Pinterest is a fast growing social sharing community.

One year ago today Pinterest was hardly worth mentioning and known to a very small number of people. Now, the content sharing service accounts for nearly 25% of all social media web traffic. While FaceBook is overpowering the market in sheer numbers, Pintrest is coming up as a reckoning force when it comes to driving eCommerce. The site is popular for sharing content that often features random accessories, clothes, handbags, apartment decor, recipes and their ingredients. The shape Pinterest has taken and steep rise in traffic makes it a ripe ground for eCommerce driven websites to gain traffic and more conversions.

From the chart above, we can see the rapid growth of Pinterest, receiving it’s boost starting in February, 2012. This is significant because there are older platforms that are now falling short of Pinterest. These social media sites have earned loyal followers over the years, but now the popular giants like Twitter and StumbleUpon, just are not delivering what they once were. The Pinterest train is gaining steam and doesn’t look to be derailing anytime soon. Now is the perfect time for eCommerce businesses to jump aboard!

Pinterest in eCommerce

A recently conducted survey by BizRate Insights shows some very interesting results from 7,431 online shoppers. Nearly 70% of those surveyed told BizRate that the pinup site is used for inspiration and keeping up with the latest trends, making it even more attractive to eCommerce as a part of their daily SEO. Pinterest carries a lot of Domain Authority and using the site to engage shoppers will help websites earn authority through social sharing and linking.

With the amount of traffic Pinterest has, the nearly perfect Domain Authority scores, and the trust of its users, why would any eCommerce site pass this up? With the rapid rise of Pinterest in 2012, the following year will only improve. So integrating a Pinterest strategy now will set your online shop straight for 2013.

The New Google Disavow Link Tool Has Launched

The head of Google’s web spam, Matt Cutts, announced Tuesday to the relief of many webmasters, the Google disavow link tool. This tool will allow those demoted by the Penguin update to block low quality inbound links. Although this tool is available, Google encourages that a site owner first attempts contacting the sites and ask for a removal of the links. That of course is Google’s recommended actions, but if for some reason, all attempts fail, there is the new Google disavow link tool. 

Google Penguin was an update released in April of 2012 in order to combat spam by assessing the quality of links. Before Penguin, sites with a large number of inbound links were rewarded and often appeared high in the search results. This gave rise to the now infamous “link farms” and the result pages were just over crowded with spam and low quality content.  Sites that relied heavily on link farms and spammy tactics are now noticing the effects of the algorithm update. Some may have survived with an honest and consistent link building strategy, but many are facing the reality of negative SEO and can’t get out of the nightmare.

What is Negative SEO? Can Google Disavow Link Tool Help?

Negative SEO is what happens when a website has been demoted in the search engines from failing 200, or more, signals on a given page and site. There are two very important factors to know when it comes to link building and SEO— Domain Authority and PageRank. Search engine algorithms rank sights that follow best practices. Sites that have low on page SEO and a mix of irrelevant low quality content, end up passing the same value in their links. As with websites that have high quality on page SEO  with relevant content focusing on the niche, they in turn, will pass high valued links.

Although PageRank does not have the same weight it once carried, it is still an indicator on the quality of a given site in Google’s eyes. There are different ways to check PageRank, but you can use this tool to test your site. There is only one way to find your Domain Authority and that is through SEOmoz. PageRank, aka PR, and Domain Authority, aka DA, take into account the the ranks of the site passing links to one another. So, as my father always would tell me, “Lay down with dogs, and get their fleas,” the same logic can be applied now to link building.

IT’S ALL ABOUT QUALITY NOT QUANTITY

Now if you find yourself with a low PR and DA, participated in any link farming, or purchasing of links, I would advise you contact the source of the low quality links and clean them up. If for some reason you can’t get a response or cooperation from the linking site to remove, then it is time to use the Google disavow link tool and disconnect those crummy links!

Watch Matt Cutts explain the tool himself

So you’ve probably heard, FaceBook will let you promote your posts

You probably also have heard that FaceBook is charging a premium of $7! Well, not quite, it’s only $5 and it’s quite effective. Although this move has received a lot of criticism, I on the other hand am giving praise to the idea. Most of the nay-sayers are the average FaceBook user, getting overly excited and ready to torch, or troll in some circles, just about everything! But just like anything out there, only one way to find out what FaceBook post promote is all about…

So I tested FaceBook Post Promote!

