Facebook Is Now Becoming Crucial In SEO Compaigns

Facebook is now playing very vital role in the field of SEO and SMO. Earlier it was considered that only the Search Engine are responsible for affecting any organic search result. But things are changing fast, and other things also began to play vital role like the Facebook and Twitter. Facebook's internal searches has began affecting search results. This has let the optimization strategy give a re-think.
A rough guess says that :-

* More than 500 million active users
* 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
* Average user has 130 friends
* People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

* More than 70 translations available on the site
* About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
* Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application

* Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
* Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
* More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

There are more than 200 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
So with such big and massive presence Facebook is bound to draw the limelight in the SEO Arena. Little-to-none of Facebook’s is activity is indexed by Google and other mainstream engines. It’s easy to see why Facebook’s members-only organic search results deserve attention!
In addition to wall posts, think SEO in tendering status updates, links and notes. You never know who will find it, searching for whatever. Wall-post external content like blog posts and news should be optimized for important keywords, especially the content’s title tag. If possible post content where the call to action and/or contact information is actually in the title tag. This gets your pitch to the search results as opposed to requiring a second click through to a profile page.
Remember that it’s not only wider (non-friends) Facebook search that matters. Your friends, friends of friends, networks and networks of friends are likely to trust you a bit more since you’re “local.” It’s fascinating to extrapolate the implications of a “trusted local personal search network.” As a user or searcher, be aware of how Facebook search privacy settings function. Seek advice from other tools Facebook gives us regarding users common social graphs. Lexicon, which is about to get deeper, and the Facebook paid search platform offer cool insight regarding what’s hot. Contribute continually. A good portion of the physical search results are comprised of social graph points generated within the last 30 days.

So what I can figure out by now about facebook is that it is the next big thing in the Search Arena. It has huge potential in itself. Facebok is not only connecting with friends and keeping yourself updated about them. It is also about what new and whats hot in every fields. It can tell you about new business opportunity. It has everything you will need about gaining traffic and visitors.
Keep updated on Facebok Guys. Pass more and time on facebook and stay ahead of your competitors.

Google & Bing Have Confirmed That Twitter & Facebook Influence SEO

As of yesterday, both Bing and Google have confirmed (via an excellent interview by Danny Sullivan) that links shared through Twitter and Facebook have a direct impact on rankings (in addition to the positive second-order effects they may have on the link graph). This has long been suspected by SEOs (in fact, many of us posited it was happening as of November of last year following Google + Bing’s announcements of partnerships with Twitter), but getting this official confirmation is a substantive step forward.

In addition to that revelation, another piece of critical data came via yesterday’s announcement:

Danny Sullivan: If an article is retweeted or referenced much in Twitter, do you count that as a signal outside of finding any non-nofollowed links that may naturally result from it?

Bing: We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results. It carries much more weight in Bing Social Search, where tweets from more authoritative people will flow to the top when best match relevancy is used.

Google: Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article.

Danny Sullivan: Do you try to calculate the authority of someone who tweets that might be assigned to their Twitter page. Do you try to “know,” if you will, who they are?

Bing: Yes. We do calculate the authority of someone who tweets. For known public figures or publishers, we do associate them with who they are. (For example, query for Danny Sullivan)

Google: Yes we do compute and use author quality. We don’t know who anyone is in real life :-)

Danny Sullivan: Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who tweets it?

Bing: Yes.

Google: Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the “Top links” section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search.

We now know that those link sharing activities on Twitter + Facebook are evaluated based on the person/entity sharing them through a score Google calls “Author Authority,” and Bing calls “Social Authority.”

We can probably predict a lot of the signals the search engines care about when it comes to social sharing; some of my guesses include:

-Diversity of Sources – having 50 tweets of a link from one account, like having 50 links from one site, is not nearly as valuable as 50 tweets from 50 unique accounts.
-Timing – sharing that occurs when an RSS feed first publishes a story may be valuable in QDF, but tweets/shares of older pieces could be seen as more indicative of lasting value and interest (rather than just sharing what’s new).
-Surrounding Content – the message(s) accompanying the link may give the engines substantive information about their potential relevance and topic; it could even fill the gap that’s left by the lack of anchor text, particularly on Twitter.
-Engagement Level – the quantity of clicks, retweets, likes, etc. (if/when measurable) could certainly impact how much weight is given to the link.

