(sniff…sob…) This is the last post of this SEO series by our Google dude John Hacking from Search Tempo. John wraps up with the big picture about our website structure – and also some poignant SEO mini-tips.

1. John, should we be aiming for more or less content on our websites? Are blogs/regular news posts still important?
   
Yes, larger sites are still rewarded by Google. The more pages you have the more traffic you are likely to attract via the keyword search combination (see: SEO Tips Part 1: The Keyword Palaver). Say you have 500 pages on your website, all those pages are pointing back to your home page – and hopefully cross linked to other pages in your site. These are only internal links (links within your own site), but it is better to have these links going than none at all.


    
2. What pages are important to have on a website for Google seduction? I hear About pages and Disclaimer & Disclosure pages have all the right moves. If so, why?  Any others?

   There is a rumour saying that if you sell goods online you need a Privacy page, an About Us page, etc. From a marketing point of view, its a good idea to have an About page, a bricks and mortar street address. These are symbols of credibility. However, it is not important from a search engine point of view.

For your core pages (i.e. not your blog/news/articles pages), the following seem to be the most searched for on Google, in order of visitor popularity:

   1. Home

   2. Prices 

   3. FAQ

   4. Testimonials

   5. Contact us

   How much Google rewards any of these pages in reality is still unknown. But it is good marketing, which means more traffic which – as a trickle down effect – is likely to be good for your SEO. 

    
3. Why a ‘Prices’ page?

   ‘Prices’ is gold. People often avoid dedicating a core page to their prices because they are afraid their competition will find out. Who cares? At least give a range, if not specifics. You’re not selling to your competitors.
    
4. Any other tips, John?


   There are three key SEO tips to remember:
   1. Pick one or two good search terms and optimise them first before moving onto the next
(more info: SEO Tips Part 1: The Keyword Palaver)

   2. Get your title tags right 
(more info: SEO Tips Part 3: The Mystery of Meta Tags)

   3. Develop both internal and inbound links 
(more info: SEO Tips Part 4: Inbound Links and PageRank)

   Don’t worry about your site’s ranking. Focus on the ranking of your pages. Google works with web pages, not web sites. If you remember that, your SEO battles will become a lot easier to win.

   And offer content that makes sense to your future client or customer – not just to Google.




John answers your questions

Our previous posts on John's SEO tips gave you the opportunity to ask any questions you have about SEO.

Missed the others?
1.    SEO Tips Part 1: The Keyword Palaver
2.    SEO Tips Part 2: Keywords in Your Web Address
3.    SEO Tips Part 3: The Mystery of Meta Tags
4.    SEO Tips Part 4: Inbound Links & PageRank

5.    SEO Tips Part 5: Google Products and Social Media



John Hacking of Search Tempo can help with your ranking, no matter where you are in the world.

Want to rank higher on Google without spending buckets on AdWords campaigns? Of course you do. Lucky for us, SEO guiding light John Hacking of Search Tempo is here to help. Today we are looking at how to nab some SEO edge using Google products and social media.

1. John, how important are free Google products for SEO? 

   First, it’s helpful to create a gmail account for your site. Every time I undertake a new SEO project I create a fresh Gmail account. Secondly, Google+, GooglePlaces (you need Google+ now to have a Places listing), and webmaster tools are all worthwhile for SEO.
    
2. What’s so good about Google’s Webmaster?
   You can tell Google things about your web site and market. For example, if you have a .com website but want to target your particular country, Webmaster tools enables you to do that (i.e. be considered as a .au or .uk, etc.). There’s also tools in Webmaster tools to tell you what keywords people are using to find you, who links to your pages and if there are any errors in your web site.
    
3. I’ve heard about Google’s Authorship project for SEO?
   Yes, Authorship has recently become a game changer. This is making a connection between your content on the web and your Google+ profile. I call it “Google Faces”. You also upload a photo of your face – and having your face next to your listings in the search results is great marketing. It is quite technical to set up the first time, but once it’s done any new content on your web site will feature your face in the Google search results.  Do a search on social media brisbane and you will see what I mean
    
4. What about Google Images?

   Google images is used a lot by people to search for images – and this is important for SEO. The file names of any image you upload onto the internet should have a keyword. Then, when you are uploading, your site should give you the option to add words in an alt tag field. These words appear if the visitor can’t see the image (‘alt’ means ‘alternative’ for the image). Also when you hover over the image the words often appear. Have keywords here too, separated by a dash or underscore. Google treats dashes and underscores as a space. Lets’ say you want your images to rank for pizza parlour new farm. You could name one of your images pizza-parlour-new-farm.jpg
    
5. How important is being active in social media now to SEO? (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.) And do you have any tips on making social media manageable? 

