Blogs

The Future of SEO

Back to the Future of SEO What is the future of SEO? Sometimes offering an SEO company is a little bit like shaking a magic eight ball and asking for stock tips. It’s still a guessing game, between people who do SEO and Google who creates search results. Over the last few years we have noticed a few trends that we believe will still be in vogue in the next few years.

On Site Optimization is still a big deal

At least 50% of the sites we evaluate for free don’t have good core SEO. Some of the more common problems we see are old or outdated content management systems, the same keywords being used over and over again and simply blank fields. We still spend a significant amount of time preparing sites to get going with SEO and don’t see that changing in the future.

Not enough time to create content.

We are big believers in blogging to get search results. On average our site gets about 300 visits a day from search and 95% goes to blog articles. Blogging is one of the best ways to build content and build keywords. However, most small business owners lack the time to blog and create content for their website. We continue to believe; SEO will need to create good content in the form of blogs, videos, pictures, infographs, etc. for their clients to keep their sites ranked in search results.

Bad SEO will continue to feed good SEO

At least once a week people ask us to look at their site and see if Panda or Penguin has penalized their sites. These leads typically had a relationship with an SEO company that “delivered great results” but later failed. Almost always this is due to some kind of link spamming. As Google continues to catch these tricks, there is no doubt that today’s SEO gamers, will be tomorrow’s lead of a white hat SEO company that plays by Google’s rules

Google will get better at guessing

One of the things the engineers at Google continue to work on is to understand how a person’s search history influences future searches. For example, if you ask Google about “Who is Tom Cruise” followed by “How tall is he?” Google can understand that the he is Tom Cruise. What the future may hold for Google is asking Google, what is there to do around here? And based on your location, passed searches, postings on Twitter or Google + and what’s in your email, Google may have a pretty good idea about what you like and be able to suggest events. What this means for an SEO is that they will need to continue to convince their clients that they will need to put as much as possible online for their business. Google is only as smart as the information it finds and indexes. If Google doesn’t know about it then it can’t suggest and it can’t provide personal choices.

For us SEOs, we will need to continue to evolve. There will still be a technical aspect to our jobs, but we will need to broaden ourselves into social media, design, content creation and website development, simply to ensure that a wide variety of our client’s business is online.

Why Liferay Portal?

When any one asks , why should we use the Liferay portal ? My first answer is that its an open source and it has a free community edition for commercial use. I am sure still you will ask why should we use the Liferay portal? Liferay is an enterprise web platform to build your business solutions.

Let me explain, in brief, step by step its capabilities.

Content & Document Management with Microsoft Office® integration
Web Publishing and Shared Workspaces
Enterprise Collaboration
Social Networking and Mashups
Enterprise Portals and Identity Management

Liferay has wide range of functionalities which mostly covers your business needs and rest you can full-fill by customizing or adding extra stuff with it. It’s a big bucket where you can plug another big system.

Liferay CMS : Liferay has everything to build any CMS system with advanced document management and sharing . Easy UI integration or customization made it rich to use any high end business.

Liferay Collaboration: Liferay collaboration suit has a blog, wiki, messaging and also it has a FB like chatting. All these together surely enrich your business communication system.

A True Social office: Its true social collaboration solution for the enterprise to build group cohesion and increase productivity through high end communication channels.

Integration: Integration with other third party tools made available so that you can extend the platform to full-fill your business needs.

Aren’t these cool features? These really made Liferay a rich platform for the enterprise application. Take a look at liferay.com or talk to us more regarding Liferay and Liferay consultancy!!!

How to Disavow Links Using Google Webmaster Tools

Disavow Links in Google Webmaster Tools I’m sure if you’ve read enough of our blogs by now you know how awesome links are. Which means that you probably think that all links are great, right? Wrong. Actually some links could be hurting your SEO. Sites that are considered spam by Google will often link to hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of sites within one page. If Google catches one of your links on that page, you’re in trouble whether you put it there or not.

Luckily, Google offers a way to distance yourself, or “disavow” these links. We would like to warn you that you should never disavow links unless you’re absolutely sure that these links are harmful to your SEO. Otherwise, you can permanently damage your SEO. Here’s how you can check your links in Google Webmaster Tools.

