The SEO News Blog with Pat Marcello

For those of you who love Twitter, but who are also marketing mavens, you’ll be really interested in a new application that I found out about today. It’s called “Market Me Tweet,” and instead of having your tweets say, “From TweetDeck” or “From FriendFeed” or whatever, what if they could say “From Your Business Name” with a link to your business?

How cool is that?

I tried it out today, and it totally rules.

The set up isn’t click and do, unless you’re already really Twitter techy and have set up apps before, but there’s a great video that walks you through the process, step-by-step. After watching that, it’s really a no-brainer.

So, you open the little app on your desktop and voila! Tweet and brand, my friends. Tweet and brand.

And the best part? It’s free.

Here’s the link: http://easyseotricks.com/tweetbrander

You totally need to go and get it!

(And since this is free, though I am an affiliate, I’m NOT being paid to tell you this.)

ATTENTION: Please read this post first… http://ovblogger.com/1720/twitter-wr-wr-ong/ Duh.

Did you realize that your Twitter profile page (the one with all of your own tweets on: http://Twitter.com/username) has page rank? If it doesn’t, you’re not tweeting that often. If it does, and it’s a good PR, you may or may not realize that putting links on that page pass page rank to the sites on it, right?

Yep. I just checked mine out because I heard that Google just did another page rank update (Google Surprise PageRank Update by Navneet Kaushal, SearchNewz.com), and I see that I now have a PR5 on my Twitter page. Hmm… Need to send more links to that page to help my sites.

Check our your Twitter page and see where you stand. If you update Twitter frequently with cool info, you’re probably going to find a good PR punch.

It doesn’t hurt you to show up on other people’s profile pages when they have a high page rank, either. That’s why putting stuff out there that folks enjoy and having it “retweeted” by them really makes a difference.  So, if you’ve been using Twitter only to chit-chat and you’re in business, you’re wasting a valuable SEO tool.

Yes, you should be chatty on Twitter. But, you shouldn’t ONLY be chatty. Plan what you want to write in Twitter that concerns your business everyday. Maybe plan out 10 Tweets. You can go in once an hour and tweet something cool. If you want to set them all up at once, you can use a site called “SocialOOmph.com (was Tweet Later),” which allows you to schedule your tweets throughout the day.

I’m not suggesting that you send out ads all the time, like some losers do. Really, they’re not using Twitter properly, either, and they’re probably pissing a lot of people off and creating bad karma. You totally do not want that. continue reading »

All I can say is, “Wow!” I just read a post by Ann Smarty over at SearchEngineJournal.com about some very cool Yahoo pipes that you can run. (http://www.searchenginejournal.com/5-useful-yahoo-pipes-to-monitor-your-brand/14320/: “5 Useful Yahoo! Pipes to Monitor Your Brand”)

For those of you who don’t know what Yahoo Pipes is it’s an aggregator for different types of content. For example, they’ll take several feeds and put them together, either to make specialized reports or for publishing on blogs or elsewhere. They allow you to mashup lots of stuff and make it really cool.

For example, I read several SEO blogs and instead of having to go to all of them, I have a Yahoo Pipe that gives me everything at a glance. My Pipe is called “SEO Goodness Pipe” and you can find it at http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=YsYIE89w3hGA4vj2BNV6qA. The reason I call it that is because I also use the pipe to send interesting SEO stuff to Twitter every hour or so.

People love it, and retweet the stuff I send out all the time. I’m finding myself on people’s Twitter lists and it’s a great deal all the way around. I made the Pipe, people get to read the same cool stuff I love on Twitter. They’re happy, I get more followers, they retweet, and the circle goes ’round and ’round. continue reading »

What’s the first thing you think when you hear Web 2.0? I’ll bet I can guess… It’s one of two things — Facebook or Twitter, right?

Well, those two sites are definitely at the forefront when it comes to Web 2.0 properties, and they’re totally worth the effort of maintaining presence in both places. But I have a very POWERFUL weapon in the Web 2.0-verse that you may not be thinking about — social content sites.