I wanted to use a post that would be attractive, but not flashy attractive or a hard promotion. So, I chose to use the FaceBook post promote on this article about affiliate marketing. I selected this article because it has links that are embedded with my affiliate code and that way, I have a shot at making some money off of this test. I posted a screenshot of the promoted post along with the results and a quick recap.

FaceBook Post Promote Statistics:

• Total Reach 1,047 people saw this post in the news feed
• The $5.00 Paid Post reached 978 People and GB has roughly 650 Likes
• 9 People Liked the post
• 3 New Likes from friends of fans who saw the post
• 2 People shared the post
• 2 People actually followed the link to the site

Anyone that does paid advertising should find this pretty valuable. I feel like if my post was a high converting product or a really cool niche, it would have performed much better. Still, the fact that my post about affiliate marketing brought me new fans, generated some engagement and gave GuruBloggers some recognition– to me, that’s $5.00 well spent.

This is my first paid post, but by no means will it be my last. I see too much potential in this new FaceBook post promote feature for engaging fans and getting the message out there. Perhaps next time I will put more thought into what is promoted, but the FaceBook Post Promote is a win to me.

Find out more about FaceBook Post Promote from FaceBook.com

Just about anyone can make a webpage or post a blog, but not everyone can SEO.

Today, the Internet is a well developed community with millions upon millions of websites, blogs and social media pages. Many of these pages are created by professionals while there are just as many if not more that are done by amateurs and enthusiasts. No matter what level of expertise, just about everyone making web pages wants to their work to rank well in the search engines. While this takes hard work and dedication, here are some tips that will help you make your website’s pages and blog posts have strong SEO qualities that will also encourage consistent traffic.

Find a niche and stick to it – Become your niche and write passionately about it, this will carry over to your readers. This will also encourage them to comment and share your post to others on social media. This will further your reach and visibility to others.

Write original posts often – This is the Internet, and the Internet’s purpose is to be a place of information and sharing. With that said, you need to give the Internet information to share if you expect to have traffic. The more you write, the more content you have to share, and the better you get at writing in general! Also, do not duplicate or copy the work of another, this is bad practice and will get you penalized in the search engines. So, make the effort and it will pay off!

Keep posts short, but not too short –  The “goldilocks zone” for posts is right around 300 words. Thanks to Panda, Google will not index “thin content” aka short posts. Also, don’t write big blocks of text, this is can be viewed as “work” by your reader and will often discourage a reader. (you know you’re guilty of it!)

ALT Tags on images – Make sure each and every image on your site has an ALT tag that has keywords mixed in with a description of the photo. Don’t overdo keywords, but do this right and you will add a nice boost to your SEO score

Unique Page Titles – Each page and post should have a unique Title tag attribute. This will help the search engine better identify and index your site. Make sure your keyword is worked into the post as well so it coincides with the page or the post’s topic.

Balance your internal and external links – Links are important, so important that Google made an algorithm update to deal specifically with links called Penguin. You can’t have too many, too quick, and you can have too little for too long. You can’t have too many links internally, and the same goes for links that leave your site. Too many of any type and Google calls it SPAM, while a low number shows that a site is uninteresting, un-sharable and that the site owner is not a friendly Internet user that does not give credit to sources. Great advice: Place a “nofollow” TAG to 1/3 of all your links, especially multiple links that lead to the same destination. Links are tricky, but practice makes perfect.

Integrate comment boxes and social media sharing/commenting – Giving someway to let your readers engage your site will bring them back to keep the conversation going; this also adds to the SEO strength of your website as it adds more keywords and content to the topic.

These are just a few to the many items on an SEO checklist, there are so much and I plan to add more, but it is best to leave this as a series of tips rather than one long write up. Doing that very thing follows best practices as I’m keeping this short, but informative and I also give something for you, the reader, to return to.

SMB budgets in 2012 have seen a large increase in digital spending.

With the massive amount of money spent spreading the message, it would seem that the recession we’re in is a myth! Perhaps it is true that consumer spending has taken a hit, but here are some juicy statistics from the BIA/Kelsey SMB Digital Conference in Chicago that reveal some interesting trends with online marketing.

