"secret" SEO tuning tips for geeks| search engine land

getting found. it's a searchable world, so businesses and organizations like to believe that when people are looking for something they provide, their name will pop up. here's a somewhat snide little post that dismisses "the obvious SEO signals" for some less wellknown but pretty easily accomplished tweaks to kick your findability up a notch.

#6 is highlighted here - go to the article for the rest

Images. This is more an addition to Facebook and Google +, but has massive impacts for image search. I personally was having an issue getting certain images to show up on Facebook from my blog, and couldn’t diagnose the issue. Rather than pulling in the images I uploaded for the post, it was pulling in the Social Sharing icons I had set. Bad user experience for anyone else sharing. I found a great plugin to fix the Facebook like thumbnail which brings the images you want to the top, and adds a tag to identify those as the preferred images for the post and for Open Graph.

Do yourself a favor and ensure that the images on your site are descriptive, and they are being picked up by social networks and Google image search.

via searchengineland.com (click through for whole article)

 

5 Ways to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Exposure | Social Media Examiner

you don't get the green if you don't get seen. good tips from the examiner on ways to increase the number of fans that actually get to see your page posts!
here's a good one on posting links:
Tip: When you share links on Facebook, make sure that if you put a link into a Facebook post first and it automatically shows a preview of the link, close that preview and add a photo before posting.
alternatively, attach the picture you want first, then write the copy, including the link. either way, it will come out looking like this instead of this
via socialmediaexaminer.com click through for all the tips

 

facebook’s social search is coming - watch out google | gigaom

I keep being surprised at how little attention the shift toward social search is receiving. if you want a recommendation on getting a rebuilt transmission, where do you go? you might not know that a work associate or cousin had a great (or terrible) experience with xyz transmission. google doesn't know. but facebook does. and you are more likely to pay attention to someone you know than anonymous recommendations:
Like Facebook, Google knows that search is moving from keywords and links to providing answers for users to questions such as “Where should I eat?” and “Who can repair my car the best?” That’s why the company has been spending so much time and effort adding expert information from places like Wikipedia and from its own sources like Zagat. But that isn’t social data, and while there has been plenty of debate about the ultimate value of social recommendations, there’s no question that Facebook has a far better grasp of that than Google. And unless Facebook and Twitter choose to change their blockade of the search engine, it is likely to stay that way.
via gigaom.com click through to read the full article. it's worth it

 

it's not you, it's me: only 2% share on FB | allfacebook.com

this info is from back in february, but there's no reason to think things have improved. I would say take comfort, but it's not very comforting.

Have you looked at the “virality rate” statistic in your page insights — the percentage of fans who reshare a page’s posts and wondered why the percentage looked so low?

Take heart: 61 percent of page have a virality rate of 2.5 percent or less, according to EdgeRank Checker.

The median rate came out to 1.9 percent.

via allfacebook.com click for full article - it's worth the read

 

Trove: Best Facebook Search Around and Coming to Others | Search Engine Land

gushing review from search engine land of a new search engine for facebook that will be available this week. I'm not a huge facebook searcher, but I see this as having a big effect in commercial use - competitive research, copyright enforcement etc. and apparently it will be available for services like Tumblr, Flickr and Instagram....

It’s no secret that Facebook’s existing search engine is bad; that drum has been beaten to death. But you don’t have to wait for Facebook to make it better; there’s a pretty darn good Facebook search engine out there now.

It’s called Trove, and it’s officially launching on Tuesday. But you can connect your Facebook account and get started now; the site had a soft launch about two weeks ago. I’ve been testing it, and it’s easily the best Facebook search experience I’ve seen. There are a few missing features that I’ll mention below, but Trove’s potential is obvious.

via searchengineland.com click to read full article - it's worth it

 

May I Approach? Lawyers Getting Their Facebook On | AllFacebook

no, you won't be seeing pinstripe firms running contests anytime soon, but other legal eagles are starting to dip a toe in the water and go where the fish are (okay, no more shark jokes). legal marketing is not as freewheeling as pizza or tampon advertising, but other regulated industries like finanial services are working within the rules to build community and business. smart firms like sokolove are hiring even smarter marketing folks who know digital inside and out.

michael evans offers a lot of the same ol same ol for attorneys looking to get on the facebook bus: it's more than like counts, conversation not broadcast, etc. one intersting point is his results from advertising, esp given facebook's relatively lower costs: 

Evans also noted that like businesses, attorneys should offer something of value to their Facebook fans — something to keep them coming back. He offered the example of some kind of contest or aligning with a cause that people believe in. Evans also wrote about the power of Facebook ads. He detailed that he tried both Facebook ads and Google AdWords, and got better value from the former. Attorneys should be smart about ads that will connect with their targeted demographic and entice people to join the cause.
via allfacebook.com click through to read the whole article

image: AttributionShare Alike Some rights reserved by peggydavis66

Post Targeting Pops Up on (Popular) Pages | AllFacebook

facebook has introduced targeting options for posts to any page with 5,000 or more fans. probably not an immediate option for most SMB page owners, but hopefully the water will run downhill. let's call it aspiration for now... :)

If your page has more than 5,000 likes, here’s what the new feature looks like:

Page administrators can choose to target news feeds of specific types of user, based on categories such as gender, age, relationship status, education, interests, location and language. This does not affect what kinds of posts users will see when they visit the page (all of them), but rather which posts will show up in users’ news feeds.

via allfacebook.com click through to read full article

 

An Interview With Facebook’s Libby Leffler: Facebook and Nonprofits | Beth’s Blog

Choosy nonprofits choose Beth.

 

Beth Kanter, that is, for spot-on strategy and implementation advice. Here's a snippet from a chat Beth had recently with a member of Facebook's strategic partnerships team. Libby had this to say about the social media giant's goals in working with causes and nonprofits:

Facebook is all about sharing and connecting.  On Facebook, people connect with friends, family, their communities and the issues and causes they care about most.  Causes can be some of most personal things that individuals connect with and represent as part of their identity on Facebook.

Our goal is simple: we want to provide causes and nonprofits with the tools that they need to best utilize our platform.  We work to empower the millions of people and organizations that use Facebook to create high-impact solutions to problems big and small, all over the world.

via bethkanter.org (click through to read the full interview)

good stuff - and Beth indicates that FB is not just talking the talk. Don't forget to read the comments on Beth's posts - some of the best people working in the nonprofit space today chime in on a regular basis.

photo: Beth's Blog 2012