   Social media is another way of getting your link on authority domains (see SEO Tips Part 4 for more info in this). I post a blog article once a week and email it out to my list through MailChimp. I then publish it on my blog, post the link on facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. And that’s all I do. For some, Pinterest is good. Social media generates traffic, people see it. If they think it’s interesting, they click through. Do social signals help SEO? I have not yet seen any evidence of that yet.
    
6. Do social signals help SEO?
   I have not yet seen any evidence of that yet, but if the “social signal” results in a backlink, then yes, it does.

Your BIG opportunity: Ask the SEO expert

What do you want to know about SEO?

Raphael asked: "Do I have to have a blog to get decent ranking?"

No, but having a blog means you can generate your own keyword-rich content and link to the appropriate pages on your main web site.

Ming asked: "I can't decide whether to use the plural or singular for my keywords. What should I do?'

Use the Google keyword tool to determine which has the higher volume. In most castes the plural has higher volume.  Eg. brisbane Spanish restaurants, pool cleaners coorparoo, copywriters brisbane
 

What's your question? John will answer it at the end of the next SEO Tips post. Irresistible, right?


In SEO Tips Part 6, John wraps up with how to structure your website for generating some ‘Google Love’. Stay tuned!


Missed the others?
1.    SEO Tips Part 1: The Keyword Palaver
2.    SEO Tips Part 2: Keywords in Your Web Address
3.    SEO Tips Part 3: The Mystery of Meta Tags
4.    SEO Tips Part 4: Inbound Links & PageRank



John Hacking of Search Tempo can help with your ranking, no matter where you are in the world. Fast-track your Google presence by hiring the guy (and, no, I don’t get any commission on the sly for saying this stuff – I just think he’s onto it). The great thing about John? He doesn’t charge monthly fees.

You already know it. Where you sit on Google can determine the success of your business. But do you know how to ramp up ranking, given the recent Google changes? Sage SEO authority John Hacking of Search Tempo is giving us his pearls of wisdom. So settle on your tatami mat, because today you are going to be enlightened on inbound links.

1. 
John, what are inbound links and are they still in Google’s spotlight?
   Inbound links are also known as backlinks or incoming links. They are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. And, yes. Inbound links are still important for search engine ranking. When talking about the ‘authority’ of a page, we are referring to how well regarded it is by Google. Notwithstanding Google’s Panda update, the authority of the page your link is on helps. There are high authority domains as well. But it is not just about the authority of the site. It is also about the authority of the actual page.

    

2. What has PageRank got to do with inbound links?
   MMT note: PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by the Google, named after a guy called Larry Page…just to confuse everyone further.
   
Google uses PageRank to determine the importance of a web page. PageRank works on a scale from 1-10 (10 being very good), focusing on individual pages, as well as domain names and sites. It’s nearly impossible to get a PageRank of 10. PageRank ties in directly with the quality of inbound links you have. But its still only one of many factors that decides your ranking in the end. Having your link on one of these authority pages (page with a high PageRank) is helpful for your PageRank and your SEO in general. It’s like a vote of confidence from someone that Google already trusts.

    

3. What about those linking companies I get spam emails from?
   Beware of link farming and offers of thousands of backlinks for a few dollars. This is often automated linking on sites without taking into account the relevance of the link to the site. Google’s coming down hard on link farming now, so make sure you don’t link back to them.
    
4. Is YouTube still important for inbound linking?
   
I only use YouTube for inbound links – that is, to have your website address on a YouTube page. YouTube is a PR (PageRank) 9 – it is a high authority domain. Not so much because it is owned by Google. But simply because it is the second largest search engine that we have. Vimeo, for example, has less authority than YouTube.
   MMT note: John showed me his Search Tempo video on YouTube 
and said:
   I don’t care if anyone sees this or not. But it is a PR2 page on a PR 9 domain with a link back to my home page. So that helps with my SEO.
    
5. How do you find out a page’s PageRank?
   There are plenty of free Google PageRank plug-ins for Chrome and other browsers.

Your BIG opportunity: Ask the SEO expert

What do you want to know about SEO?

Rima asked: "What if I want to change my domain name? How do I minimise ranking drop?"