Small business marketing expected to increase 40%  digitally in next 12 months

 This preliminary chart is from the BIA/Kelsey annual Local Commerce Monitor Survey that talks to 300 small businesses. A 40% increase is an outstanding prediction on the growth of small business marketing taking to the digital channels. With the slow improving economy and with the ever increasing media dominance of the consumer, the Internet is driving all marketers to show more focus on the digital realm.

 Small business marketing has nearly doubled using digital media channels over the last 5 years.

An increased audience fragmentation is solely due to digital marketing . I remember the days that you could just put an ad in a Yellow Pages book and attract a nice share of the market. Not the case today, small business marketing plans must promote media buys across multiple channels to get the same audience as they did in the past. Are you?

Small business marketing budgets show SMBs will spend one third on digital media

It is predicted that in the US, the total local ad spend  to be more than $130 Billion in 2013. BIA/Kelsey estimated that in 2010 SMBs spent about 20% of their budgets on digital marketing equating roughly to $5 billion. This means that 30% of small business marketing dollars in 2013 should be somewhere around $9 billion. Don’t get left behind and let your competition have a leg up!

Facebook is dominating the small business marketing digital landscape

It’s free, easy to setup and use, and has over 900 million users! FaceBook is dominating the landscape now and small business marketing has grown tremendously since FaceBook’s conception. There are so many success stories of SMBs taking advantage of FaceBook’s network and the trend is increasing each and every day.

You need a digital small business marketing plan

There is no doubt that the landscape of small business marketing is changing and with these revealing numbers, digital marketing is here to stay. Are you prepared for 2013?

Google confirms hidden SEO benefit of authorship: bonus links after a clicking the back button

Digging into useful SEO information out there for you readers is one of my favorite things to do, and in doing so, I stumbled upon something that will benefit anyone who actively stays on top of Google trends.  Today, I stumbled upon an article that confirmed the hidden SEO benefits of Google Authorship.

What is this SEO benefit?

According to Search Engine Land’s Matt McGee:

If a user returns to the search results after reading an author-tagged search result for a certain period of time, Google will add three additional links to similar articles from the same author below the originally clicked link.

Really??!! What exactly does this mean and how does this happen?

If you do a Google search and pick a result that has an author rich snippet associated with the article, read the article for a short period of time and click the back button, Google will then include “More by (author)” along with three links to other articles.

You read that correctly, Google will build you back links! You can actually do this yourself by reading your own articles as well and add this to your daily SEO routine. Search for your posts, click and read, then hit the back button. Although, you can’t do this with haste as Google is measuring time-on-site to determine if a reader enjoys the content. There is no specific information out there on how much time a user needs to spend on a post, but tests out there on the Internet determined a minimum of 2 minutes.

Google has confirmed the following:

If a user visits an article by an author and it seems like they’d be interested in finding more articles by this author, when they click the “Back” button to return to the results page, we’ll show more results by that author.

This is all very good news for us bloggers and SEO professionals out there! Link building is a challenge since Google clamped down on this past year with algorithm updates. Too many links too quick will get you penalized! This is a safe and Orangehat way– it’s also Google approved!

To learn how to use Author Rich Snippets for SEO, read my article about how to set it up so you too can take advantage of this hidden SEO feature.

Example of Authorship Snippet

Read more SEO tips and tricks by Ryan Neal

All to many times through out my circles of  colleagues, potential customers and even my friends, I hear that social media is not a good tool for marketing.

That just could not be further from the truth… Here are some common objections that I have heard about social media and it’s place in business.

My Customers Don’t Use Social Media

Really? Have your customers heard of the Internet? This has got to be on of the most naive statements I have ever heard! Do a quick search on the Internet and you’ll find something like this:

Facebook: 955 million users; more than 42 million pages and 9 million apps
Youtube: 4 billion views per day
Google+: 250 million registered users

-Craig Smith on Social Media

Chances are, your customers are in that mix somewhere… also, that is a lot of prospects to go after and market to!

Social media is not for our business

If your business is not about marketing for dollars, then this could apply. I assume that it is a common misconception that social media is just a place for friends and that no one pays attention to marketers. Your brand has a story to tell, so be social and put a human face to your brand!  A successful social media campaign will bring in: AWARENESS, SALES, and LOYALTY 

Nobody tweets about us, so we don’t need social media

This statement is true to those that do not give people something to tweet about. This could also be true for businesses and people with boring concepts and marketing strategies. Look into viral marketing, these types of campaigns are successful because they are exciting and have the ability to generate buzz. Give people something to share and talk about and your idea could hit levels that were once unimaginable!