Go to your Webmaster Tools home page, and click on the site you’d like to disavow links to.
Go to the dashboard and click Traffic. Then click Links to Your Site.
Click on Who Links the Most, and then click More.
Click Download more sample links. You can also click Download latest links, if you’d like to see dates.

Now, here’s how to disavow links that are considered spam:

Click the link to navigate to the Disavow Links Tool.
Select the Website you’d like to disavow links to.
Click the Disavow Links option.
Choose a File

How to Grow Your Audience When Writing a Blog

Blog One of my major roles at Digital Firefly Marketing is writing blogs, lots and lots of blogs. When it comes to writing a blog, I've become somewhat of an expert. I get to write about anything from water damage restoration to nursing home issues. So, I thought it appropriate to explore ways to build a bigger blog following.

Write blog entries often. The more active you are, the more people will want to follow you for updates or new information.
Come up with catchy blog titles, but that use SEO. Come up with innovative and interesting titles for they are what ultimately draw your readers in. It is a good idea however to use the right keywords in the title and in the first paragraph of a post. This will help your blog post get found on Google.
Start a debate by asking questions. Try to involve your readers and invite commentary on your posts by simply asking for it.
Comment on other blogs, a lot. By commenting on other blogs and linking back to your blog, you are establishing a connection and letting others know about you and your expertise. A good way to search for blogs is Google Blog Search or Ontolo.
Use your social media outlets to promote your posts. This will not only help you keep your Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc accounts up to date, but it will let your followers know that you have new content.
Use your RSS feed. Make sure that the RSS icon is obvious for visitors to your site by placing it above the fold. Also provide a RSS-to-Email option so that people can automatically receive your latest posts in their inbox. Feedburner provides this for free.
Use images (and videos) in your posts. Images help communicate your message on a more aesthetic level and often make posts more interesting to readers. If you do use images, make sure to include an Image Alt Tag!
Don’t forget H1 tags. These will help Google find your blog and increase its visibility. Make sure to use strong keywords wherever possible.
Structure your posts in a way that is visually appealing. More often than not, readers will visually scan a post before deciding to read the whole thing through. Avoid long sentences and go for lists or smaller paragraphs.
Think about the topic. When choosing what you might write about, think about your interest in the topic and how marketable it is. Do you think people will find it interesting?
Try video blogging. This is yet another way to amass visitors. If you do make a video, use TubeMogul to publish it in as many places as possible. Also, don’t forget to use text descriptions and to link your blog URL.
Link to your and others’ blog posts. If the content is related, link away.
Make sharing easy. Install links to various social media outlets so that others can quickly share your post on their accounts. Try ShareThis to get started.
Read other blogs and see what is being shared. A little research can go a long way. When needing ideas or motivation, have a look at what’s out there. Don’t be afraid to write posts in response to other posts as well.
Use Analytics. Google Analytics is a great way to see who is viewing your blog and how it’s being utilized.
Be yourself and have fun with it. Blogging doesn’t have to be a job, oftentimes it isn’t. Write about topics that you find interesting, it’s likely others will too!

Now get blogging!

How to Market to Your Clients and Keep Them Loyal

For building the kind of enduring client relationships necessary for long-term growth in a small company, nothing replaces face-to-face contact. But these days, you’re just as likely to be doing business across the world as down the street (just yesterday, I was Skyping from Washington D.C. with a client-counterpart in Los Angeles). Except for the most bedraggled of new consulting firm recruits, no one is on-site with clients 24-7. So how do you cultivate loyal, trusting — and lasting — client relationships when you can’t always pop in for a meeting or take them out to dinner? Here are five ways to do it.

