Tag Archives: Wexford

Why use Facebook landing pages?

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Facebook Landing Pages. Many Facebook pages have them, others don’t. Today, we will talk about landing tabs and their importance on a Facebook page.

If you want to increase the number of people who “like” your business on Facebook you should create a landing page for them. Here’s why.

Most businesses who have a presence on Facebook do it because “everyone else is doing it,” or “I was told I needed one,” or some other vague, undefined reason. They set up their free page, update it a few times, and generally ignore it.

Then they wonder why it’s not working.

Being successful on Facebook requires that you have a social media strategy that matches up with your business goals. Otherwise you’re just wasting your time and your limited resources.

If engaging your audience on the world’s biggest social network will help you grow your business, then you need to take it seriously.

One critical part of increasing your likes is to have a landing page. Your Facebook landing page serves multiple purposes:

• Sets the stage. Your wall can be a fun, engaging space when you do it well. However, for someone less familiar with your business, it may feel chaotic and overwhelming. A landing page explains who you are and acts as an introduction to your Facebook presence.

• Explains the benefit of liking your business. Although liking a page isn’t a big commitment–just a click will do it–there will certainly be “like fatigue” as people are bombarded to like more pages on Facebook. A landing page can explain why someone should like your page and what benefits they may receive: discounts, daily tips, ability to engage with a brand or company they like IRL. (In Real Life.)

• Extends your brand(ing). Whenever you setup an outpost on a social media platform, you want to ensure that your brand is visible. In conjunction with your profile photo (the image on the left hand side of all your pages), your landing page can help establish your brand in the mind of your prospects and customers. Make sure that your brand’s personality comes through.

• Shows that you take Facebook seriously. It’s too easy to get started on Facebook, which is why every business seems to have a Facebook business page. Whenever you use a social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) you’ll get better engagement when you make your profile look “lived in.”

The new way to build Facebook pages is to have them hosted externally and embed them on Facebook using an iFrame. (Talk to if you reread that last sentence three times and still aren’t sure what it means. That means that anything you can do on a regular page you can do on your Facebook landing page: photos, forms, embedded video… it’s all available for you to engage and persuade your audience.

So, if you want to get in front of the 750 million people using Facebook (or, more likely, a targeted segment of that audience), then add a customized, branded landing page and start getting more likes today.

Increase your facebook likes today

How will Google+ affect SEO?

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By now you’ve probably heard about Google+, the latest social networking craze and most recent effort by Google to take on Facebook and Twitter. But did you know that it could affect how your business’s website gets found on Google’s search engine?

In addition to building a social networking powerhouse, Google’s aim with its “+1″ button — the equivalent of Facebook’s “Like” button — is to determine the social value of websites, or, in other words, they want consumers to add personalized recommendations to Web content and business sites. At present, it actually looks like Google may just pull it off. Since its June 28 release, more than 20 million people have already jumped onboard Google+. With such an unbelievable early adoption rate, many internet marketing professionals are beginning to wonder if those “+1″s will also start affecting how businesses use search-engine optimization, or SEO.

Google+ combines many popular features of Facebook and Twitter into a centralized social hub. There’s a group video chat feature called “Hangouts,” and a user-defined topical news feed (like Twitter’s hashtag) called “Sparks.” But maybe the most unique feature — and SEO-relevant — is “Google Circles,” which gives users the ability to share content with specified groups, or “circles” of people. As users build these circles, they’ll be able to see the sites that members of their circles have +1′d in Google’s search engine results pages, or SERPs.

While “+1″s are currently appearing in the search pages for users that are logged in to their Google accounts, it’s too early to say exactly how “+1″s will affect users who aren’t logged in. Looking at how Facebook and Twitter “Likes” and “retweets” currently affect where a site appears within search pages, one has to assume these +1′s will be as influential, if not more.

How will Google+ affect SEO?

As search engines evolve to make searching more social, the main value added of “Likes” and “tweets” showing in SERPs is the concept of something I like to call, “trusted endorsements.” If someone searches for a product or service, there’s a good chance that customer reviews and recommendations will play some role in their decision making process. When looking at these reviews, users trust the opinions of strangers. They assume that these reviews are honest, but there’s always a hint of lingering skepticism.

Now imagine the same user is searching for the same product or service, but instead of having to rely on the opinions of strangers, they see recommendations from friends, co-workers or family members. Just like in real life, the opinions of people in their “circles” influence the decisions they make. That’s the potential Google+ holds.

So, how do you optimize for recommendations?

Google has built upon some of the best features of existing social media sites in an attempt to make search less about computer algorithms and more about real people. Google+ and the +1 button are empowering users to influence other peoples’ online activity.

This isn’t SEO in the traditional sense, optimizing for these trusted endorsements is an entirely new strategy altogether. Now more than ever, marketers must focus on providing the best customer experience possible, and encourage +1 recommendations everywhere they can.

Source: Mike Spadier is the online marketing manager for InMotion Hosting, a Los Angeles based Web hosting provider specializing in small- and medium-sized businesses.