Derek's Home and Business Blog: November 2011

Friday, 11 November 2011

5 Tips You Should Know About Google+ Pages

With the launch of Google+ pages for brands on Monday and with me doing a post on the subject, here's 5 tips from the Google+ Team which I thought I would share with you.

If you have yet to create a page for your business or blog, you can do so here. Don't forget to also add my new blog page to your circles so you can keep up to date with my latest blog posts...

1. You Can +1 a Page to Show Support or Add Them to Your Circles

We know you love some brands and businesses. Others you may want to show a quick note of support, but not see all their updates. So just drop a little +1 and keep going, or add a page to any circle you want. You're in control.

2. No Google+ Page Can Follow You Until You Follow Them

We want Google+ to be a place you love to share. Pages cannot circle you until you follow them first. Of course, if you are in their circles, they can share great deals, exclusive coupons, product tips and hangouts, but the relationship is yours to start.

3. In Fact, Google+ Pages Can't Even Mention You Unless You're Connected

That's right. The Google+ page can't even say your name unless you're following. No +mention spam.

4. Google+ Pages Automatically Unfollow You If You Unfollow Them

If you remove a Google+ Page from your circles, you are automatically removed from their circles. You always are in charge.

5. You Can Find Google+ Pages In Google Search

With a new feature we call Direct Connect, just type + followed by the brand name in Google Search, and you can see pages automatically display. Type +Pepsi to see Pepsi, and +Dell for Dell. It's that easy.

You can read more about Google+ pages plus FAQs on their help page at:
http://www.google.com/support/plus/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=1710599&p=pages

Have you created a Google+ page? If so, what do you think of the new pages? Are these pages better than Facebook pages? Please let me know by leaving your valued comments.

Addendum: With today being Armistice Day (Remembrance Day or Veterans Day in the US) and Remembrance Sunday in two days time here in the UK, may we honour our Veterans and pay tribute to those who died. May we always remember and never forget those who lost their lives in the line of duty.

Related articles:
Google+ Launches Pages For Brands

Using Google+? Add Derek's Home and Business Blog to your circles and stay up to date with the latest blog posts, news and resources.

If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day), on Facebook and Google+ or by subscribing to our blog feed at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog

You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509, Google+ and on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/djones1509
https://plus.google.com/104849975941505117776

Until my next post, have a fabulous weekend! Article posted at 11:11:11am on the 11/11/11 :)

Wednesday, 9 November 2011

Google+ Launches Pages For Brands

Google announced on Monday the introduction of Google+ Pages and a collection of other tools to help businesses and brands to grow their audience.

According to Google, these pages are aimed to bring you closer to your audience, allowing you to have real conversations with the right people, connecting you face-to-face with your site's visitors and allowing current fans to recommend new ones. Giving your business a home on Google+ lets you directly interact with your users while giving them more chances to share your content with their friends.

As reported in one of my recent posts, major advertisers already use Facebook and Twitter to reach large audiences on those services. With this announcement and with more than 40 million users so far using Google+, you can now have a presence on the new social network and another platform to promote your products and/or services and to connect with your customers.

Similar to Google+ profile pages, these new pages include Hangouts, a tool that allows you to have high-quality video chats with your customers and Circles which allows you to group followers of your page into smaller audiences, ideal for sharing specific messages with specific groups of people. All pages will have access to analytics tools and support for multiple administrators in the near future.

These pages are not just limited to businesses and brands. If you're a blog owner for example, you can create a page and use it to announce your latest blog posts and to have discussions with your followers. Unlike Facebook pages, the new Google+ pages are simple to create and to setup. Within minutes of pressing the create a page link, your page is up and running and you're ready to start promoting it.

To help your users find your page and start sharing, there are two buttons you can add to your site: the Google+ icon which is available now and the badge, which will be available in the next few days. This badge lets people add your page to their circles without leaving your site and allows them to get updates from your site via Google+. You can get the icon and badge (when available) by visiting the Google+ badge configuration tool.

With the launch of the new brand pages, Google have extended the power of the +1 and brought out a new experimental feature called Google+ Direct Connect which is currently only available to a small group of publishers.

In a statement on their blog post: If you've linked your page to your site and you qualify, when someone searches for your website's name with the "+" sign before it, Direct Connect will send them directly to your page. For example, try searching for "+YouTube" on Google. Users will also be prompted to automatically add pages they find through Direct Connect to their circles.

The extension of the +1 certainly looks an exciting feature as all your +1s (from your page, your website and on search results) will get combined and appear as a single total. These totals will then be visible on your page, your website and on search results and reach all the people who use Google, including the 40 million Google+ users. For the +1 extension to work, you need to link your site to your page using the Google+ badge configuration tool.

Given this new tool, I'm pleased to announce the launch of a new Google+ page for Derek's Home and Business Blog. Similar to my blog's Facebook page, I'll be using this new page to announce my latest blog posts, post any news concerning the blog and for discussions with my followers. Now you can follow my blog on Google+ and well as on Facebook. You can access the new page by visiting: https://plus.google.com/114686242826423169197

I've also updated the blog to include the new Google+ icon that directly links to this new page. You can find the new (red G+) icon at the top of sidebar with the rest of the social icons. Note: With last month's announcement of the shut down of Google Buzz in a few weeks, I've now removed this icon from the blog and replaced it with the new icon.

With the launch of the new brand pages, I feel Google+ can now seriously compete against Facebook and as businesses and brands come to use this new online marketing tool, only time will tell how successful it will become or if it's too little, too late.

What do you think of the new pages? Do you think they will have a bigger marketing impact for your business than Facebook pages? I would love to read your thoughts on this.