Put in the upfront work. When you talk to an old friend on the phone, it can feel like you’ve never been apart. But that’s because you’ve already established a rapport: you can visualize what they’re doing, you know what their conversational pauses mean, and you can tell whether their laugh is genuine. It’s completely different for a stranger (or virtual stranger), where you have to guess and fill in the blanks. So make it part of your client development plan to spend a significant amount of time getting to know them upfront. To develop long-term relationships, budget much more face time in the first six months or year of your contract.
Build connections through personal sharing. In a fascinating 1999 study by researcher Don Moore and his colleagues, business school students across the country were paired up to negotiate a deal. Half the students were simply told to make it happen, while the other half were requested to share photos of each other, disclose personal information (hobbies, schools), and schmooze a bit. The group that shared more information — i.e., those who had built more of a relationship — had a far higher success rate in completing negotiations (94% vs. 71%). The moral? Especially if you haven’t met in person, take the time to get to know your client and don’t be purely transactional.
Use between-time to check-in via e-mail. Got a spare minute at the airport or in the cab? Whip out your running list of contacts to shoot them a quick note by e-mail. Even busy executives with overflowing in-boxes usually appreciate a kind note or check-in — especially when a response isn’t required. Tighten your connection simply by letting them know you’re thinking about them, as prompted by an interesting article you read (you can send them a link related to their business or a personal hobby), following up on a previous conversation (“you mentioned you were going to speak at a conference — how did it go?”), or just saying hello.
Keep a light touch through e-newsletters. A major challenge in client relationships, if you’re not in the thick of a project, is reminding them that you exist. Repeat business or referrals to you are surely not their top priority. That’s where a well-written e-newsletter comes in and the frequency isn’t too demanding (monthly or bimonthly is usually safe), it’s an excellent way to keep in touch and remind clients you’re out there and ready to help
Ask for a video testimonial. Video testimonials are a terrific advertisement for your business, demonstrating vividly to potential customers how you’ve helped others like. But they’re also a great way to encourage customer loyalty, given two cherished principles of behavioral psychology: the importance of consistency and public commitment. Research has shown that once someone has decided they like you and your work, they become committed to that viewpoint — an investment that’s only heightened when their support is public.

There’s no substitute for in-person relationship building. But even from around the world, you can build loyal client relationships if you’re strategic and focused.

How to use AlgoSleuth to Check for Google Panda & Penguin Problems

We get a lot of requests from businesses that have lost website traffic as a result of Google Panda or Google Penguin updates. They’re not sure when, or why they lost the traffic; they just suspect Google Panda or Google Penguin of causing it. For some, gauging any negative effects as a result of Panda and Penguin was a guessing game. Now, thanks to Delegator’s AlgoSleuth, you can find out where you lost traffic.

The function of AlgoSleuth is simple. If you have a Google Analytics account, you can use AlgoSleuth to find out how much traffic you had 30 days before a Google update, and 30 days after an update. So if you lost a significant amount of traffic after one update, there’s a good chance that you were hit with Panda or Penguin.

Want to know why you lost traffic from an update? No problem! AlgoSleuth includes a brief description of what was employed with each update. While no one outside of Google can tell you exactly what an update does, there are still some helpful hints available, which AlgoSleuth has included in this report. There are also some links to provide you with additional information should you need it.

Here’s how to use AlogoSleuth.

Make sure you’re logged into Google Analytics.
Open the AlgoSleuth website, then click “Get it for free”
Click File, and make a copy of the spreadsheet.
Go to Tools, then Script Gallery. Install “GA API”.
A Google Analytics tab should now appear on your screen. Click on this tab, and select “Find profile/ids”. An authorization window will appear. Click “OK”. Then select “Grant Access” when prompted.
Go back to the Google Analytics tab, and select “Find profile/ids” again. Select the account, web property, and profile of your choice. Then highlight and copy your ga number, under ids. (Make sure you also include the “ga:”)
Paste the ga number in cell C23.
Go back to Google Analytics once again, and click “Get Data”. The following window should appear, letting you know you’re done.

AlgoSleuth Report Status

To access your results, click on the AlgoSleuth Data tab at the bottom of the page.

Now you can find out exactly which Google Panda and Google Penguin updates may have affected your site’s traffic. Should you want to export your results, you can do so by clicking file>Download As. Then simply choose the type of file you’d like to save the data with. You can also see a graph of your data with the AlgoSleuth Graph tab. A graph of our data is displayed below.