These are great places to pop some content into for various reasons:

• Each place has a different audience of regulars, and so you’re meeting new people to further your  brand
• Each place provides a social element that the article directories just don’t have
• Each place will give you links back to your website, even if they’re only linking back from your profile

… and each place is really worth working into your traffic routine. Maybe you can’t afford to submit to them constantly, and that makes sense. It’s too hard to do everything at once. But what about adding one article a month to each place? That’s totally doable, and will definitely help you with SEO.

Here are the places I maintain some presence in: continue reading »

Google Labs just came out with a new item called “Social Search.” It will search for items in the social web from people in your Google contact list and include them in any searches you run. I’m not sure how beneficial it will be, but I plan to test it over the next few days and let you know.

This is one of the Google Labs “experiments,” however. It just doesn’t happen automatically. You need to go over to http://GoogleLabs.com and sign up for the experiment, and you can only sign up for one experiment at a time. So, if you’re in another experiment that you’re enjoying, you may not want to stop that to try the social search.

Here’s why I’m wondering if it will be any good: I really like the people on my contact list, but some of them are not really all that interesting in terms of business. They may add something to a social site that doesn’t remotely interest me, while others might really have some cool stuff to add and I really wouldn’t want to miss their pearls of wisdom. And yet, do they post to social sites much? Don’t know.

But I guess I’ll find out.

If you have lots of people on your contact list that are active in social sites and that you want to read, you should probably check this feature of Google out. Otherwise, it’s just another perk that may not cause drooling.

Hey, all you Twitter users… Have you heard about the new phishing scam? It happens in your Direct Message box.

The message starts out: “ROFL this you on here?” and links to a video site, supposedly. What really happens is that you’re sent to a fake Twitter login page that asks for your login information.

Don’t think it will come from a follower you don’t know, either. The infected Twitter account of even your best friend or a sibling will send DMs to everyone on their contact list, and on and on it goes.

This started yesterday, so it’s still a relatively new nasty, and if caught quickly, we can all avoid it. Just don’t respond or click on any links in DMs that start out with ROFL or you won’t be L-ing at all. You might be “R-ing” but with pain, not pleasantry.

Just as with any other phishing scam, don’t give your login details to any page that you haven’t typed into your browser’s address bar or arrived at because of a bookmark. That way lies madness and frustration!

So, did you read this article yet?

http://searchengineland.com/when-ugc-means-users-give-away-control-24444

It starts by citing an issue between a Blogger user and a New York Judge, who forced Google to turn over a user’s information.  Did you know that when you sign up for Blogger and many of the other social sites, you’re giving them ownership of your information?

This just reinforces my constant admonition that people should have their blogs on their own hosting accounts. You can’t be ratted out by Google or anyone else. You own your content and your information and god help the rotting slimer that tries to get it away from me.

Seriously, I don’t want Blogger or WordPress.com having control over what’s in my blog. It’s not so much about what I say because I’m not apt to writing libelous information or any other of the nasty stuff that goes down online at times, it’s about protecting my content!

When you have a WordPress.com blog, they can shut you down, without warning and without recourse. If you post affiliate links… gone. If you try to add an optin box, you can’t. And, if they decide to nix your blog, you can’t get any of the content back … at all.

UGC = Users Giveaway Control, according to Ciarán Norris’s article, and that’s exactly what you do at Blogger, at WordPress.com, at Tumblr, and many other sites. Think twice before wasting your time and energy.

Everyone is involved these days. Aren’t you? And if you have a Twitter account, how visitor friendly are you setting it up to be?

My background has information about my other social memberships, my blog and me. But it’s not quite what I want, and so I’ve been shopping. Plus, someone on my list asked me where to find a good Twitter background, so Chiwa, this is for you…

Here are a collection of sites where you can find some cool templates:

TwitterBackgrounds.com : You can get some snazzy backgrounds, but none with your picture. I think that’s essential, even though it’s already on your profile. People should have a clear idea of who you are. You can, however, design a personalized background from one of their templates and they’ll install the whole thing for you for just $5.