You need to do what’s called a "301 redirect" from your old pages to your new pages. You web designer may be able to help with this. Once the redirects are done it takes about 2 weeks for your rankings to return.

Ben asked: "Do I lose ranking if I change my host?"

That does happen sometimes. If your host is very slow, or if Google is blocked from that host for some reason, your rankings may go down. With hosting, you tend to get what you pay for. These days I only use Hostgator or Crucial Paradigm.

What's your question? John will answer it at the end of the next SEO Tips post. Irresistible, right?

SEO Tips Part 5, John gives us the inside scoop on how Google products and social media affect your Google ranking – or not. Stay tuned!

Missed the others?
1.    SEO Tips Part 1: The Keyword Palaver
2.    SEO Tips Part 2: Keywords in Your Web Address
3.    SEO Tips Part 3: The Mystery of Meta Tags



John Hacking of Search Tempo can help with your ranking, no matter where you are in the world. John also conducts face-to-face SEO training in Australia. 
P.S. He doesn’t charge monthly fees.


In this Google-rank-boosting series, we are being illuminated by SEO expert John Hacking of Search Tempo. Today is about meta tags – those babies behind the scenes that can still make all the difference.

1. John, tell us about those meta tag fields found in the back end of our websites (if installed, usually underneath the area to add /edit content on our site). What meta tags are useful these days? 

   
Depending on the SEO plug-in that you have (WordPress examples: All in One SEO, Yoast, etc.) you can customise your meta tags on a page-by-page basis. The three meta tag areas in the back end of your site are:
   1.    Title
   2.    Description
   3.    Keywords


   1. Title meta tag (70 characters max.) 

   This is very important for SEO. These words appear on the bar at the very top of your browser window (the page handle). The first words should be the search term you are trying to optimise for. But if you have space after that, then insert marketing enticements such as an offer and call to action. For example: House painter North Brisbane Free quotes Call 07 3345 6789. 


   This is supposed to tell the search engine what the page is about. Think of a book on a bookshelf. If its called Wild Fishing Adventures then you have an idea of what its about. But if it’s called Gone With the Wind Rambo Fishing Adventures Great Escape then you really have no idea what it’s about. It’s the same for search engines.

   2. Description meta tag (150 characters max.)
   
Not such a big deal from a rankings point of view but a big deal from a marketing point of view. These are the words that appear on a Google search under the title link. So people read it to decide whether to click on it. Google automatically pulls the description off the page itself. But you can create you own. Weave keywords into it, along with an offer or call to action. For example: Qualified master House painter free colour matching reliable shows up on time Call 07 3345 6789  for a free quote. So we have some marketing text in there and some keywords. 



   3. Keywords meta tag

   You can put as many keywords as you like, but I recommend five maximum. If you have too many words and the words conflict, then it doesn’t make much sense to the search engine.
   


2. I know with WordPress sites you can create a ‘post tags’ and have a tag cloud. Are they helpful for SEO? 

   No, they don’t make a difference for SEO. They can help, however, as a navigation tool for the visitor to find particular information.
    
3. Once you’ve conquered your meta tags, how do you know how you appear on Google?
   
I have discovered a handy tool: Scrub The Web where you enter your URL and, through an email confirmation process will show you how your listing will look on a search engine page. You will also receive a search engine visibility score (hard to get above 60 – very unforgiving!). Scrub The Web will also give helpful hints to improve your meta tag content. 



Your BIG opportunity: Ask the SEO expert

What do you want to know about SEO?

Gerry asked John: "If I submitted my site and it's not showing up, does that mean Google's banned me?"

If it's a brand new site and you have submitted it via Google Webmaster tools, it may take a week or two to show up in the results. One way to check is to perform this search on your domain name. (MMT note: I would Google: site:mymarketingthing.com so you just insert your URL). This will show a list of pages that Google has indexed. If any pages are listed there, Google has not de-indexed your site.

Nicky wrote in with: "How can I find out how much traffic my competitors are getting?"

The short answer is you can't. Not unless you have access to your competitors' web site statistics which is pretty unlikely. Besides, traffic doesn't pay the bills, it is converting traffic that is important. Assuming your competitors know about SEO, what you can do is work out what search terms they are trying to optimise for.

To do this, view the source code of their pages (MMT note – every browser is slightly different, so to find out how to do this Google: How to view source code [insert your browser name]). Then look up the top of the page of code for something like: <title>Red widget grooming Carina</title>. The title tag should tell you what the page is trying to be found for in Google.