We can probably also take a stab at some of the signals Google + Bing use for Author/Social Authority in the context of the sharing/tweeting source:

-Quantity of Friends/Followers – like links, it’s likely the case that more is better, though there will likely be caveats; low quality bots and inauthentic accounts are likely to be filtered (and may be much easier to spot than spammy links, due to the challenge they find in getting any “legitimate” friends/followers).
-Importance of Friends/Followers – the friends/followers you have, like the link sources you have, are also probably playing a role. Earn high “authority” followers and you yourself must be a high authority person.
-Analysis of Friends/Followers Ratios – Much like the engines’ analysis of the editorial nature of links, consideration of whether a social user is engaging in following/follower behavior purely out of reciprocity vs. true interest and engagement may be part of authority scoring. If you have 100K followers and follow 99K of them, but the engagement between you and your followers is slim, you’re likely not as authoritative as an account with 100K followers + 5K following, but those followers are constantly engaged, retweeting, liking, sharing, etc.
-Topic Focus / Relevance – The consistency or patterns between your sharing behaviors could also be a consideration, using topic analysis, patterns in the sources of shared/tweeted links, etc. Being an “authority” could even be subject-specific, such that when a prominent SEO tweets links to celebrity news it has less of an impact than when they tweet links to a web marketing resource.
-Association Bias – I suspect Google and Bing do a good job of associating social authors with the sites/domains they’re “part of” vs. independent from. Sometimes, this might be as easy as looking at the URL associated with the account, other times it could be based on patterns like where you most often tweet/share links to or whether your account is listed on pages from that site. Basically, if @randfish tweets links to *.seomoz.org, that probably means less than when I tweet links to bitlynews or when someone outside the company tweets links to SEOmoz.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-bing-confirm-twitter-facebook-influence-seo

Social Media Flow Chart: Blog vs. Facebook vs. Twitter

This flowchart is from my Social Media Strategy eBook. Getting your blog, Facebook and Twitter to work together is a challenge. I think deciding where an idea should go (and just as important, where it shouldn’t go) can be difficult. That’s why I put together this flow chart for deciding on whether your your idea should be blogged, Facebooked or Tweeted. You’ll notice the arrows going from the blog to Facebook to twitter; these mean that what gets posted on your blog can be posted on Facebook which in turn can also be tweeted. Doing the reverse is a bad idea (ever been annoyed by a ton of someone’s tweets in your Facebook news feed?). I’d love to hear your feedback if you have any…

Click for larger image

Expedia on how to grow your ADR without impacting occupancy

In working with hotels across various chain scales and markets, Expedia identified a handful of strategies that can effectively increase ADR without impacting occupancy. This article uses Manhatten as example, but the observations and recommendations can be applied to any market.

By Nick Graham, Expedia Director of Market Management for New York


As the industry recovers from historical lows in occupancy and ADR, I’ve been hearing a common question from many hotels – “How are we going to grow rate?” Occupancy growth has to come first before rate growth, but in markets that are already seeing occupancy come back, hotels have the ability to achieve ADR increases.
In working with hotels across various chain scales and markets, I’ve identified a handful of strategies that can effectively increase ADR without impacting occupancy. I use Manhattan as an example because it is in many ways leading the recovery among U.S. lodging markets, but these observations and recommendations can be applied to any market that is experiencing even modest occupancy growth.