DFM Google Panda & Penguin Traffic- AlgoSleuth

How to Link & Unlink a Facebook Fan Page with Twitter

Link Facebook to Twitter Simplicity is always nice when it comes to social media, and Facebook and Twitter know that. Some of our clients would rather not deal with the process of posting content to Facebook and Twitter individually, and prefer that we link their Facebook to their Twitter pages. This way, any posts that we add to their Facebook will simultaneously show up in their Twitter feed.

So how do you link your Facebook fan page to Twitter? Simply follow these instructions:

Make sure you’re logged into Facebook under your own name.
Make sure you’re signed into Twitter as the page you’d like to link.
Open this link: http://www.facebook.com/twitter/. You should see a list of all the pages that you manage, as well as your own.
Click the “Link to Twitter” button for the page you’d like to link.
Authorize the app, and you’re all linked up!

We recently received a request from one of our clients to unlink their Facebook from their Twitter feed. This process is even more simple.

Make sure you’re logged into Facebook
Use the http://www.facebook.com/twitter/ link.
Find the page you’d like to unlink, and click “Unlink from Twitter”.

What is Google Index Status and Why Does It Matter?

One of the common misconceptions people have of Google is that when they use Google, they are searching the web. They aren’t searching the web at all. They are searching Google’s index of the web. One of the best ways to think about this is to think of how a library was once organized. Back in the day, OK ten years ago, when you went to find a book you went to the card catalog to find a book on a particular subject. If the card within the card catalog did not exist, you couldn’t find the book in the library.

Google works in a similar manner. Every hour of every day, Google is clicking on links to see where they go. They start on major websites like Wikipedia, the New York Times and their spiders go through the entire website and click on links that take them to other websites, where they repeat the process and go onto more and more until they reach presumably every website that has a link to other websites. As the spiders crawl over the web, they send information back to Google about what the website is about by looking at various keywords on the site. That information is then stored in Google’s index. When people search Google, the Google algorithm will rank the best results from its index in the order of 1 – infinity.

Therefore, in order to have websites rank within Google, the first step is to make sure your site is within the Google index. No matter the work you do to make sure the the site is on the right content management system or has the right keywords in place, if you don’t have those pages within the index, they will not show up in Google search results.

This can be accomplished in two ways.

You can get a number of links to your website, where eventually the Google spider will come to your website and crawl it and add it to their index. The problem with this methodology is if certain pages aren’t linked to the main page, Google may not crawl them or index them.
You can provide Google with a site map and ask them to crawl the site and submit it their index. This is accomplished in Google webmaster tools and is the preferred way to get websites into the index. Further as the website is updated, the sitemap is updated and tells Google there is a change that needs to be indexed again.

For example, we helped launch a site on 4/25. The site is based on the WordPress CMS, which is very search engine friendly and the yoast plugin which allows us to generate and send a site map to Google. On 4/26, we added the site map from the WordPress to Google via Webmaster tools and requested Google to recrawl and reindex the site as we had made a major site change. The previous version of the site only had 2 pages indexed, once we requested Google to crawl the site we increased the amount of indexed pages to 741.

Google Index Status

This is really one of the first steps in SEO. While the index status has been greatly improved, the actual ranks of each individual page needs to be improved as well. This will happen as the keywords are processed by Google, and links are made to the site.

Arrested Development Conquers Interactive Social Media

Arrested Development- The Bluths If you’re a fan of the show, Arrested Development, and follow it on Twitter or Facebook, chances are that you’re well aware that the show will be returning to Netflix on May 26^th. This critically-acclaimed sitcom was cancelled by Fox after a three-season run in 2006, but a large online outcry eventually brought the show back from the dead. Over the last month, both Netflix, and Arrested Development have run an aggressive social media campaign, rewarding fans for their support.

Last weekend, five posters containing signature items from past episodes were placed at random locations in New York City. Facebook followers were encouraged to locate all five of these posters for a reward. It was later revealed that the reward was a new poster, revealing something from the upcoming season on Netflix.

Arrested Development has also been listening to its Facebbok fans. It’s recently been spotlighting certain comments from Facebook fans in its timeline photos. Below is a recent Facebook comment which it dubbed, the “Best Facebook Comment Ever Received by Anyone, Ever”.