What's your question? John will answer it at the end of the next SEO Tips post. Irresistible, right?

In SEO Tips Part 4, John shows us the magic of inbound links and what PageRank actually means. Stay tuned!


Missed the others?
1.    SEO Tips Part 1: The Keyword Palaver
2.    SEO Tips Part 2: Keywords in Your Web Address



John Hacking of Search Tempo can help with your ranking, no matter where you are in the world. Time to give John a holler?
 P.S. He doesn’t charge monthly fees.


In this SEO series, we’re getting the deep dish from Google ranking hot shot, John Hacking of Search Tempo.

Last post John talked us through what’s going on with Google and how the keyword game has changed – check it out: SEO Tips Part 1: The Keyword Palaver. Today, you guessed it, we are looking at keywords in website addresses. 


1. John, it used to be advantageous to have keywords in your domain name (main URL). Is this still the case?

   Recently, Google started to reduce the ranking of sites with exact match domains. So that’s now no longer an SEO strategy. Just as well, as exact match domains as business names aren’t very brandable. You want a name that’s short, easy to spell and easy to remember. For instance ‘Hello Puppy’ is more memorable and attractive than ‘Brisbane Puppy Training’.

    
2. So keywords in URLs are now no help at all?

   They are still very useful. But if you want ranking for ‘North Brisbane Dog Training’ then simply put up a page somewhere in your website called ‘North Brisbane Dog Training’. However, having your domain name as www.NorthBrisbaneDogTraining.com means that you are risking Google’s exact match domain name penalty. Recently, I’ve found keywords in the URL of blog pages are particularly useful for SEO.

   

3. How far can you play this strategy out? 

   One of my clients paints houses. Slowly but surely he is creating 262 pages: a page for each suburb in Brisbane. So having keywords in your domain name is different from having keywords in your page URLs – that is, pages beyond your home page. Having keywords in those is still good for ranking.


    

Your BIG opportunity: Ask the SEO expert

What do you want to know about SEO?

Last week…

Sophia asked: "All the focus with SEO seems to be on Google. What about Yahoo and Bing and the others?"

John says: In the Australian market Google has over 95% of search traffic, ie traffic generated by people clicking on search engine results. That being the case it is more rational to focus on Google and forget the rest. The reality is that if you rank well in Google it is likely you will rank pretty well in Bing and Yahoo as well.

And Claude wrote: "I have a old web site that I build myself back in 1996 using a Freeware HTML editor. It ranks really well but I want to update it. How can I make sure I won't lose my rankings?"

John says: The first thing is to take a backup of your old site so if things go wrong you can at least get back to where you were. The second point is to make sure that you rebuild you web site using an SEO-friendly content management system like WordPress. The last important point is to set up what are called 301 redirects from the old page file names to the new page file names generated by your content management system. Here's more information about 301 redirects:

http://searchtempo.com/301-redirects-and-how-to-keep-your-page-authority/

And Maureen commented: "Good and useful blog on this topic. Is it still the case that a Google map of the business will help with the SEO. If so does the virtual tours that links to the maps enhance it even more?"

John says: Having a Google Map (now called Google Places or Google Plus Local), will certainly help with your rankings. For local specific searches e.g. restaurants Holland Park, Google will usually list the Places entries at the top of the page before most of the organic listings (see example below).

The best way to get your Places listing in the first 5 or so results is to build links to the URL for the listing. And, more importantly, provide as much information as possible in your listing – including: photos, videos, testimonials and special offers. Yes, a virtual tour linked to your map should help. I would also link to your map from your contact us page. 

What's your question? John will answer it at the end of the next SEO Tips post. Irresistible, right?

In SEO Tips Part 3, John talks us through the mystery of meta tags. Stay tuned…

John Hacking of Search Tempo can help with your ranking, no matter where you are in the world. Give him a hoy if you need some help.
P.S. He doesn’t charge monthly fees.


How to get decent ranking on Google has never been black and white. Particularly when Google changes its rules – or algorithms – for how it ranks a website.

In 2011 the big algorithm change announcement was called ‘Panda’. Which put dark circles under the eyes of many a SEO expert as they tried to work out why once high-ranking sites were suddenly dropping into oblivion (otherwise known as page 3). Last year, in April, it was called ‘Penguin’. Which had many in a flap. Sites that had previously received gold stars and fairy claps from Google slipped away overnight.

