1. Branding
2. Search engine coverage
3. It’s easy to remember for you and your customers

Branding

If you look around, the companies that tend to really do well, are very good at branding. For example: Red Bull, Apple, and Virgin - are all great companies that have remarkable branding. So follow in their footsteps. Make sure you settle down on a logo, style guide and company mission statement first before you do anything. These are critical steps that are necessary to take any sized business into “legendary” status.

Your Facebook page happens to be yet another a place where you need to focus on a few branding issues. First is your URL. You don’t want the default URL that Facebook gives you (the one with the long string of numbers on it). What you want is:

The other branding issue on your Facebook page is your company logo. Be sure that it looks good and it is properly sized.

Search Engine Coverage

One often over looked, but very important advantage of having your own Facebook URL - has to do with more search engine coverage. By having a properly branded Facebook page, there is a higher chance that when someone looks up your business on Google both your website and your Facebook page will show up. The goal here is to cover the first page of Google with only listings that are owned by your business and no one else. You want to minimize the chance of someone else clicking on another listing that isn’t yours.

It’s easy to remember

It’s much easier for your customers to find you on Facebook and it’s also easy for you to tell people to “Like” your Facebook page, when you have a much simpler URL. It may not seem like much, but I’m sure there will be times when you’ll be happy that you took care of this minor detail.

How To Do It

The hardest part of this process is really just finding where in Facebook you go to do this. I noticed that Facebook pages have two types of account interfaces…and I really don’t know why. Their page system is very confusing.

Step 1. Login to the Facebook account that your Page is associated with

Many of us have personal and business Facebook accounts. Make sure you log into the account that you have set up for business.

Step 2. Click on the little arrow in the upper right hand corner. Select “Use Facebook as a Page”.

Note: If you don’t see what is shown below - listen up: Depending on how your account is set up, you may need to select “pages” from the menu on the left. Then select the page you want to create a URL for AND then click on edit page.

Step 3. Find the tab called “Basic Information” and select it.

Step 4. Click on “Create a username for this page?”

Step 5. Enter Your Desired Username.

Try to keep your user name consistent across all social networks. For instance, you should generally use the same username you use for your business Twitter account.

Step 6. Check to make sure you typed in the correct name, and click confirm

Pretty easy right. Now the next step is to learn how to use Facebook effectively for your business. Check our education section soon for more “Facebook for Small Business” articles.

How Can Google + Help Your Business?

There are more than fifty popular business collaboration suites available, most costing anywhere between $50 to $150 a month. Countless thousands of companies pay this amount gladly since it allows all of their far-flung staff to communicate in a categorized environment where projects can be implemented in real time.

Paying around $1,000 a year for this level of facility is not a consideration for major corporations, but to a small business operating in what seems to be a perpetually recessionary economy it can be a considerable expenditure.

There is one business collaboration suite which is completely free and not only allows your personnel to do almost anything that the leading packages can, but it comes with the extra added advantage that it is offered by the world’s leading online juggernaut. It’s Google+.

The Poor Man’s Basecamp

You won’t find Google’s social network advertised as a business collaboration suite, but it works remarkably well as the poor man’s Basecamp. To be fair, it needs to be paired up with Google Docs, but given the Googleplex’s proclivity to harmonizing all of their various offerings so that they all interact seamlessly, it’s not much of a stretch.

1 Project = 1 Post + 500 Comments

Google+ project management communication is easily accomplished by simply typing a heading name into the Stream dialog box: PROJECT #1 - WIDGET R&D. From that point on, any participant in that project can easily post any comments as easily as leaving a message on Facebook’s Wall, and opt to receive an email notification of each comment. Each comment is time-stamped so it’s an easy task to reconstruct who said what and when. There is no limit to how many projects can be ongoing at any one time, and Google+ will automatically reshuffle them to show the latest commented projects at the top of the list. There is a limit of 500 comments per post, but that’s easily worked around for very long projects by creating a new post: PROJECT #1A – WIDGET R&D CONT’D. When the number of posts become too voluminous to scan, your browser’s Find dialog will readily pop the desired entry up.

Circles within Circles

The Google+ Circles can be harnessed to create an almost endless variety of subgroupings. By setting up your Circles appropriately, you can have a large circle encompassing everyone, and unlimited smaller circles, where Mary and Bob can privately discuss the particular cog in the widget they’re designing together, and where John and Sally can gossip behind everybody’s back.