Social media is just marketing

Social media plays a role in marketing, sure! But it’s much deeper than that. Social media is a way to engage people and even manage your customers! These day, people are quick to turn to social media and either praise or trash, so why not give them the avenue to come straight to you? Social media could even limit the time spent on the phones talking to irate customers and show publicly how well you can handle a situation.

If you’re not using social media in this digital age, you are truly falling behind. Sure you may not see instant result, but you build the story and reputation of you brand. That is the most important part of the whole game.

Author Rank is Google’s new way to prove page quality and authority.

In the world of SEO, it just seems that we’re constantly bombarded with updates and new technologies from the search engines. In fact, it’s reported that Google updates their algorithm nearly 500 times a year! With all of this, it is tough to know what’s what, how to do it, as well as when to start. All one can really do is stay diligent and read SEO blogs like this everyday to get a clearer picture of what’s coming.

Author Rank is indeed on its way, and if you want to stay relevant, you need to learn what it is, why you need it and how to prepare.

Google wants to leverage authors as a factor in ranking pages and sites so that the experience for users  is easier to find the work of their favorite writers.  Getting a head start in the Author Rank process and staying proactive, you will have a great opportunity to rank higher as author profiles are not being practiced very widely yet.

It is highly likely your competitors haven’t looked into Author Rank markup yet.

How Author Rank Works

In Google’s words (Author rank was originally Agent Rank)

The name of the writer can be used to influence the ranking of web search results by indicating the writer responsible for a particular content piece … Assuming that a given writer has a high reputational score, representing an established reputation for authoring valuable content, then additional content authored and signed by that writer will be promoted relative to unsigned content or content from less reputable writers in search results.

Here is a nice graphic from Mike Arnesen’s Author Rank post on SEOMOZ that paints a picture of the concept:

As you can see here, the left side is before and the right is after. What is happening in this example is the authors that have setup the Author Rich Snippets are being rewarded. They have author rich snippets integrated into their page or post and this allows them to show a photo, give the name of the author, how many people are following this author and more content from the author. Author Rank adds a lot of credibility to the content and Google will reward that.

Which ones in the example look like a credible source? Which would you choose to view?

How to prepare for Author Rank.

There’s only one way to make sure you’re ready, and I wrote about it in my post about author rich snippets as they help will help with Author Rank. Follow the steps in that post, and you will be ready!

As I mentioned above, SEO, search engines, content marketing is not the easiest subject to tackle. GuruBloggers is here to help you learn or assist! So subscribe to our blog and newsletters to stay on top of the trends or give us a call if you need our assistance with your business marketing needs. We are here to help you!

Author Rich Snippets help Google organize your pages and posts!

In the world of SEO and content marketing, it is very important to not only appear high in rankings, but that your displayed result is both eye catching as well as informative as to what the content is about. This will help users better identify with your search result as your message comes across before visiting the page.  Author Rich Snippets also give credibility by making well organized content stand out over spammy sites and amateurs by displaying your name as the author along with your G+ profile picture. There is also information on displayed about the number other posts or pages created by the author.

Can you spot the Author Rich Snippets?

Author Rich Snippets take direction from Open Graph Protocol tags that are inserted into pages and posts.

If you are familiar with OGP (open graph protocol), then you’re more than half way there! I also did a write up about how OGP works, a post that lists the tags and even a write up about a WordPlus plugin that makes it all very easy. Feel free to reference those posts if Author Rich Snippets and OGP are unfamiliar.It will be best to know what you’re working with and exactly why you’re doing it.

How to setup Author Rich Snippets

As with just about everything on the Internet, there are multiple ways to accomplish a single goal. The same applies to Author Rich Snippets. No matter what path you take to get this done, there is one step that can not be skipped, over looked or even worked around to get your Author Rich Snippets to work…

First you must create a Google+ profile.

That’s right! In order to take advantage of Author Rich Snippets,  you will need a G+ profile with your full name and a facial photo of yourself that you want displayed! You will also have to set yourself up as a contributor to your website in your profile settings.  If or when your profile is setup, follow this link and enter in the website, or sites, you write for.

Take notice to the image I have to the right, it is a screen shot of Google’s search results, you should now be able to see which are the Author Rich Snippets and which are not! Which search results stand out to you? Which ones build that instant trust?

