Archive for the ‘Social Networking’ Category
Optimizing Your Google Profile
Optimizing yoru Google Profile could prove to be easier than any other "Social Networking" site
By: Cade Lee
Your Google Profile never really had any use until now. When I say that what I mean is that there has never really been any practical use for it. I guess most of us used the profile to update our photos for Google Talk but that was definitely the extent of it until this week. Around October of last year, Google started indexing profiles by allowing their robots to start crawling through the profiles. Since then not much has happened until the past few weeks. I have started to see these profiles show at the bottom of the pages when I search for various names.
The minute that I started seeing the different profiles show at the bottom of the search engines, I had to log into my Google account and figure out the process for getting my profile on the 1st page of Google. Now, it’s important to note that profile shows at the bottom of the 1st page of Google, but the first page is the first page to me. So, anyway to start with your Google profile start here. Once you have landed on Google’s profile page, if you are already logged into your Google account you will automatically be brought to the profile page that you will need to complete. If you are not logged in you will be asked to login and then you will be brought to the profile page. As with any directory submission or social networking profile, it’s important to fill out as much of the profile as possible. I have found that the “Bio” section of any profile is one of the best places that you can place some of the keywords that are important for your profession or business. So as with any content you will want to make certain to place your keywords within the bio here. In my bio or “about me” section I was able to utilize anchor text and back link to those sites that I have been optimizing for my own personal SEO campaigns.
Another key feature to Google’s profile is it allows you to input related URL’s for your profile along with Anchor Text or “Link Name”. I was able to put my linked in page, Facebook page, Twitter profile as well as my blog and website and there was still room for my URL’s if I wanted. As a side note, all the links created through the Google Profile are “dofollow” links which I have never really cared about. I have always figured a link is a link even if the bots cannot follow it. I wasn’t expecting the profile to be as SEO friendly as it is. You can view my profile here.
After completing the profile I searched my name immediately and seriously, seconds after completing my profile, I was placed on the first page of Google for the search term, “Cade Lee Denver” and “Cade Lee “. Granted my name is a little different than John Smith, but you will notice under the search “Cade Lee” there is a martial arts expert (or something like that) with my same name. So there is someone else in the world with the name Cade Lee after all.
After seeing such quick results I wondered, “What would happen if a company opened a Gmail account using appropriate keywords in the e-mail address, and then worked the profile for ranking?” So I did it. I opened a Google account for denver-seo-firm@gmail.com. I completed the profile as previously described, and no, it did not make it to the first page immediately (in the profile section) for the search term “Denver SEO Firm“. I am proud to say that within the first 7 days of completing the profile, the profile has made the first 100 with no other efforts made. I believe the first profile made the 1st page immediately because it was an older account and Google had probably already indexed the profile.
I will be following up on this article in the near future as the next step is going to be building backlinks to these profiles and watching the effect of this in the rankings, I will be using the denver-seo-firm@gmail.com profile to see if we can obtain rankings for “Denver SEO” (very competitive search term in our local market). I will amend this post with what I find!
Lastly, Google does have a verification process for your profile as discussed by Chris Crum of Webpronews.com on April 23, 2009. For more information on getting your Google Profile Verified, read more here. Note that I have not gone through the verfication process with any of the profiles mentioned above.
Cade Lee is a search engine optimization professional in Denver, Colorado. He is a SEO/ SEM coach and speaker specializing in optimization for local and long tail keywords.
How To Use Twitter For Building Links
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Monday, 13 of April , 2009 at 1:53 pm
Twitter isn’t a link building service. In fact, aside from the one link you get in your 140-character limit bio, there isn’t a whole lot of potential for building links through Twitter. At least, not directly. However, there are some indirect methods for building links.
We’ve written about pinging your Twitter stream before. But what we haven’t talked about is how to use Twitter as link bait.
You want to build links to your website, right? Well, you have to promote it then and Twitter is a great way to promote your website. A GREAT way. Here’s one method you can use to get Twitter’s help in building inbound links to your website.
- Build up a massive Twitter following. There are several online tools available to help you find people with interests like yours. Whichever ones you decide to use, keep in mind that the more followers you have the more likely you are to get people retweeting your blog posts and linking to you from their blogs.
- Tweet your blog posts. Kind of a no-brainer, right? How are you going to build links to a site if no one knows about it? Use a Tweet/Retweet plugin for WordPress if you have a WP blog. Also, use Twitter Tools or another similar plugin so that your blog posts are automatically Twittered when they post. Bottom line, get your blog posts on Twitter where your massive follower list will see it.
- Build relationships with your followers. Tweet their blogs posts and retweet their messages. They will reciprocate. Also, send @replies and get people to talking. Once they realize you are a real human being and you have a personality, they will read your blog posts, tweet them, and link to you from their blogs.
- Use Tweetlater to retweet awesome blog posts a couple of weeks out. Just when the online passion has died down you can resurrect again with a carefully placed tweet when your followers least expect it.
- Bookmark it. Twittley is a social bookmarking service that automatically sends a tweet when you bookmark a page. Also, whenever someone else votes for your submissions, Twittley will send out a retweet. And since it is a fairly new service, you can virtually get in on the ground floor and building your reputation before the competition does.
- Build content worth linking to. Really, this one should be the first item on the list. You can do all of the other stuff here and never get a link back if your content isn’t link worthy. The No. 1 way to ensure you get a link is to make your content worthy of links.
Twitter is a great tool for promotion. It won’t provide the links for you, but you can use Twitter to promote your great content and your followers will link to the really good stuff.