Google+ works seamlessly with Docs

Collaborating on files is Google Docs’ middle name, so it’s easy enough to keep track of the individual contributions to any given project. Bringing Google Calendar into the fold can take care of all your progress scheduling and deadlines. If you want to show your collaborators a quick image you don’t even have to resort to uploading it to the Docs, as you can use the photo upload facility to post it right to the Stream. One of the greatest advantage to the “Google+ business collaboration suite” is its inherent portability and ease of use. There is effectively no learning curve (a claim many “real” packages can’t make) and access is as easy on a smartphone as it is on a desktop PC.

If you have a regional office in each state and hundreds of employees who need to work on single projects, then not only can you easily afford a major suite but it’s likely going to be a better fit for your requirements. However, if you’re a small business squeezing quarters until the eagle squeals then you may want to cobble together your own suite through Google’s surprisingly broad range of collaboration services. You’ll find them capable, reliable, portable, and best of all: Free!

About the Author: Francis Santos is a blogger for Benchmark Email and also the executive editor for a popular news blog.

0. Go to Google Analytics

Click here to go to Google Analytics.

Note: If you are already logged into your Gmail account, generally you be able to automatically log into Google Analytics.

1. Click on the account you want to access.

2. Click on the website you want to access.

3. Click on add user.

4. Enter the email address & select website.

Be sure to choose the right website you want to share with your team member, webmaster or whoever. Also, the person you are sharing your Google Analytics account can only access it if their email address is associated with a Google account.

5. Press Save.

Kissmetrics.com is a unique web analytics company that focuses on making other companies more data driven. What does that mean?

Good Data Let’s You Make The Best Decisions

All online companies have is access to very good data. The problem is that common web analytics solutions are lacking ways to process that data into something meaningful. They actually leave a lot of important “stuff” out.

One thing that KISSmetrics does differently is track people and not just pageviews. What you want to know about your website traffic is more about who they are, than some arbitrary quantification of flux. Knowing more about who your visitors are, allows you to make better decisions moving forward. It’s time to start thinking about your analytics in terms of useful feedback, instead of just vanity metrics. Here are some cool things you can do with KISSmetrics:

• Track a user’s conversion progress over multiple sessions.
• Webpage A/B testing.
• Calculate the lifetime value of a user.

Who is KISSmetrics For?

KISSmetrics is not really for small brick and mortar businesses. It’s more for online businesses. It’s really helpful for online businesses that sell a product or service. For example, if your online business sells various subscriptions packages, KISSmetrics is something you would want to use to improve your subscriptions sign ups. In a nutshell: KISSmetrics was designed to increase your online business’s revenue.

A Little About KISSinsights

Learn what Google Analytics can’t tell you..

KISSinsights.com is another tool that was built by KISSmetrics. This tools is awesome! On the surface it just seems like another feedback tool. Let me run down the amazing features of this tool:

The Basics

• Collect feedback from your website visitors.
• Conduct multiple choice surveys on your website.

The Secrets:

• Run a net promoter score survey on your website.
• Collect open ended free form text responses.
• Install the Javascript code once, and never touch it again.
• Update, change survey styles from the KISSinsights dashboard without having to update code.

So to illustrate how cool this tool is, let’s say you run a multiple choice survey on your site for a week. At the end of the week you received enough data to make you satisfied to move forward. Now you want to simply run a feedback form that says “Is there something you’re looking for today?”. All you have to do is: login into your KISSinsights account and change your multiple choice survey into a simple question feedback form. You can even run both at the same time, or on different pages! This feedback/survey tool is highly flexible, customizable and really lightweight. I suggest you use it, and spend a lot of time with it. You’ll be amazed at what you learn from the responses you receive.

“People are literally telling me what I need to do to get them to pay me money.” - @allanbranch of lesseverything on KISSinsights

Bing Local Center Is Broken

I went to Bing today to fill out my local business listing info (which I recommend everyone to do). Unfortunately, I can’t fill out my listing because their CAPTCHA is broken. I have a feeling it’s been broken for quite some time.

Before I get too deep into this, can anyone verify this for me? I checked on both IE and Firefox and I can’t see the CAPTCHA. I also checked it out on another computer and I still can’t see it.

If this has been going on since the Bing Local Listing inception, this is quite an oversight. To Bing: Would you like to hire us to double-check your site out for you? We would be glad to be of service.

Anyway, here is a screenshot of where I get stuck:

Engineers at Bing: Please fix this so we can add our businesses to your database. Thanks!

UPDATE:

Our friend Carlos went to check out the Bing Local Business Listing Center on his Mac from his cushy office at Napster.

Shortly after we released our post, he found that the Business Listing Center was down:

He went back a little later and got this wonderful message, saying that the Bing Business Listing Center doesn’t support Mac users. OMG. Great customer service eh?

