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How To Set Up A WordPress blog
Rebecca Eaton | May 2nd, 2012
It seems like everyone is a blogger these days, from grandmothers writing about their favorite recipes, to trend-spotters writing about their new favorite looks for the season. The user-friendliness of web publishing tools and the ability to monetize those sites with minimal effort has lead to an explosion in the blog space. Recent stats from WordPress show anywhere from 15.1 million to 17.4 million blogs have been created on the platform alone.
What Is A Blog?
A blog is essentially a website that allows the users to post updates, photos and videos on an ongoing basis. Viewers can then read posts chronologically or search posts by different categories or tags.
Types Of Blogs
There are a number of different types of blogs from company and corporate blogs to personal blogs. A personal blog can chronicle a life event, like a child being born or ones travel escapades. Other people may use their site as a way to make money. Blogs allow individuals to make money either directly selling products and services on the site, or through advertisements that are placed on the site. When people click on the ads, the blog owner gets paid a set amount. The more traffic to your site and the more ad clicks, the more money you can earn. One of the most popular blog platforms out there is WordPress because it is easy to use and free to install.
To Start
Before you can start a blog, you need to get a domain name, which is the URL address that people type into their browser to get to your page. To do this, you can go to a domain site like Godaddy.com to see if the URL you want is available. Typically, reserving your domain name will cost around $10 per year.
Posted in Blogging | No Comments
How To Improve Organic Search Rankings
Rebecca Eaton | May 1st, 2012
Organic. Is it better? That seems to be an ongoing point of contention in the foodie world. But in the SEO world, hands down, organic traffic is not only better, it is necessary to ensure that your website gets the attention it deserves, which comes in the form of higher search rankings.
Organic traffic is any traffic that comes to your site naturally, through search criteria rather than someone clicking on a paid advertisement for your site. Most large companies spend a lot of time and money optimizing their website content with the goal of gaining high organic search rankings. While there is no tried and true strategy to ensure that your website can get on the first page of the search engine results, there are a number of agreed upon tactics in the industry that can help you get off to the right start.
Keywords
Everything goes back to keywords. One of the primary ways a search engine finds your site is by taking into account the keywords in your title tags, meta descriptions, and URL. When you pick the domain name for your site, try to use a name that includes your main keywords. If you are an independent plumber in Los Angeles, you might get a lot of competition from big companies with keywords like “plumber Los Angeles,” but having a domain name like laplumber.com or losangelesplumber.com will give you a huge advantage from the start. Of course, the hardest part will be getting a domain name that is not already taken. If necessary, you could also try adding hyphens between the keywords in your URL to see if it is available.
Nearly as important as using the keywords in your URL are the keywords in your title tag. The title tag is the clickable headline that comes up in blue in the SERPs (search engine results page). It’s the first thing that visitors see about your page before deciding whether or not to click on it. Use your main keywords towards the beginning of the title and try to create an enticing title that will draw visitors to your site.
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How To Remove A Negative Listing In Search Results
Rebecca Eaton | April 27th, 2012
You know that old saying, if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all? Unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to the online world. If someone has a gripe with you or your company, it’s likely that the first thing they will do is go online and vent their frustrations about it through a negative review. 
The bad news is, unless they say something so harmful and blatantly false, that a court would consider it libel, there isn’t much you can do to get it removed. Rather than spending time and money trying to battle negative online chatter through legal means, a far better strategy to combat such situations is to use SEO to make the negative listing become less prominent in search results and make the positive listings rank higher.
Here are a few things you can do to start combating negative listings:
Write Press Releases
Many companies don’t spend enough time tooting their own horns, especially when it comes to all the good work they may be doing in their communities. A good way to get the word out is by writing press releases. Maybe your employees have volunteered hundreds of hours at a local charity, you’ve donated money to a scholarship program, or you just started composting all the waste your restaurant uses; these are great items to share in a press release.
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How To Get More Facebook Fans
Rebecca Eaton | April 10th, 2012
You’ve created a Facebook fan page for your business and now you can just sit back, put your feet up and 
watch the numbers of fans grow, right? Not quite. With millions of Facebook business pages out there, getting a high number of faithful followers will take some time and creative thinking. But the benefits are worth it.
