.
With the prevalence of identity theft, you need to be careful about your public computer use. For example, you are probably better not using publicly accessible computer devices to login to site requesting personal information (e.g., banks or social media sites like Facebook).
If you are really cautious, you might look at where your keyboard hooks into a public computer to see if any unnecessary device is present. As explained earlier, these devices are innocuous and not easy to identify, so this effort might not be foolproof. Also, you might not have visual access to see where a keyboard connects to a public computer removing this opportunity to protect yourself.
If you need to use a public computer to login to a website, you might try staggering your login keystrokes. Open a notepad text file on the screen and bounce back and forth between the login screen on the website and your notepad document typing the characters of your password. When you type on the notepad document, type random characters unrelated to your password.
There is no fail-safe way to protect yourself from keylogging or online identity theft, but you can be cautious. Awareness of hardware-based keylogging is important so you can take cautious preventive measures to protect your personal information. Conversely, you might find some benefit from using one of these devices (for ethical reasons of course).
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