Please Die

I’ve been doing a lot of web design lately and Internet Explorer has been giving me more trouble like never before. I mean, I’ve been doing web design since 1999 and I’ve never liked that browser. But lately, IE will just not behave. And it never has, but I’m finding myself spending more time than ever trying to figure out why it’s making weird gaps and doing all kinds of strange things…

I was walking to get coffee this morning and this t-shirt idea hit me like a ton of bricks. Please D-IE. Please DIE IE. Please DIE INTERNET EXPLORER! Yeah seriously - who needs you? This stupid browser has been giving web designers hell for over ten years now! Ever look at source code that says “IF IE use this style sheet”? I mean, c’mon, why does IE have to make it extra hard for us? Can’t we all abide by one set of standards!

The only reason why we have to fix these IE “bugs” is because all our clients who are not coders, web geeks, or internet business professionals use IE. They use it because it came installed on their computer. They don’t even know what FireFox is. They don’t know Google has a browser. I always find myself muttering: “Why are you using this!?”

Remember when IE was a security hole for PCs? That should of been the last straw. Thanks. Thanks for giving us a browser that is tied to your crappy operating system that causes a security hole for the entire machine!

I think the only time I used IE exclusively was during that weird gap when Netscape had died, and Mozilla wasn’t fully developed yet. I think it was around 2002. That was the period where there was only one choice for an internet browser. I used IE for about a year back then. But as soon as Mozilla got stable I was on it like flies on you know what. Thank God!

What about that stupid “Active-X” warning that use to always pop up every time you went to a website? What the hell was that for? It’s like you have to click all these extra buttons to turn sh*t off and on just to browse the internet. Their slogan should of been “Just like learning how to surf in the ocean, surfing with IE is going to be reeeeeally difficult.”

But it’s still around. No one chooses to use it. It’s just there on every new fricken computer that comes out. Sitting there in that bottom menu bar, waiting to cause more pain…

Anyway, I need to get back to check a website out in IE 6, IE 7 and IE 8. Great…..

Oh yeah, back to the T-Shirt. Someone please make it. I’ll buy it off you. I’ll be your first customer

Is Your Business Card Working For You?

A couple months ago I started to run out of business cards. The last time I designed my business cards, I rushed through the process and they didn’t provide the greatest return. This time I wanted to really think about what the best way to market what I do would be:

The Heading

It’s a call to action, but it makes your brain stumble. You have to stop and think about it for a second. That means I got ‘em :). And I figure, that’s what you want. It also provides a reason to talk about the card, and it’s a reflection of how O.C. Search does marketing.

Why I Chose Black With White Text

I like the high contrast. It makes the message bold, and for me it’s easy to read. I do notice people reading it as soon as I give it to them, and then they give a little chuckle afterwards. So I know it’s working and people remember it.

The Personal Introduction

It’s like the fact that the card is speaking to my prospects now. Instead of it being some boring piece of cardstock with your typical information on it. The card has a personality, and like Jules from Pulp Fiction says; “Personality goes a long way” (that’s from the scene when Samuel L. Jackson is talking about why he doesn’t eat pork).

Only Two Forms Of Contact

I don’t see the need to have my address, suite number, and fax crowding my card and adding noise. If you need to get a hold of me, you are either going to call or email me. Those are the two most important pieces of information I need to distribute to the people I network with.

The Notes Section On The Back Of The Card

Unfortunately, I would rather have this on the cards I get from people. But it provides a space for them to write down what we talked about. I purposely instructed the print shop to keep the back side not glossy, so that people can write on it. People get hundreds, if not thousands of business cards. It’s helpful for them to remember what was unique about meeting you.

Here is a weird side story to process of the card creation.

I originally had my Google Voice number on the business card artwork. It happens to be a 714 area code which ties in the fact that I work with “Orange County” Search Consulting. However, when I called my Google Voice number to check on my greeting, it still had my test greeting. So I tried to update the greeting to “Hi, you have reach Sean and OCSearchConsulting.com, please leave your name, message and email address”. But for some reason that recording just wouldn’t stick. Google Voice kept reverting back to the original “test” recording which just wasn’t suitable for business. I spent about 2 hours trying to get that old recording off, and there was no such luck. Thanks to Google Voice, I had to call the print shop in the middle of the printing of my cards to have them change the artwork to reflect my old 310 number. I guess you really do get what you pay for (Google Voice is free)….

I would like to thank DesignPros-Inc.com for printing the cards, the great deal and being there during the phone number change emergency!

Do Old Unattended Sites Break Down Google?

We have noticed in recent years that there is a bit of a flaw with Google search results (and maybe most search engines for that matter). It has to do with the fact the internet is starting to age. There are quite a bit of websites out on the web, that are rotting, wasting energy and inhibiting better search results.