1. Grow your yieldable channels mix
Adjusting your segmentation to reflect more yieldable business, such as OTA channels, is the best place to start because it’s where rate adjustments can have the most immediate impact. In Manhattan, Expedia ADR has been growing faster than the market’s as a whole. Expedia ADR for Manhattan in June was up nearly 25% year over year, versus market-wide ADR growth of just under 18% . Year to date, the spread is just as pronounced, as the market has grown ADR by 9%, versus Manhattan ADR growth of 14% on Expedia. That means the OTA segment is growing at 57% the pace of the market, and this is due to the fact that the OTA channel is yieldable, as opposed to other pieces of business that were contracted at lower rates prior to the recovery. Because OTA pricing floats off of a hotel’s best available rate, revenue managers can raise or lower rates in immediate response to the market, while with traditional wholesale or contract segments, hotels are locked into fixed rates. In a recovery environment such as the one we find ourselves in now, pockets of demand that allow for rate increases may not become pronounced until closer to the date. In these instances, the hotels that achieve the highest rate increases will be those that can yield up a larger percentage of their business, as opposed to hotels that may already have contracted fixed pricing.

2. Implement a need date strategy
Every market, even in a recovery, has slow periods. But with the right strategy, it is possible to grow rate over these need dates. In Manhattan a prime example is the autumn weekend on which Yom Kippur falls. Corporate travelers check out early, and the locals leave town. Year after year, the market tends to react to the gap in occupancy about three weeks prior to the actual date, and cuts pricing to drive last minute occupancy. But once the 3-week window is reached, not only has the prime booking window passed, but the business in that window is at a considerably lower ADR than in the preceding 4 months. By anticipating need dates, hotels can use advance purchase promotions to fill their rooms further ahead. As long as the dates are identified correctly, promotional rates and the occupancy advantage a hotel gains earlier on will result in a higher ADR than if the hotel waits until the last minute to pick up occupancy. And if you have rooms left last minute, having that occupancy base allows you to discount safely through an opaque channel like Hotwire, as opposed to dropping your retail pricing. To successfully implement this strategy, it is critical to know the booking windows, which for many markets may be further out than expected. For example, in Manhattan, 50% of Expedia’s international package business is already booked 90 days prior to arrival. For international standalone, the average booking window is 60 days. These patterns are examples of the information hotels can use to implement promotional strategies to target the customer during their shopping cycle.

3. Use value ads rather than rate promotions
Once you’ve identified your need periods, the next step is to create an offer that will help shift business in your direction without leaving rate on the table. One effective way to stand out that won’t affect ADR is to use value adds. For example, the best performing value adds we have seen in Manhattan are free breakfast and free upgrades. If your property doesn’t have a managed restaurant on-site or the ability to fulfill a value add at check-in, some OTAs like Expedia will manage the value add on your behalf. For example, Hotels.com’s inline merchandising program recently offered a “free” pre-paid $50 Mastercard with qualifying bookings. Participating hotels saw a lift in their bookings, without an impact on their rate.

4. Turn up the volume on demand during eak compression dates
Every now and then, I hear some hotels talk about “cutting distribution costs” over peak dates by closing out OTAs. But a secret that many successful hotels have realized is that they can achieve higher rates over peak periods by ensuring inventory remains available through their distribution channels, and yielding rate up in response to the significant demand that ensues. We recently looked at one of Manhattan’s highest compression years in recent history. That year, there were 50 days with over 95% occupancy (according to STR). Over those dates, the market ADR was $344 and Expedia’s net ADR was $354. The reason behind this is that Expedia brings a lot of fairly price-insensitive demand at 2-3 weeks prior to peak compression dates, driven by customers that can’t find availability at their usual hotel. By keeping inventory open and adjusting rates up, hotels not only fill rooms at higher rates on Expedia, but also on their own channel through the Billboard Effect. We recently started sharing new peak compression date data with our hotel partners, which provides advance guidance to determine when a hotel has the opportunity to increase rates, or in some cases to revisit and perhaps reduce rates for specific dates. We share a mutual desire with our hotel partners to identify the ideal rate based on what the market can bear.

5. Stop giving away room upgrades
Many hotels offer some assortment of room types, even if it’s just a choice between standards and suites. The trouble is, the lead-in room type is often overbooked, forcing the property to upgrade the guest for free at check in. By applying a promotional strategy for upgraded room types (being sure to target dates or upgraded room types that might typically go unsold), hotels can entice bookings for higher rate rooms and achieve a higher ADR overall. For example, a typical mix of bookings at one hotel I work with in Manhattan was 75% standard rooms and 25% suites. After they began applying a promotional rate just for the suites, they boosted the mix of suite bookings to 33% and grew overall ADR from $226 to $253. They started getting paid for those room upgrades, and it paid off in higher ADR.