Arrested Devlopment- Best Facebook Comment

Arrested Development Season 4 Poster Arrested Development is also encouraging fans to come up with the best taglie for the new season’s poster. They captioned the poster with the following:

“We’re looking for fan taglines for our brand new poster! Submit yours and it could be featured on an Official Arrested Development poster and our Facebook Cover photo! To enter, write your tagline in the comments or use the hashtag #ADtagline. You have one day to enter, so get yours in ASAP.”

Any company who utilizes social media can take a page out of Arrested Development’s book. Social media isn’t a one-way street. It’s no longer “good enough” to merely post one status a day, and ignore the feedback from your followers. Rewarding your followers by valuing their feedback is the best way to run a social media campaign.

And now, as a reward for reading this entire blog, here are the top 200 Arrested Development quotes to get you ready for the new season on May 26^th. Huzzah!

How Entrepreneurs Succeed

How Entrepreneurs Succeed All it takes to become an entrepreneur is a big idea and a million dollars – right? That’s a pernicious myth – and it may be harming your career. With lifetime employment long gone, every employee needs to take responsibility for their own career and develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Entrepreneurship is a skill that enables people to effectively cope with the uncertainty and unknowability that exists in the modern workplace, and effectively take action.

But if you believe starting a business – or simply being innovative within your current company – requires a huge amount of cash or a world-beating idea, you’re likely to feel overwhelmed. Instead, embrace the secret that successful entrepreneurs have discovered: If you want to start an entrepreneurial activity, you don’t need a big idea. You just need something you want. You don’t have to wait for this magic to come to you in the shower; if you keep tinkering at it, something’s likely to happen.

Literature about entrepreneurship is often part of the problem. It engenders all this hero worship, (e.g., Steve Jobs) You have these successful entrepreneurs…[who] hire a ghostwriter and rewrite their life – which is very dangerous, because it sends the wrong message. People think, ‘I read this magazine article, I read this entrepreneur’s book, I saw this video, and the only thing I came up with is “I can’t do this because I don’t have a big idea.”

The truth is, anyone can be entrepreneurial – and they probably should. The reality is we ought to be encouraging more and more people to take action – not develop the next big thing. So how can you embrace an entrepreneurial mindset? Here are four strategies:

Just act. When a problem is clear and data is available that can help solve it, it only makes sense to use it. But sometimes – especially in situations of rapid change and innovation – information and precedent are lacking. When prediction falls away, you have to play a different game. In those situations, it’s often better to act and see what happens, rather than trying to amass all the potential data that might help with predictability.”
Focus on your strengths. It’s easy to bellyache because you don’t have a million dollars or connections to Wal-Mart’s international purchasing director. Get over it. The vast majority of us are mere mortals who are going to get there with small steps, building local networks, learning from those steps and building as we go. Instead, focus on your assets.
Plan – but not too much. Of course it’s useful to think deeply about your ideas – but don’t buy in so much that you aren’t willing to make changes and improvements. Before I start worrying about building a 40 page business plan loaded with nonsensical assumptions about a world we know nothing about, can we see if I can talk intelligently about these ideas, or find a potential customer or ally? Let’s spend some time mucking around in the feasibility phase, just playing without the burden of these complex business plans, which tend to generate an unreasonably high level of commitment to less-than-high-quality ideas way too early in the process.
Understand your organization. Want to make change inside your company – but suspect it won’t go over well with the brass? Small pilots that gather knowledge, test assumptions, and gain favor by aligning with the organization’s priorities. Can you figure out a small step you could take that is respectful of and responsive to your boss’ agenda and see what happens? You’re not as powerless as you think you are – but you have to be smart about it.

So while we can't all be Steve Jobs, there are a number of opportunities for people to not only be pure entrepreneurs by starting their own company, but also the opportunity to be entrepreneurial in an existing company.

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Blogs

The Future of SEO

Why Liferay Portal?

How to Disavow Links Using Google Webmaster Tools

How to Grow Your Audience When Writing a Blog

How to Market to Your Clients and Keep Them Loyal

How to use AlgoSleuth to Check for Google Panda & Penguin Problems

How to Link & Unlink a Facebook Fan Page with Twitter

What is Google Index Status and Why Does It Matter?

Arrested Development Conquers Interactive Social Media

How Entrepreneurs Succeed

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