It’s a jungle in there.

While we all like high ranking, reading about algorithm shifts can be brain-bendingly dull if you are not tech-inclined. Which is why I thank the gods for John Hacking’s Friday SEO Tips (you can subscribe on his boutique search engine marketing company site: Search Tempo). While John is an SEO Tech Maharishi, his weekly tips are easily digestible (and rather tasty) morsels for non-tech plebs like me. Now that the Penguin snowstorm is beginning to settle, I asked John if he would mind chewing the krill on Google’s changes here on My Marketing Thing.



This is Part One of our Six-Part SEO series. Today John and I are talking about what is going on with Google generally, and keywords specifically. 



1. 
John, what is Google trying to achieve by their algorithm changes (beyond creating a new market for anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals)?


   In my opinion, Google is broken at the moment and it’s getting worse and worse. Just because Google has a patent to do something doesn't mean they are going to use that patent. There’s a lot of assumptions that Google is looking for this and looking for that because it’s in the their patents. But if you sat down and looked at the maths involved in assessing just two pages – not 2 billion pages – there is not enough processing power to do all that. So while there’s probably about 200 factors Google’s supposed to use to rank a website, I suspect there only about five or six of them are really important. Google say they are trying to improve search quality. Meanwhile, the conspiracy theorists are saying it's to make search rankings more random in order to push people towards Google Adwords.
    
2. 

I hear jamming lots keywords in website text now out – music to my copywriter’s ears. Can you explain ‘keyword stuffing’ and why it is now akin to a decomposing turkey?

   One of the good things about the Penguin update is that you can now be a lot looser with keyword density. If you are too stringent with ticking keyword boxes it will actually hurt you. You can have the keywords in there, but if it’s too ‘tick the box’ your ranking will suffer. It’s back to real communication. So look at two search terms per page for SEO – anything beyond that is simply what is logical and useful information for your reader. 

Also, people used to put keywords in bold to enhance their ranking. But now only put the keyword in bold if it makes sense to the reader to have it in bold. It is no longer helpful to your ranking.



3. How many per page should we shoot for?


   The biggest mistake most people make with SEO is that they try to make one page – usually the home page – rank for everything. With WordPress or any other decent CMS site, it is easier to throw up another page. Interestingly, I’m finding at the moment that keywords appearing on internal blog pages (i.e. blog posts in a section of a website) is getting higher ranking than core pages (like ‘About’ , ‘Services’ and ‘FAQ’). Your page title is what you name your page. The page title appears as a heading (called ‘H1’ under formatting) at the start of your page. On a core page it might be ‘About us’. But on a blog or news page it could be ‘Five puppy training tips’. So you can weave keywords in there too.


4. What’s the easiest way to find the right keywords?

   If you simply type in some search terms in Google some popular phrases come up. These can guide you as to what could be good for you. You can use the Google AdWords keyword tool to search for keywords in your area. When using this tool, don’t be seduced by volume. Be seduced by the combination of volume and conversion rates. Think about what words people would use to buy something you sell (and that your competitors sell). 


5. Can you give us an example?

   Okay, let's take airlines as an example. ‘Flights’ is a broad term. Too broad. ‘Cheap flights’ is better as it is more specific. But it’s still pretty broad. ‘Cheap flights Brisbane to Melbourne’ is more refined again. There will be less searches for this, but the conversion rate is a thousand times better than just ‘flights’. SEO tools are great. But they don’t replace thinking about what your prospective buyer with type in. Not sure? You can always throw $200 at Google AdWords and see what happens. It’s a great way test search terms.

6. 
So how far should we push search terms?


   Don’t be greedy about the number of search terms you are trying to optimise for on a particular page. Be a bit looser. 18 months ago is was all about search terms. Post-Panda, that’s all changed. You need to mix it up more with marketing terms. Have the keywords in there, sure. But have marketing text in there as well.


Your BIG opportunity: Ask the SEO expert

What do you want to know about SEO? I already have a couple of questions from clients:

Sophia asks: "All the focus with SEO seems to be on Google. What about Yahoo and Bing and the others?"

Claude writes: "I have a old web site that I build myself back in 1996 using a Freeware HTML editor. It ranks really well but I want to update it. How can I make sure I won't lose my rankings?"

So what's your question? Ask in the comment box and John will answer it at the end of the next SEO Tips post.