Getting a large fan following on Facebook doesn’t just get your company’s name and brand out to the masses; it gives your business priceless creditability. When you go to a Facebook fan page for a business you’ve never heard of before and see that it has 40,000 fans, don’t you take it more seriously than a business with 82 fans?
Here are five tips to help you boost page viewers into a legion of adoring fans.
Ask
Once you set up your Facebook fan page, it’s easy to send out invites to all of your friends and family members asking them to like your page, and if you’ve linked your business page to your personal page, it’s even easier. Use the Invite Friends link to accomplish this. If they don’t sign up after a few weeks, send a reminder. Also send out an email to your current database of clients and contacts and ask them to like you on Facebook. Be sure to include 
the link so they can do it in one click. Another way to indirectly ask people to become your fan is by including a link below the signature block of your business emails. You can even set up the link to go to a specially created Facebook Welcome tab that visitors can like.
Facebook to Acquire Instagram for $1 Billion
Rebecca Eaton | April 9th, 2012
According to Mark Zuckerberg’s Timeline post from earlier today, Facebook is in agreement to acquire Instagram, the popular photo-sharing mobile app, for approximately $1 billion, which will be paid in cash and Facebook shares. The deal is expected to close by the end of this quarter.
Zuckerberg wrote, “This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.”
With more than 27 million iOS users alone and last weeks launch of Instagram for Android which led to more than 1 million downloads within the first 24 hours, Instagram had become it’s own social network. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom wants users to know “that Instagram is not going away,” which he posted on the company’s blog today.
Not everybody is as excited
about this acquisition as Mark Zuckerberg. Quite a few Instagram users have Tweeted that they will be deleting their accounts in fear that it will never be the same now that Facebook is taking over. Due to the backlash, some tech blogs have posted how to save your Instagram photos before deleting your account. If you are one of these frustrated users, you should know that once you delete your account your photos will be gone and you will not be able to re-register with the same username.
Posted in facebook, Internet News | No Comments
Client Profile – Bas Rutten: Cohesive Social Media Optimization Shows Significant Increase in Fans
Rebecca Eaton | March 28th, 2012
Situation:
Bas Rutten, retired MMA fighter and UFC champion, came to Wpromote in October of 2011 looking to generate more fans and gain exposure across all social media platforms. He wanted to be portrayed more as an actor and entertainer than a fighter, having been retired from competitive fighting for more than 10 years.
Challenges:
The biggest challenge in bringing an overall cohesiveness to Bas Rutten’s social media profiles was that there were six different Facebook accounts in reference to Bas Rutten, only one of which was actually managed by him. Because of the large variety of Bas Rutten profiles, his many fans were spread thin across all of the accounts versus one profile being connected with all of his fans.
Strategy:
To begin optimizing Bas Rutten’s social media campaign, Wpromote reached out to our contact at Facebook to merge all Bas Rutten accounts. Once this was achieved, his vanity URL, www.facebook.com/BasRutten, was established, which maintains consistent branding and enhances search results across the web, increasing exposure. Then a new badge was created utilizing maximum real estate and effectively branding the page. The badge also included more information about Bas Rutten. A Welcome tab, also known as a fan gate, was then created, which does not allow non-fans to interact with the page, incentivizing the fan to click “Like.” The Info tab was modified to include current information and links to his official website and other social media profiles. New tabs, such as the Gear Shop & Share, O2 Trainer, Body Action System, and YouTube were added. The Shop & Share tab made it possible for fans to directly shop for Bas Rutten’s official gear without leaving Facebook, creating revenue for the brand. Daily engagements were posted promoting products, videos, and public appearances, which increased impressions and fan interactions. All comments and posts by fans were responded to in a timely manner and encouraged further interaction.
In order to supplement organic growth on the Facebook Fan Page, Facebook advertisements began running in the second month of the campaign. These ads targeted the core demographic of potential fans that had not connected with Bas Rutten yet. The ads had an estimated reach of more than 6 million users.
Posted in Client Profile, Social Media | No Comments