Obviously, the hotel industry today looks much different than in years past. As hoteliers navigate today’s landscape, they need to remain flexible and open-minded to using new and different marketing channels in order to adapt and drive demand in the recovering market, and putting the above strategies into practice is a great place to start. In the final analysis, it benefits an OTA and its hotel partners to grow rate and occupancy. Reach out and engage your OTA market manager. Odds are, they’ll have insights and suggestions about your marketplace that you may not have considered before. Working together with OTA marketing experts like Expedia will accelerate the return to improved rate - but only through active collaboration.

Social Media revolution

Sidebar Boxes Will Be Removed From Facebook Pages

Facebook has confirmed that the removal of the boxes tab is a sweeping change that will see the disappearance of all profile boxes on the left-hand side of Facebook Pages.

A Facebook spokeswoman told AllFacebook.com: “These boxes will be removed, just as they will be from profiles, and so the page owners will need to move that info to the info page or a custom tab.”
The changes are to take effect the week commencing August 23, along with a new tab width limit if 520 pixels. However, the Facebook Developer Blog and Developer Roadmap were not explicit on the details, so we asked Facebook for some clarification.
We showed them a few examples and here’s what we found out…
Example 1: On the Coca-Cola fan page, the “House Rules” box on the left-hand panel of the Wall tab will no longer be supported.

Example 2: The privacy policy on the AT&T Facebook page – currently in a box on the left-hand side – will no longer be displayed in its current format.

Example 3: The TOMS Shoes Facebook page will keep the image that says “With every purchase. TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for one”. A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that this was in a description area rather than a box and would not be going away. She added that Tom’s also had this information on the “Welcome” tab, which was an FBML tab, and would remain.

TripAdvisor launches private-sale site for highly-reviewed hotels

A subsidiary of TripAdvisor has launched SniqueAway.com, a new private-sale site offering special deals at hotels that earn a minimum four-star rating out of five on its review site. The site will be restricted to a limited group of members who will be allowed to invite their friends to take part in the deals.