In SEO Tips Part 2, John gives us the low down on keywords in URLs. Stay tuned…

John Hacking of Search Tempo can help you with the Google wrestle – no matter where you are in the world. Give him a tinkle on the blower (that’s cockney for ‘give him a call’…not that other thing you might have been thinking).
 P.S. He doesn’t charge monthly fees.



Why a wide-eyed owl is the symbol of social media sanity, I can't say. But, as mentioned in the previous post: Save Time on Social Media, Hootsuite can be a godsend for us less partial to the social media black hole.

Choose the free version and you have up to five social media profiles to schedule a heap of posts to – then walk (or run) away.

Note: You need a Twitter account to sign up to Hootsuite.

To kick off on Hootsuite:

1. Go to www.Hootsuite,com and sign up
   Hint: to reduce the chance of glitches with your facebook account, use the same email address as you do for facebook if you can. But don't panic if you can't.

   

    

2. Select your social media profiles
   You need to connect to your Twitter account for you to use Hootsuite – even if you don't want to post on Twitter.
   Note: You will also need your Twitter account connected to upload images – even if you don't want to post images on Twitter. Birds of a feather..
   
   

    

3. Connecting with your Twitter profile
   This is what the screen looks like (below). Just pop in your username or email address and your password, and click 'Authorize App'.
   Note: If it doesn't connect up for glitchy reasons: log into your twitter account on a separate page. Still a problem? Use your email address (if you had tried to connect with your user name) or visa versa.

   
    

4. Hootsuite hospitality takes you on a tour
   Actually, you have no choice. Thankfully, the tour is short and sweet.

   

    

5. Add another social network
   About Facebook:
   To add your facebook page to your Hootsuite account you also need to include your individual profile (you can then delete the individual profile if you wish).
   About Google+:
   Hootsuite doesn't acknowledge Google+ individual profiles, only pages at this stage.

   

    

6. Posting: Select your networks

   

    

7. Posting an article
   Cut and paste the link to your desired article for posting where it says 'Add a link'. This could be for a video link, too.

   

    

8. Shrink the link!

   

    

9. Add an enticement line
   Why should others read what you are posting?

   

    

10. Schedule a post

    

11. See your schedules

    
     

12. Posting an image
    You do need Twitter to activate the uploading of images.

    

    But you don't need to post to Twitter. How to deselect:

    

     

When a facebook glitch happened…

When I was helping a client out with Hootsuite, it connected well facebook. But when it came time to posting on facebook, it just didn't want to connect. An API error message kept coming up. To fix this, you have to take your facebook profiles off Hootsuite and add them again (I had to do this a couple of times before it would play ball).

This post was written by Megan Hills. Megan is a writer, cartoonist and marketing consultant who DOES give a hoot for anything that saves time on social media. Find out more about Megan.

Social media needn't suck out your soul. We started talking about this in the post, remember?: What if you don't like social media?

You may have even found a social media platform that's quite enjoyable. If so, bask in the miracle. But the question remains: Are those you want to reach, biz-wise, on there too?

Remember, marketing is really about making a connection with those potential clients/customers/valuable collaborators. That's what this whole caper boils down to.

What if your prospective punter isn't partial to, say, Pinterest, but you are? You may want to relegate your Pinterest activity to 'fun activity' or 'therapy'. Or you can see it as a way of testing a possible new market who is also into the pin thing. But draw your focus back to your main target market and which sandbox they like to play in.

Below are some ideas to make the sandbox feel more like a tropical island (without the hurricanes):

1. Pick the right sandbox
   Where are your potential clients hanging out? It might be Facebook, for example.
    
2. Take up post scheduling
   Schedule a month's worth of posts in one sitting. With Facebook, you can schedule your posts to appear on your page later. Here is what facebook says about that. But there are other ways to do this – which we will get to in a mo'…
    
3. Post on facebook, auto-feed to twitter
   Facebook might be your main focus. But what if prospective clients may also be found on Twitter? Using sync apps (auto-feed applications) on the social media platforms themselves, you can post to Facebook, which automatically feeds that post to your Twitter profile (Facebook to Twitter app here), or Twitter to Facebook (Twitter to Facebook app here). But social media sandbox dictators tsk tsk this shortcut. Why? Because people behave differently on the various social media sites. They would prefer you use a third party social media management tool (more on that in a minute). But, quite frankly, most of us are lucky to have the time to do anything on social media. So I won't tell. But what if you want to post on LinkedIn too? Twitter doesn't auto-feed to LinkedIn anymore….bugger….
    
