Archives : 2012 : February

Happy Valentine’s Day – Google Style

Google always has a fun little something for us on special holidays, and Valentine’s Day is no different! Since their first Valentine’s Day doodle in 2000, Google has made their doodles more and more impressive!

The above image is from twelve years ago. Ready to see what they have for us today?

Happy Valentines Day, from all of us here at Smart Solutions!

A Visual Social Network – Pinterest

Pinterest has been emerging slowly for a while, since its early beginnings in 2009. In the last couple months however, the website has exploded with a burst of new members and has gone viral. Users of all ages are pinning their favorite colors, cars, swimsuits, decorations and food. Pinterest is addicting, and people love it.

But let’s back up for a second—we’re business owners and professionals! We don’t have extra hours to spend re-pinning pictures of kittens! While this is certainly true, one of the core practices of a successful business is being where your customers are. And with over 12 million users and growing, Pinterest is quickly becoming one of those places.

Using Pinterest for Business

There are only a few types of businesses that can use Pinterest very successfully—the “visual social network” niche simply doesn’t work for many industries. For instance, we have a Pinterest account here at Smart Solutions, but it’s not something that we expect a lot from. People aren’t as interested in “pinning” the kinds of things that our business sells, as much as they would a retail business.

Furniture shops, art galleries, clothing stores and travel businesses are perfect candidates for using Pinterest for business. Any website that is visually oriented would be ideal for this new social network. If your business fits into that category, you need to be on Pinterest.

Pinterest Marketing

As with Twitter and Facebook, Pinterest works best if you’re connected to a lot of people—and the right kind of people. Follow people who have boards related to your industry. Comment on their pins, and re-pin—it’s the ultimate compliment to be re-pinned on Pinterest.

Stay away from only posting your own pictures. As a general rule, you should have at least two non-promotional boards for every promotional board. Make sure you stay active, too! Pin several new pictures from your website each week, and check in once a day to make sure you’re keeping up with your followers.

Most of all—keep it fun. People love Pinterest because it’s fun to look at cute pictures and get away from the usual humdrum of the day. Play into that feeling with your boards!

So now it’s time to get started! There’s no time like the present to get started on marketing your business! And don’t forget to follow our Smart Solutions Pinterest to hear about more posts like this.

Not ready for Pinterest yet? Keep up with us on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin!

Google Panda Details – Learn About the Google Panda Updates

Websites in every industry are affected by Google Panda—sometimes soaring and sometimes sinking in ranking because of algorithm changes. But for people who aren’t involved in web development or Internet marketing, these Google Panda updates tend to remain a mystery.

What is Google Panda?

Google uses an algorithm that helps sort its index, so that users see only the most relevant websites. While this algorithm is updated on a consistent update, there are often larger-scale updates that Google will announce, so that webmasters will be prepared for what will happen as a result. Google Panda was one of those circumstances.

Google Panda in its original form was an update that would increase the visibility and ranking of high-quality websites, and lower the ranking on content farms and low-quality sites. It should be noted that the Google Panda updates are simply an improvement, which affected about 12% of US queries. That number has gone up since the original Google Panda update, of course.

Google Panda Update Issues

Since its first launch in early 2011, Google Panda has had ten total algorithm updates, according to Search Engine Land. Each one has improved Google’s site index, although many quality websites have been penalized in the process. Why were these websites penalized? Because Google’s algorithm isn’t perfect. There will continue to be Google Panda updates in the future, and each one will improve the index.

There’s no reason to be afraid that Google will penalize your site through a future Google Panda update—as long as you keep your website high-quality. Don’t copy content from other websites, and keep your website regularly updated and user-friendly. you shouldn’t have any problems with Google Panda updates if you follow those simple rules.

Why the name “Google Panda”?

Lastly, while bloggers across the Internet have been able to create fun graphics with pandas in them—why would Google choose “Panda” as the code name for their algorithm update? Apparently, it was named after an engineer at Google who was key in getting the update started.

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