WishaFriend.com Twitter Backgrounds: Lots of stuff here. Just some cool backgrounds and some snazzy templates where you can add your photo. All free, and the site uploads the template for you.

*Caveat*: Giving your Twitter username and password out isn’t always a good idea. If you are going to let the site upload the template for you be sure to change your password as soon as it’s done.

Twitter Backgrounds Gallery: This site has lots of cool backgrounds to show you, but the coolest section, in my opinion is the DIY page. It gives you the instructions for creating your own Twitter background, plus a bunch of resources for doing so, like Twitter Background Guidelines, How to Make a Twitter Background Picture and Create a Twitter Background Using Powerpoint or Keynote. And all of those places lead to other cool places, and well… have a ball!

Now, there’s no reason for you to have a crappy or boring Twitter background. Use these sites to make your background zing or create your own!  Just be sure you’re a decent designer. Having an ameteurish looking background is worse than having none at all.

You know, I really love Twitter, and I want to provide some great stuff for my Tweeps. Only problem is that I have little time. I can’t do a lot of surfing and posting. So, I do it about once a day at the end of the day, when I’m really tired.

But…

I found a way to automate my Tweets and still give my Tweeple some very cool stuff through the power of Yahoo Pipes and TwitterFeed.com .

First set up your pipe. To do mine, I chose some IM blogs… This one, of course, and DearTellman.com and ListBuilding Blog. I then included some SEO and blogging blogs that I really enjoy reading.

Then, go over to TwitterFeed and set up a free account. Permit it to have access to your Twitter account, and then, add the feed for the Yahoo Pipe.

Last, set up in “Advanced” settings how often you want to have TwitterFeed post to your Twitter account. I have mine updating every hour with 2 Tweets. That keeps me in the game!

And all I have to do is post to my blog. TwitterFeeds and Yahoo Pipes takes care of the rest.

Wow.

OK… there are no categories for ranting, but I think it’s time I made one.

Rant #1: Please STOP your automatic direct messages at Twitter!

I’m glad you’re happy I’m following you back, but are you really? Do you even know who I am? And if you do, you know that I really don’t have a lot of time. What makes you think that I have time for your cute direct message that says, “Buy my this” or “Read my that”? Nope. Won’t happen. Twitter is for hanging out, not selling your latest product or pushing your whatever.

Now, I have to admit that as a new Twitterer, I thought that was pretty cool, too. But I soon came to realize that all of those DMs were clogging my inbox and I couldn’t see the DMs from people that I really wanted to see DMs from. I got a really important one today, and I totally missed it because of all the automated messages.

Stop the insanity!

If you want to Twitter with me, great! Do that. But please stop sending me automated messages.

Rant #2: Stop using software to comment on blogs!

I know you want that ever-important backlink. I know there are only so many hours in the day. BUT, know this: If you send me an inane comment or trackback to your spammy blog that has NO original content, I’m going to nuke your comments off the planet.

If you want to comment on my blog, I welcome your input — good or bad. And I will answer in a fair manner.

But, I dont’ want to see comments that say, “Nice post,” or “I agree with that view,” or any of the other myriad stupid sentences that you plug into software that randomly searches for blogs in your niche.

I have software of my own, called a SPAM filter, and it catches all your idiotic crap straight away.

There…

I feel better now.

And listen, if you’re one of the peole sending those automatic DMs or using software for commenting, I understand that you might be new to this arena and are only trying to do your best. Really, I do, and I totally don’t hold any of it against you.

Just take my advice and stop doing things that totally piss off other people, peope who know, and you’ll move much farther along much faster in this great Internet life of ours.

Thanks for your time. I will now turn off the bitch switch and return you to your regularly scheduled programming.:  -