SniqueAway promises that the deals offered on its site will be offered only to those hotels that earn a minimum four-star rating classification and a minimum four out of five TripAdvisor review rating.
There’s a catch, though: the private-sale site will be restricted to a limited group of members, who will be allowed to invite their own friends to partake of the deals. The site is accepting new members, although there is a waiting list, a site spokeswoman said. Technically, the site is owned by Smarter Travel Media, which in turn is owned by TripAdvisor Media Group and by TripAdvisor LLC.
“We are letting our members decide how big the community becomes, just like we are letting the people tell us which hotels we should feature,” David Krauter, the general manager of SniqueAway, added in an email. “Occasionally, we will let folks off the wait list as well, but access is not immediately guaranteed.”
Get the full story at PCMag.com
Here is SniqueAway.com’s launch press-release:
Smarter Travel Media Partners with TripAdvisor to Launch SniqueAway Private Sale for Travel
BOSTON, September 7, 2010 – Smarter Travel Media, a TripAdvisor Media Group company, launches SniqueAway, where for the first time, private sale meets crowd sourcing approval by creating the first members-only site where each offer is endorsed by the people. All hotels featured on SniqueAway have earned a minimum four-star rating classification (exceptions apply for smaller properties without a star rating) and four out of five review ratings on TripAdvisor. Corresponding hotel reviews are shown alongside limited-time, members- only offers providing a quick view into how other travelers view the hotel making it easy to book a room before they sell out. To build membership, SniqueAway will also rely on the wisdom of the crowd to spread the news, since to be a member, one must be invited by another member. Information on alluring SniqueAway deals at deep discounts can be found at SniqueAway.com and SniqueAway.com/press.
“We‘ve watched and learned and now we‘re ready to party with the players who have proven the private sale model is a winner,‖ said Massimo De Nadai, General Manager for Smarter Travel Media.
Take it from some of the best journalists in the business, the private sale space is getting even hotter:
“Luxury hotels have long aimed for an image of exclusivity — setting prices beyond the reach of most travelers.” (Michelle Higgins, The New York Times) “If you‘re new to the private-sale game, the way it works is that you have to become a member (it‘s free) to view a website‘s sales. Once you‘re in the club, a world of hotel discounts awaits.” (Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times’ Daily Travel & Deals Blog) “They may be the ultimate tool for travelers who want to enjoy luxe for less.” (David Armstrong, TheStreet.com) “For starters, they aim for an image of exclusivity, with ̳invitation only‘ setups and a strategy of preventing their wares from showing up in search-engine results. And they amplify those elements of bargain-focused shopping that some people find fun and exciting.” (Rob Walker, The New York Times Magazine)
“A few years ago Delta Airlines offered surprise getaway fares; every week about midweek the airline would publish a list of destinations and absurdly low prices.” (Jonathan Ramsey, Luxist.com) “Over the past year or two, at least a half-dozen sites have been launched that bring the designer sample sale concept online.” (Carolyn Bigda, David Futrelle, Amanda Gengler, Ismat Sarah Mangla, and George Mannes, Money Magazine) “Visits to a custom category of 17 websites offering Online Flash Sales increased 235% year-over-year for the week ending April 24, 2010.” (Heather Dougherty, Hitwise Webblog)
“The Password is membership.” (Michelle Higgins, The New York Times) “While numerous sites swear numerous oaths about being the finest in sybaritic escapes, as is always the case in these matters, only a few have a worthy insider’s eye on luxury destinations. What’s more, some of them offer insider deals so you can do more with your time away – or maybe do less and feel better about it.” (Jonathan Ramsey, Luxist.com) “The urgency and limited quantities are supposed to stoke desire, and it’s working. Welcome to the sport of private online flash sale shopping.” (Booth Moore, Los Angeles Times) “But hurry – inventory is limited so check upcoming destinations and pick your preferred days before the sale begins.” (Ann Hynek, FOXBusiness.com)
“Hotels like the private sales, which because of the membership requirement, generally don‘t appear in online searches or aggregator sites. This helps maintain the idea of a velvet rope around the deals.” (Michelle Higgins, The New York Times) “Customers like belonging to an exclusive group, and when offered a special deal via a limited-time event, the experience becomes even more exclusive and exciting. The events only run for a limited time and each event has limited inventory, so it is first-come, first-serve.” (Adam Michelson, E-Commerce Times) “Online private sales is a growing business model that is rapidly becoming a staple of online shopping. (They) are quickly gaining millions of users each and attracting significant amounts of venture funding.” (Leena Rao, TechCrunch.com)
“It’s official! Travel ̳sample sales‘ are now a thing.” (JetSetCD, Jaunted.com) “Looking for a hot deal on a hip hotel or luxury resort? What are you waiting for — an invitation?” (Rob Lovitt, MSNBC.com)
Related Link: SniqueAway.com

Top 5 mistakes most hotel social media accounts contain

Social media together with the hospitality industry can make a great pair. Too bad very few hotels actually know how to make that happen. Instead, the hotels’ social media strategies are full of mistakes, which results in countless number of missed opportunities.

No proper signage at the property: Many hotels that have social media presence either hide it in an offline   world on purpose or do so unintentionally. The hotel may have a Twitter and Facebook account, yet when you are staying at the hotel, you would never know. Does it make any sense? No, but it often is the case. Having signs at the front desk, on the flyers, newsletters, feedback cards, receipts etc. would go a long way when it comes to encouraging the existing customers to join the hotels’ social media world. Without the signs, the hotels make the customers dig deep, which is something very few will do.
Doubtful or non-existing widgets on the hotel’s website: Many hotels with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc. accounts don’t link them properly to their website. The widgets (small icons) are either not there or hard to notice. Even worse, some hotels don’t even link their social media accounts to the website at all. Talking about hindering your social media strategy.
Let’s copy all other marketing materials: When you look at Four Seasons (twitter.com/fourseasons) for example, all you see are the stiff updates made out of everything you can learn from the website or printed marketing materials. Whoever runs this account doesn’t realize what my Twitter friend, @iconic88, once tweeted: “The power of Twitter is in your sharing, not your selling.” The social media channels are unlike any other marketing channels and have their distinctive advantages, like first-hand contact with existing & potential customers, so copying other marketing messages should be a secondary factor.
Get the full story at OnlineFantastic’s Blog