4. Posting across many social media profiles
   What if it's worth posting on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+? Answer: Hootsuite – a rather nifty social media management tool.
   Note: now Google Plus looks like it's worth acknowledging for Google ranking reasons, even though it's awful quiet in there…
   

    

Hootsuite and the gang

To schedule your posts and post across a number of your social media profiles in one hit (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and/or LinkedIn) then consider Hootsuite as a sanity boost. There are other scheduling platforms, like:

• Yoono
  
• Tweetdeck
• CoTweet
• Postcron
• ubervu
  
• pagelever
• tweetspinner
• sproutsocial

But they usually don't have the main social media platforms covered or they cost too much for most of us. Hootsuite has been around for donkey's years, covers the main players and has a great free version. Snap.

One drawback to third party social media management tools
Facebook does seem to reduce the number of impressions you get if you post from a third party application – Hootsuite or any of the others. Facebook would prefer you used their own scheduling system (they seem to be penalising the third party apps a bit but no one can say this for sure).

More info on this by Joel from Deep Footprints who wrote about it in July 2012. The folks from Talk About Creative reinforced this recently in their post Facebook vs 3rd Party Apps.

So should we be trading convenience for viewers?

Yes, if using Hootsuite (or other 3rd parts apps) means you are actually on facebook – rather than running out of gas over the whole palaver.

Next post: How to get started on Hootsuite. Stay tuned!

This post was written by Megan Hills. Megan is a writer, cartoonist and marketing consultant who likes saving time on social media in order to draw very important doodles. Find out more about Megan.

What is a QR code?

We're starting to see a lot these strange-looking square graphics appearing on business cards, advertising, on wine bottles, even on walls in art museums.

In July 2011 a crazy guy called Marco was the first to have a QR code tattooed on his chest. See the YouTube video here.

How it works

When you scan the square graphic on your smart phone, your phone's browser takes you to a particular website. It can also take you to a phone number, an SMS message, a vCard (electronic business card) or just plain alphanumeric text.

Yes, it's free

The app on your phone is free – and creating a code can be free too. So this is becoming an attractive addition to the swag of marketing tools available, courtesy of the internet.

The QR code global trend

The best figures seem to be from a study by comScore in Aug-Oct 2011. Only US stats unfortunately. It boiled down to this: 20 million of the US public has scanned a QR code in Aug-Oct 2011, which is an increase from 15 million in June. The trend is increasing in popularity, but slowly.

Who is scanning the QR codes? And where?

comScore discovered that young professional men with a decent income are most enthusiastic about this technology. Interestingly, magazines and newspapers are the most popular spots to scan from.Scanning at home takes first place, though retail and grocery stores are doing alright too.

Wanna scan a QR code?

1. Just go to the app store on your smart hone and search for 'qr code scanner free'
2. Once the scanner is on your phone, click on the app and the scanning screen comes up with a red line bouncing up on down.
3. Hold up your phone to a code (you can use the one on the guy's shield in the cartoon at the top of this article) until you see the QR code on your screen.
4. When the phone focuses the code properly, it activates and takes you to where the code wants you to go (the cartoon's QR code shamelessly takes you to www.MyCartoonThing.com)

How do I get a QR code?

You can generate one for free within seconds. Just Google 'free QR code converter' and a heap of sites come up. Say you want the code to go to your website. Type in the URL in the field provided, click enter. Usually a code in png format is automatically downloaded on your computer. Voila! QRstuff seems to be a popular one – reliable and good quality codes for easy scanning.

Be safe about your choice of converter: If the data goes to an untrusted third-party site before serving up your QR code, then I recommend leaving immediately. Just look for another QR code converter.

Easy-to-scan QR codes

People are busy. If it takes too long to scan your QR code then they'll stop trying and move on. 3 points to consider:

• The physical size
  If your QR code is the size of your thumbnail (literally), it takes much longer for the scanner to pick up the code as opposed to one four times the size.
• The quality of the graphic
  If your QR code graphic appears a little blurry on your flyer, for example, it can be harder to scan.
• The complexity of your link
  The more complex your link, the more complex the code, the harder it is to scan. Here is an article on LunaMetrics on shortening your URL that also assists with tracking your QR code activity on Google Analytics.

Which leads me to the next point…

Who is scanning your QR code?