Adding HTML tags to your posts for Author Rich Snippets.

Now that your G+ is ready, you will need to add a few things to link your blog posts so that Google can clearly identify the relationship to display the Author Rich Text Snippets. This can be done by using a link to your Google+ profile, coupled with the rel=author query string parameter.

Author Rich Snippets HTML Tags should look like this:

<a href=“{G+ profile URL}” rel=”author”>Firstname Lastname</a>

Mine looks like this:

<a href=“https://plus.google.com/116634598694124071705″ rel=”author”>Ryan Neal</a>

Where you actually place the link on your post is up to you, maybe use an “About the Author” section. Depending on the level of access you have, this option should work in most cases. Once you have placed your tag, don’t wait for days and just hope that it works, test it! Google has an Author Rich Snippets Testing Tool that will check the format on one of your posts. If Google returns an example of your Author Rich Snippets then everything is in order! Ok… now what most of you are probably here for…

A simple WordPress plugin that makes it easy and a one time deal to setup your Author Rich Snippets.

 The plugin name Google Authorship by Mervin Praison does everything we need to make our Author Rich Snippets work.  You can download the plugin from the WordPress website, or install it through the dashboard. The best part is you just need set it up one time and your Author Rich Snippets are good to go! Just set it and forget it!

The plugin places “Google Plus profile information” into your User Settings through the WordPress dashboard. Setup the plugin by copying and pasting your G+ profile URL along with your full name. Click update profile and you’re done! Now any page your create on your WordPress blog or website will be Author Rich Snippets ready!

I have been on the search for advice on monetizing my blog designs and web templates.

I don’t just mean the most elegant looking of blog designs, but a template that is designed to get the most out of the traffic that my website and blog may get. So, in the nature of GuruBloggers, I thought I would share with you some of my findings…

Study on blog designs and websites

This is a screen shot of a study done on blog designs and website layouts with eye tracking software. The colors represent areas of where random people’s eyes concentrate on while viewing different blog designs and website layouts. The red area represents where eyes view the blog designs content, and where blog designs get the most attention. The yellow comes in next, with blue being last and rarely viewed with any attention at all.

On the far left, we have one example of many blog designs that is a text rich piece of content. We can see where the content has nearly all the web surfer’s attention. Notice the where the red is concentrated the most, this is how much focus the article actually received. Keep your content short but keep it interesting and do a soft sale in the last 100 words!

In the middle we have a website that has banners, a large image placed on top, an ad on the top far right and the content in the middle. Notice how the most concentrated on part of the content only shows red at the beginning of the lines— this means the content is barely looked at the further right and down as the text in the article continues…

On the far right, we have a search result screen shot from Google. This shot is probably the most important reason we blog, work and play on social media, as well as spend time and money on enhancing the SEO on websites. This shows where people pay most attention to in the search engines, and it’s not the ads on the far right. It is the organic search results. It seems to be a familiar result, I too often look to the first 3 results in Google!

15 tips to know about websites and blog designs.

• Text actually captivates an audience more than pictures.
• People begin viewing websites from the top left, much like a book!
• Banners often get ignored.
• Don’t use fancy fonts in blog designs, people tend to ignore those too.
• Lower parts websites are usually just scanned, so keep the good stuff at the top.
• Short paragraphs will keep your audience’s attention, keep it around 300 words.
• Blog design and websites with the ads on the top or left part of the content to get the most views.
• Place ads in your content or right below and get more views.
• Big pictures catch more eyes than smaller ones.
• Headlines draw attention and make your pieces more credible and convincing. Choosing the right CSS for blog designs can make a headline really stand out.
• Web users spend more time navigating menus of blog designs and looking at the buttons of a website.
• Bullet points are better at keeping readers’ attention compared to large paragraphs the also.
• Some will skip large chunks of text.
• Nothing wrong with white space! It helps blog designs stay neat and organized.
• Place menus on the top part of a website, web-surfers are used to looking up for navigation.

While we may not implement some of these tips here on GuruBloggers, it is nice to know for our clients’ blog designs and we like to share information that we find even more! So when you in the creating process, keep all of this in mind to make the most out of layout!

Be on the look out for blog designs and web templates from GuruBloggers for you to download!

Sources: BBC News | GoogleBlog | DreamGrow