Related articles:
Google+ To Accommodate Pseudonyms
The End Draws Near For Google Buzz

Monday, 7 November 2011

Opportunities For Guest Posting, Link Exchanges And Advertising

Since its launch back in August 2010, Derek's Home and Business Blog has grown beyond all my expectations and it's all down to you, my valued and dedicated followers, visitors and my friends at Bloggers Network.

This growth is truly exceptional and therefore, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for making this blog so successful and for your continued support. You make this blog and the work that goes into it all worthwhile.

Given this exciting growth, I'm now able to offer some extra services on the blog. These services include Guest Posting, Article Submissions, Reciprocal Link Exchanges and a variety of Advertising options for those wishing to promote their products and/or services on the blog.

Here's a quick break-down of the services that's being offered...

Guest Posting and Article Submissions

I'm always on the lookout for high quality, informative articles to offer my readers. If you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM), I would like to hear from you.

To ensure you have full recognition for your work, each published article or guest post will be featured and include two "DoFollow" links to your website or blog; one in the lead-in sentence (used to introduce you) at the beginning of the article/post and the other at the end of the article/post within the author's bio. You can also promote your social network profiles by including your Facebook, Google+ or Twitter profile links within the bio section. Guidelines on guest posting and article submissions can be found on the Write For Us page.

Reciprocal Link Exchanges

Reciprocal link exchanges that fit into the subject matter of the blog are always welcome. If you are interested in exchanging links and your site is of good quality, has a fair amount of traffic and has a Google PageRank of 3 or more, please contact me with your site details using the Contact tab above. Don't forget that if you're a blog owner, you can list your blog in our new Blog Directory page.

Advertising

Although based in the UK, Derek's Home and Business Blog receives traffic from and promotes to a global audience. If you are an advertising agency or an individual interested in advertising your products and/or services on the blog, please don't hesitate to contact me using the Contact tab above.

Advertising options within the subject matter of the blog can include Banners, Contextual Ads, Text Links, Videos and Articles. These options can be of any length of time (from one month to permanent), depending on your or the client's requirements. All advertising prices are currently open to negotiations (until further notice) and to avoid transaction and currency conversion fees, payments made using PayPal. For more details and pricing, visit the Advertise page.

Please note: To continue to ensure that the blog can be viewed by any age group, we do not offer advertising options where the content of the advertisement or the site it links to contains gambling, pharmaceutical or adult content.

If you are interested in guest posting or submitting articles, exchanging links or advertising your products and/or services on the blog, please don't hesitate to contact me using the Contact tab above.

Finally and for those of you who may be concerned over the new advertising options and what it might do to the quality of the blog, don't worry. The quality of the blog and its written content will always take priority over any advertising. Allowing some advertising on the blog and the revenue it generates helps go towards the upkeep of the blog and pay for the services I use to promote it. Striking the right balance between quality and having the right amount of advertising can sometimes be difficult but I hope to get this right...if I don't, be sure to let me know :)

Once again, thank you for your continued support and for making the blog what it is today. I'll continue to bring you more of the same quality posts that you've come to enjoy.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day), on Facebook and Google+ or by subscribing to our blog feed at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog

You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509, Google+ and on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/djones1509
https://plus.google.com/104849975941505117776

Until my next post, have a wonderful week!

Tuesday, 1 November 2011

How To Improve Your SEO With Backlinks

With being so busy lately, it's been quite a while since I've done a featured article on the blog. So for all of you who are interested in SEO, here's a great article by Kristina Weis of AboutUs.org with information and additional articles on getting valuable inbound links to your website...

How To Get Backlinks, The #1 SEO Ranking Factor

Links from other sites to yours - also called backlinks - continue to be the most important ranking factor that search engines look at when deciding where to rank a web page in search results. Also, links to a web page are the one and only factor contributing to the page's PageRank (not to be confused with your web page's rank in Google).

Backlinks are the most valuable and perhaps least easy way to improve your SEO. But seriously, they're worth it.

You don't have direct control over your backlinks the way you do over your title tags or other website content. So how can you get these magical backlinks to help your SEO?

First, create great content on your site that people would want to link to.
Ask. Contact site owners personally - don't use an automated system or send the same email to everyone. Give people a good reason to link to you, like a blog post you think would help their visitors.
Keep an eye out for sites that mention you without a link, or use not-so-valuable anchor text (like "click here" or your website name). Then ask them nicely.
Include your keywords and links in press releases, and submit them to press release sites. They'll be republished, complete with the links to your site.
Tip: Make sure links you get are DoFollow (not NoFollow) and anchor text.
If you haven't already, build a nice page for your site on AboutUs.org and ask us to make its links to your site DoFollow. (more info)

For more details on getting valuable inbound links, check out these articles:

Things to avoid:

Paying for links or getting links from "iffy" sites. You could be penalized by Google.
Focusing on quantity over quality. A few good links from popular, relevant sites will help your SEO more than many links from random sites.
Link exchanges, link wheels, or other link schemes. These provide marginal value, and could hurt you.
Leaving generic or spammy comments on blogs. Links in blog comments are usually NoFollow anyway, so they won't help your SEO. However, leaving meaningful comments is a good way to build your brand and get direct visitors.
Common website issues that can dilute or throw away your "link juice". For more information, read Quick SEO Fixes for Links.

Do you like this featured article? Please let me know by using the comments section below.

Note: If you're new to SEO, visit SEO in Practice for free, easy to understand tutorials and tips on search engine optimisation.

Would you like your article to be featured on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Related articles:
SEO Benefits of Blogging
The Seven Deadly SEO Sins
9 Questions To Ask After A Site Links To You
The 10 Week SEO Diet
5 Steps To A Great SEO Campaign

If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day) or by subscribing to our blog feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog

You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509, Google+ and on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/djones1509
http://www.facebook.com/DereksHomeandBusinessBlog

Until my next post, have a wonderful week!