SEO and Social Media

In today’s online climate, you constantly hear about how brands should be monitoring social media for conversations.  Most brands don’t do this now though many agencies and vendors are offering services to do the monitoring, and providing recommendations to effectively act on these conversations (whether it’s damage control or customer acquisition). I have seen brands like Zappos pay attention to my social media posts on Twitter, and reach out to me personally – well, maybe it was an agency. Still I couldn’t help feel a unique connection with this otherwise faceless brand. From that reach-out, I now have a one on one connection to Zappos through Twitter. I’m a perfect target for their marketing.

I found a great online tool who’s goal is to “deliver the most relevant and current conversations happening in the world of social media.” - Whostalkin.com . It’s a bit like BlogPulse, though I’m not sure who has the deeper spider. Whostalkin does let you segment different networks which is a useful feature.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Twitter is a great marketing tool if you use it right.  Like any social media, it’s a relationship building tool.  When you earn the love and loyalty of your network, you find your stage has a pretty bright spotlight.  The more you use Twitter and contribute useful content, the more you find followers will find you.  There are many tools where your authority can be found (Mr Tweet and Twellow are my favs), aside from just surfing Twitter itself.

Twitter offers the ability to send a direct message to people who follow you.  Have you ever noticed on occasion when you opt to follow someone, you immediately receive a direct message with something like “thanks for following – check out my site at www…”  For that direct message to be sent, the Twitterer is either doing it manually (unlikely, especially if they’re busy) or using a web 2.0 tool like Tweetlater.  This Twitter auto respond tool lets you schedule your tweets, but also has a convenient “auto-reply” feature:

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Pretty useful to market yourself a little further.  Just make sure you have something to say in your Twitter auto messages.  It’s a great way to Twitter clients specifically, as well.

For those who were curious but didn’t ask, my Twitter obsession also hits Tweetdeck, Twhirl, TweetEffect, TwitterGrader, TweetBurner, Tweepler, MyTweeple, and TweetVolume pretty often.  I’m about as addicted to these as I am Firefox extensions. Click To Read More...

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The Firefox browser is an amazing, innovative browser.  It’s fun watching IE copy its features (well, as many as its architecture can allow, which isn’t many – MS doesn’t rebuild, so Firefox should be enjoying their notoriety for a long time to come).  I was an early adopter, but it’s pretty amazing how many people use this browser now – it’s not just advanced web surfers anymore.  I was helping my 60 year old mother install a webcam and saw the Firefox browser.  Impressed, I asked her how she heard about it.  She said, “well, I don’t want Spyware.”  Wow.

For those who still don’t use Firefox, here’s some reasons you should take the plunge.  If you’re a traditional IE user, believe me, learning this browser is a piece of cake.

1. Download Manager makes controlling and revisiting your downloads easier
2. Faster – uses less computer resources
3. Smart Location Bar – this makes entering URLs easier
4. Great privacy controls
5. Security!!!!!!!!! <- reason enough to choose Firefox over IE
6. Better webpage rendering
7. Zoom in on text and images (cntrl +/-)
8. HUGELY customizable

That last one is a big one (and the reason for this post).  With hundreds of homemade Firefox extensions on the web, you can customize your browser to make your internet life easier.  If you’re a web developer, there are extensions to help you locate and analyze code, view pages in cross-browser emulation, disable style codes or JavaScript, and a lot more.  If you are a social media fanatic, there are extensions that make your browser interact with your favorite sites more naturally.  It’s pretty addictive to search for these extensions, especially if you’re a tinkerer like me.  Here’s a bunch including ad blockers, tab controllers, image viewers, and cool ways to save pages for easier use later (I haven’t used my browsers bookmark function in a while thanks to some of these plugins).

How does Firefox help Googling?

Greasemonkey is a Firefox Extension that allows for sub-extensions (called scripts, also found by Googling ‘greasemonkey scripts’ or something similiar).  Search Engine Journal just posted 14 Essential Greasemonkey Scripts for Google Searching, and had a few I didn’t know about.  Some of these scripts are useful to the average searcher.  They do a great job of summarizing each script, so take a look.

To use these scripts, you just have to install the Greasmonkey extension first, then go to the script pages and click INSTALL.  That couldn’t be easier.

How does Firefox help SEO?

There are plenty of Firefox extensions for search engine optimization, allowing for quick site audits, spider emulation, NoFollow checkers, user-agent switchers (view a site as Google), and code viewers.

Again, these sites do a great job describing and sending you to the tools.  Tackle these after lunch for an hour, and I guarantee the web will look a lot better.  Enjoy -

http://seo2.0.onreact.com/top-10-firefox-extensions-for-search-website-optimization-and-seo-i-use

http://tips.webdesign10.com/firefox-seo-extensions

http://www.automaticable.com/2008-04-29/the-top-12-seo-firefox-extensions/

Popularity: 20% [?]