Quick Introduction To Link Building

One of the biggest drivers that positions a webpage at the top of the Google search results is how many quality and relevant links point to it. One of the jobs of a SEO specialist is to find relevant websites and try to get them to link to your website. This task requires the SEO specialist to dig through thousands of webpages across the web. It becomes a very eye opening experience as to why certain highly ranked websites are in the first position on the search engines.

The Flaw We See As We Link Build

The one thing we keep seeing is that in certain spaces, there are thousands of old websites that are providing backlinks to top ranking webpages. In a lot of cases, these old websites are no longer being administered or updated. Effectively, there are thousands of old, outdated websites on the internet propping up top search engine results. As we contact these old websites, many times the emails will bounce, or it’s obvious the site hasn’t been updated in years.

Do “old votes” really point to the best, most current content on the internet? Probably not. I’m shocked at how many times I use Google to look for important information and find that the first result is ancient and no longer relevant!

Google in particular prides itself on providing the most relevant and quality results for it users. We agree that is the best model for the search engines. Unfortunately there are plenty of newer sites with better content but don’t have thousands of backlinks from the “Good Old Days”. This makes it tough battle for them to climb the ranks.

What We Think Happened

When the internet was relatively new, a bunch of webmasters got excited and went around linking to other related websites. Over time, the webmasters of these old websites stopped being webmasters (they changed jobs, died, forgot about the site etc.). However, the old sites are still up and pointing backlinks to other sites. This is our guess as to why these sites are still up and pointing backlinks:

1. The owners of the site have it on reoccurring billing on a hosting/domain name package, but have totally forgotten about the site.
2. The owners of the site don’t want to let the site go, continue to keep it running, and refuse to update.
3. The owners of the site do update the site, but don’t update their external links.
4. The owners of the site have no one to administer their site, but they still find value of it being online. (This happens a lot when your “friend’s brother” builds a website.)
5. Someone bought an expired domain and kept it pointed to the original server and the content is still live.
6. Who knows!

Conclusion

All these old, stagnant sites are still “casting votes” to certain websites that may not be as relevant or helpful anymore. These sites with votes from the “graveyard” are propping up some of the top search engine results. It’s kind of like if every time we had a Presidential election, we let the dead vote based on their favorite party when they were alive

Say No To Dot Zero

Some of this is obvious, some isn’t. Particularly the “.0″ rule (dot zer0). This post discusses a few webmaster rules that your web team should be aware of.

It’s probably pretty obvious that you should not end any URL with .exe, .tgz or .tar (or probably anything that resembles a file extension). The main reason for this is to keep search engine users safe from viruses or trouble that lurks inside an executable file. It was definitely a wise decision upon the part of the major search engines to keep such URLs our of their index.

If for some reason your website needs to link to an application or compressed file, do not link directly to it from an unrelated page. Instead make a webpage that directly talks about the application or compressed file package. Then link to the file from the new descriptive webpage and add a nofollow attribute to the link. This technique is better because you can create a more search friendly landing page with a complete title tag, h1 heading and content related to the application or compressed file package. Finally, the nofollow tells the search engines not to travel to the link destination, which can prevent them from thinking you are hosting a malicious website.

But, what’s the deal with .0? A couple years ago, some folks realized that their search engine friendly URLs ending with “web-2.0″ were not showing up in the Google index. News broke out in the SEO world about this strange phenomenon and Google decided to allow some important URLs ending in .0 back in their index. But for whatever reason, Google doesn’t like .0.

So to keep it simple, don’t have unnecessarily weird URLs. Try to stick to a simple convention like: http://www.yourdomain.com/search-friendly-url

This is one of those strange SEO practices that has no rhyme or reason, it’s just a strange occurrence that I guess you (or your webmaster) should keep in the back of your head, post-it-note or white board.

Business.com Is A Good Link :)

Business.com is one of the few, “search engine respected” paid directories on the internet. Part of the reason is because it’s editorially controlled and they don’t list websites that are related to tobacco, adult or Rx subject matter. Notice that you don’t want your website links to be associated on the same site as these bad boys.

To get listed in the Business.com directory, simply do the following:

1. Go to http://www.business.com/info/advertise

2. Click on “List Your Company”.

3. Create your ad.

4. Use the promo code “sl50″, to save $50 a year off the inclusion price. (It’s normally $299/year).

Not only is the link from Business.com valuable (in terms of SEO benefit), you will also receive direct traffic from your listing. For certain businesses this ad buy is a no brainer, if you get one customer from this listing, it’s already worth it.