Facebook Ad Types Explained

We’ve really checked it out!

If you are still in love with Facebook, you may like my short and easy to understand primer on Facebook Advertising. Here’s what you need to know in a nutshell.

  1. You have four ad choice options on Facebook in their pay per click model – web ads, social ads, sponsored stories, and post ads.
  2. Web ads have your own verbiage, super small image about 120 pixels wide and can point to your Facebook page or to your website.
  3. Social ads are automatically generated by Facebook based on subscriber and visitor interactions to your Facebook Business page. They can either be a “Like Us” ad or an ad showing an action a recent visitor to your page took such as leaving a comment, posting to your wall, or other interaction.
  4. There are also post ads and sponsored story ads as well on Facebook and these two ad types will typically have a lower cost than web ads and social ads.
  5. Ads that promote an event have been shown to statistically have the highest cost per click but also the lowest click through rate.

“… the study also notes that Sponsored Story promotions for likes and app usage drive the highest conversion rates. In fact, on average, almost 80 percent of all people who click on Sponsored Story ads that promote Page likes convert to fans, while Sponsored Stories that promote app usage average a 60 percent conversion rate.”

This very interesting data and ad type nuggets are expounded in this online article and it is a good read if you want to learn more about Facebook advertising or see ad type examples.

Make Sure You Are Fully Integrated With Google+

I’ve recently read a great article found at SiteProNews on Google+ website integration and wanted to point it out to you as it really has some great tips on how to fully integrate your site with Google+.

Here are the tips in a nutshell, but please make sure to read the full article as it is chock full of excellent easy to do tips.

  1. Make sure to add a great headshot of yourself to your Google+ profile. It will be shown in search results. Use an image 250 pixels wide by 250 pixels tall.
  2. Turn on the ability for others to see your +1’s in your Google+ profile. (Read the article for the easy steps.) You can only do this on your personal page not a business page.
  3. Cross link your Google+ profile and website. This is a crucial step and make sure to read the article carefully about the re=”author” attribute as this is what gives you the Google+ juice that you want and need for SEO.
  4. Consider using a head tag link reference to your personal Google+ page.

The big kicker is that it is really hard to juice up your Google+ Business page. Google+ is really set up to link and cross link to your personal profile. Business pages are really an after thought at this point which hopefully will change as Google+ realizes its full organic placement and SEO potential.

HootSuite Adds Yammer to Networks List

HootSuite - Social Media ManagementHootSuite has recently added Google+ to its linkable social networks and now has just added Yammer as well.

Yammer is a business-related social network. Businesses like IBM are using Yammer for interaction between employees. With popularity growing, some are considering Yammer as a new place to network similar to LinkedIn. For now I haven’t heard many clients asking for Yammer updates but it is a social network worth taking a look at, and now especially since you can schedule updates to Yammer using HootSuite.

Yammer is free to use but does have paid models as well. You can find more out about Yammer by visiting their website. Yammer states “Whether it’s for teams to collaborate on projects, company-wide collaboration to accelerate your business, or an intranet replacement that connects your enterprise, Yammer provides  a variety of pricing plans to meet your needs.” Pricing goes from free to $5 a month and then to $15 per user per month.

As for HootSuite, I love the product and like that they are staying up-to-date in regards to which social networks to integrate with their platform. You can try HootSuite for free or move to one of their paid programs. Just click the image above to find out more about HootSuite and their pricing. If you buy their upgraded program, they’ll buy us lunch at McDonald’s.

Errors Google Reports About Your Website Crawl Explained

Michael Wyszomierski of the Google Search Quality Team talks about errors that Google will report to you in the Webmaster Control Panel about the crawl and indexing of your website.

My Comments

There are two types of crawl errors they are site errors and specific URL errors.

Site errors means that the Googlebot cannot access your website and are usually from an item listed in your robots.txt file. You should give these errors top priority for fast resolution.

The most common URL is a “not found” error. This means that a page may be missing from your site or the URL changed and your sitemap.xml file should be updated to remove the triggering of these error messages.

Having specific URL errors on your site is completely natural and nothing to worry about, but best practices should include a review and clean up periodically of these problems.

The crawl errors are more important. Although a crawl error can be caused when your server is not available due to a glitch or network error, they should be investigated to make sure that your site is not blocking the crawl by search engine robots. You may even need to get with your web host if server errors happen frequently.

 

 

Messages in the Google Webmaster Control Panel

Daniel Seef from Google talks about the Message Center in the Google Webmaster Control Panel in this excellent and informative video.

My Comments

Google provides messages about issues that impact your search results. Additionally they provide helpful tips on how you can improve the indexing of your website.

Google+ Explained and Why It’s Important

Maile Ohye of Google explains in this excellent video why Google+ is so important for your overall web presence. Watch the video and then review our comments at the end of this blog post.

My Comments

Google+ is much more than a personal social networking page, but it does start with the creation of your profile page. You can use Google+ Circles to decide what gets shown to people based on your intimacy level. Keep a Circle for your personal updates and a Circle for business. Choose what works best for you.

You don’t have to put everyone who follows you into a Circle.

Hangouts are audio video group chats. You can connect with up to 10 people where you can see their face and they yours. Hangouts can be recorded public or private. So you can use these as conference seminars.

Google+ posts that are more heavily visited will be pushed to the top of your Google+ stream; allowing popular posts to be seen more frequently.

Google+ allows you to see the impact of your posts using Ripples. Hit play on the left corner to see how your post has been spread on the Web.

The Google +1 button allows you to build a reputation on the Web. In search results you can +1 things you like. You can see what others in your network have liked too. This works on AdWords ads too. When you see friends and connections have liked a product, website, or ad you have the confidence to buy, shop, or view as well.

Google’s key is to return the most relevant search results, Google+ takes into account the number of +1 votes of a page or website in their algorithm.

When you are searching on Google.com, Google integrates Google+ posts, Google+ Circles and those you follow, as well as +1 from connections within your own personal search results.