Market research is a beautiful thing. You can hook up with a service to receive analytics on how many people have scanned your QR code and when it was scanned. As Christina Keffer from LunaMetrics discovered, Google Analytics is one way of tracking your code's activity – for free.

Daniel Bianchini wrote a nice step-by-step article on how to do this for yourself: Tracking Your QR Codes to Bring Offline Marketing Online.

But if you like videos Optimization Tutor has a nice one on YouTube: Advanced QR Code Tracking – How To Track Offline Marketing In Google Analytics.
 

That's enough from me. How about you?

Leave a comment on how you are going with scanning, creating and distributing QR codes.

This post was written by Megan Hills. Megan is a writer, cartoonist and marketing consultant who wonders if QR code graphics could be turned into pictures of faces to make them more visually engaging. Find out more about Megan.

The words 'I don't like social media' have been whispered to me in dark alleys by strangers wearing mysterious hats and dark glasses. After the confession they scurry away in shame. I am left wondering what on earth has happened to our society.

It's okay not to like social media.

There, I've said it.

Claims such as: 'If you don't like social media then you don't understand how to use it' are bandied about by loudmouthed online marketeers who want to make sure you feel like life isn't worth living if you're not spending at least 80% of your day on facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, youtube, google+ and/or pinterest (and preferably buying their products that teach you their 'secrets' to online success). My confession: I often find these highly popular people as boring as bat shit.

Irony note: I do recognise that blogs are a form of social media and that if you are reading this and enjoying it so far, then you are enjoying social media. But unless you comment on this article, it's really just an online article. Social media is about being social – i.e. interacting.

It's okay if you do like it

Of course, many find social media enjoyable for social purposes – regardless of whether any income is generated from it. If you are one of these souls, then good for you. Soak it up and revel in it. But if you're not…

It's okay not to want to understand social media.

I know. Talk about going out on a limb. But this is for those who are so repulsed by the notion of social media. That even the idea of trying to work out all the ins and outs for their business sends them into a depressive spiral. If this is you, I want you to know it's okay.

Do you really need social media?

It depends on your business. If you are a massage therapist, for example, and really just need ten to twenty good ongoing local clients to achieve your business goals then blitzing on social media everyday may not be imperative. There are other ways of marketing to your local community. But if you have an online store and want to attract thousands of customers, then investing some energy in social media makes sense.

Confession: I haven't pushed social media hard for myself as I always seem have enough clients to keep me busy. But when I create product to sell on this site and my other 'things' (My Burnout Thing and My Cartoon Thing), I will be ramping that side of my strategy right up.

So what's the answer?

If your business begs for decent social media presence, I have a few suggestions. All of them require identifying and focusing on exactly who you want to reach. In other words, decide who your ideal client/customer is and keep focused on connecting with them. Social media has a habit of luring our attention down all kinds of rabbit holes.

Remember: Quality counts. And I don't just mean the content you are posting. It's more useful to have 100 loyal followers that actively talk about you to potential customers than thousands that don't really care.

1. Start with one platform and go steady
   But which one? This depends on your target market. Women are the user demographic for pinterest by far and still pip the post on facebook. Men are more enthusiastic about Google+ and Reddit. Find out more through Mashable's latest spacey social media demographic diagram. Hubspot have a social media report on demographics by industry. Once chosen, try 10 minutes a day on it – this might be all you need to do. Remember not to promote yourself too hard – give useful information away and talk about others that are possibly useful and/or interesting to your target market. Tip: subscribe to Google Alerts for content online that you can post about.

2. Hire someone to do it for you
   Some believe (passionately) this is a bad idea. Social media is about personal connections – therefore you are the only one who can post comments. But I know people who have hired social media virtual assistants and the secret is in the guidelines you set and the regular briefing sessions you have with them. I also helps if they already have some experience with your industry.
    
3. Affiliate with others who are active on social media
   If you are not ready to have a social media profile then consider joining forces with someone who is – another business you genuinely want to support who is also relevant to your target market. Example: a photographer could team up with a florist to promote wedding services. The photographer could promote the florist in a snail mail campaign or during a presentation at an event. The florist could promote photographer on social media.

Any other ideas?

Are you having trouble getting your head around social media? Share with us your feelings about it. What are your experiences…or non-experiences.

This post was written by Megan Hills. Megan is a writer, cartoonist and marketing consultant who – at the moment – prefers working on her novel than disappearing into the facebook vortex. Find out more about Megan.