Marketers Guide to Website Redesign

Keith Moehring is business development manager and consultant at PR 20/20, an inbound marketing agency and HubSpot Partner. You can follow him on Twitter at @keithmoehring. He also actively contributes to http://www.PR2020.com/blog.
A website is the cornerstone of any marketing campaign. It is the place where customers, prospects, media, competitors, investors, peers and job candidates turn to first when learning more about your organization and its products or services.

Because of this, it’s essential that marketers take a leadership role in any company website redesign project.
To help you avoid any common missteps, we’ve developed a free ebook — “A Marketer’s Guide to Website Redesign.” The ebook details the six main steps involved in the website redesign process, from the perspective of a marketer who doesn’t have a technology background.

1. The Prep

To avoid delays, take the time to gather all necessary information upfront, before it is needed. Items to gather include:

• Analytics tracking codes.
• Logo file in a vector format (i.e. .EPS, .AI, or .CDR).
• Main contact information for current website host.
• Google Webmaster Central, Bing Webmaster Center and Yahoo SiteExplorer verification codes.
• Branding guidelines and all relevant collateral documents.

2. Discovery

Collaborate with all website stakeholders (i.e. C-level executives, marketing department, sales department, and IT) to define the most important aspects of your new site, including:

• Buyer personas.
• Site objectives.
• Calls to action.
• Color scheme.
• Page layout and design preferences.
• Site features and functionality.

3. Design & Structure

To help communicate your vision of the new website, develop a comprehensive creative brief, detailing everything you defined in phase two. Your web team will use this as a guide when designing and building out your new site.
At minimum your creative brief should include:

• Graphic sitemap outlining all pages on your site, including main navigation options.
• Page layout and design preferences, with screen shots or URLs of examples.
• Color scheme, including primary, secondary and accent colors.
• Navigation options you want available on the site.

4. Content & Optimization

Visitors don’t come to your site for the cool design or fancy navigation; they come for the content. Develop content that is concise, scannable and engaging. It needs to deliver key messaging quickly and clearly, and then drive visitors to take a desired call to action. To help this content get found, it also needs to be optimized avoid priority keywords.
When developing content, consider the following suggestions:

• Create a keyword map that assigns each page on your site a priority keyword (or two) for which it will be optimized.
• Define the tone and style of your content.
• Assign the development of website copywriting to your team’s strongest writer (avoid using multiple authors).
• Optimize each page after the content has been created.

5. Build Out & Quality Assurance

This is the phase where all your hard work comes to fruition. It includes populating the site with all content, setting up 301 redirects, and completing a thorough review of the site to ensure that everything displays and works properly.
To streamline the upload process:

• Create an upload cheatsheet that will serve as a how-to guide for adding content into your content management system (CMS).
• Before loading content, create all the pages first, and organize them according to your sitemap.
• Upload all images and graphics into a designated folder in the CMS so they are easy to locate when it comes time to add them to a page.
• Put together a team internally to upload all content and formatting into the web pages.
• Perform a quality assurance by checking to make sure all formatting is correct, all links and features work, and that everything displays properly across all browsers.

6. The Launch

Finally, launch the new website and ensure it is being indexed accurately by Google and other search engines. To do this, take the time to:

• Check that all 301 redirects are working.
• Log into each search engine’s webmaster center to confirm all verfication code is installed properly, and then submit your XML sitemap.
• Verify that all analytics tracking code is installed.
• Review Google Webmaster Tools every few days to ensure there are no pages Google had indexed on your old site that it can no longer find.

Porque twitter?

Este video nos explica la esencia de Twitter, y sus usos. Relacionado con el medio empresarial, es una herramienta muy valiosa para conocer los comentarios de los proveedores, clientes y personal de la empresa.