Not only does the SEJ community share SEJ posts on Facebook, but we also have 5 admins sharing search engine news, SEO tips and other relevant news on Facebook daily.

While you are also joining the Search Engine Journal Facebook Fanpage, also take a look at our Daily SEO Tip Fanpage on Facebook. Daily SEO Tip is an SEJ spinoff blog that offers one basic SEO tip daily, as contributed by the SEJ staff and friends.

Ann & I just launched the fanpage last night and with 230 fans, it’s growing quite strong.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Join 5,500+ Search Marketers on SEJ’s Facebook Fanpage

The safest road to sky rocket the performance of any SEO campaign is to create or generate quality content that generates user engagement. Why? The more engaged the users, the bigger the chance they will speak about you, link to you, follow you on social networks, and recommend you to others.

Search engines & user engagement

User engagement is not one of those metrics you can calculate with a standard formula. It is rather a mix of quality and quantity metrics, unique for each website. However, users that comment on your blog, subscribe to your newsletter or RSS feed, fill up a contact form, or buy something are users that engage.

How engaged are the users coming from search engines? The first trick is to start monitoring the performance of keywords when it comes to driving user engagement. Here is how you do that using Google Analytics:

1. Start by setting goals for each action that you describe as engagement;
2. Define a non-brand keywords visits segment: that is, visitors that land on your website when searching with keywords unrelated to your brand;
3. Go to the keywords section and check out the winners and the losers.

If the above steps look to technical for you, check out the detailed tutorial on how to do it.

From these steps you will get a general idea on the performance of your SEO efforts from the user engagement point of view. You might notice that some keywords trigger a better conversion rate than others. Why is that? Looking into the next trick might offer some answers.

Landing pages & user engagement

What if the users that come from certain keywords are likely to engage but the landing pages they land on are not that helpful? In this case it’s good to look for non-engagement clues.

So, the second trick is to discover the leaks from your landing pages.

1. Apply the non-brand keywords visits segment you have created earlier;
2. Go to the Content > Top Landing Pages report;
3. Look for big bounce rates. Hate them. It’s about time to take measures against them.

You could redesign the website or the landing pages but that is not the most efficient way to go about it. Check out the next trick.

Behavioral targeting & user engagement

Click on the top pages and look for the entrance keywords report (while still having applied the non-brand keywords visits segment). Now check out the bounces for each keyword. A high diversity between bounce rates proves nothing else but the fact that different users come with different intentions.

Here is where behavioral targeting comes into action.

The third trick is to offer customized content like headings, call to actions, or just some scent links based on the keywords your users searched for entering your website. You can ask your developers to implement such a feature for your website or you can just do it by using a simple JavaScript.

The following script does just that by adding it to your website after the Google Analytics tracking code:

The script is going to offer your visitors the same customized content until they delete their cookies or get to your website through a different referrer.

The main benefit will be that you’ll be able to tackle the bounce rate metric you hate and increase the conversion rates for the goals you are monitoring. It can also be great to test different variations of keywords for seeing which drive more conversions, therefore getting free tips for future SEO developments or search engine advertising.

A little hack or 2 and you’ll be able to use the same script for landing pages on AdWords campaigns.

The bottom line is that not all your visitors are the same or want the same thing. Treat them accordingly.

Claudiu Murariu is a web analytics geek, co-founder of PadiCode – Behavioral Targeting Solutions. He believes in building tools that help visitors accomplish their goals. You can contact him through his site or follow him on twitter @cllaudiu.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

3 Tricks on SEO & User Engagement

Today’s addon is one more multi-purpose SEO toolbar to add to your arsenal.

SEO Professional Toolbar offers a few useful SEO-related tools in one place (SEO stats as the page loads, stats tracking, on-page diagnostics help, etc).

FireFox Navbar Options

For the current page the tool displays the following stats in the navbar:

• PageRank,
• S-Rank (I guess it is something internal, you can just ignore it or disable it)
• Number of backlinks (per Yahoo SiteExplorer)

The navbar icon gives access to an array of more features you might appreciate:

• Highlight keywords and view their density
• Highlight internal, external, and nofollow links using the multi-functional sidebar
• View the number of indexed pages on Google
• Look up links to the current page in Yahoo! SiteExplorer
• Quickly access Google Analytics, Google Insights and Google Adwords Keyword tool:

View page info

• number of words (I wish they filtered out some ’stop’ words like articles and prepositions),
• the most frequently used words on a given page (I wish they also listed most frequent phrases – they are what really matters for the on-page analysis)
• the number of internal and external links
• the number of nofollow links

Monitor any site stats

To start recording the history of ranks and backlinks, click on record in the main menu which you may activate by right-clicking on the logo of the addon. The picture bellow shows how to perform this action.

After that you can access the site stats via the addon sidebar which can be activated with help of [CTRL + SHIFT + E] shortcut. I haven’t used the tool long enough to see the trend but here’s how it is going to look like:

(I actually really like their Yahoo! backlinks tracking feature, let’s hope it won’t be disabled by Yahoo! any time soon).

The tool options also allow to customize which stats you want to see and track (you may want to remove their S-Rank by the way):

The options can be accessed by right-clicking on the tool icon in the status bar:

My verdict?

I think it’s a solid free SEO tool. I’ve installed it and don’t see myself removing it so far. Let’s see what you think.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

SEO Professional FireFox Toolbar: Tracks Yahoo! Backlinks

After building your incredible website and blog, it is time to build a Facebook fan page. Before you run away at the thought of building your own page, let me assure you that it is easy to get started, and I am going to walk you through it. But, of course, if you get stuck or need additional help with the more complicated aspects, we’re always here to help. (But I promise; set up is easy.)

The first thing you need in order to create a Facebook fan page is a personal profile. What? You don’t have one yet? Time to get one! I am not going to waste time walking you through profile set up because the steps are pretty self explanatory. Just go to Facebook, fill out the information to get started and let the steps guide you. You can probably set up a basic profile in about 15 minutes. After setting up your personal profile, spend some time poking around Facebook and getting to know the site – have fun. Check out some of your favorite companies’ fan pages and connect with friends.

Now to set up a fan page.

Once you are logged into Facebook, scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Advertising,” and then click “Pages.” There is some great information here about fan pages, so take a moment to read through the information and when you are ready click “Create Page.” As you go through the set-up process, remember that in any branding and marketing it is important to categorize your company in the right area to help people find you. So choose carefully.

One of the great things about Facebook is the ease of set up navigation. From here, setting up a fan page is really about following the prompts. Rather than point out each step, let’s look at the important ones to get your personal branding going.

1. Photo – Before you do anything else, make sure you have the perfect photo for your page. Maybe your logo is the best photo for your page, but maybe not. Think about other branding materials you have, maybe something seasonal. Obviously, you want your fans to see your photo and recognize your brand – that’s the goal. But if you have a creative image that is also recognizable, it might help your fan page attract fans with an element of fun.
2. Write something about your company – See the little box under your picture that says “Write something about your company”. This is very important because this is one of the items that is visible on every tab of your fan page. This is your elevator statement in 250 characters or less. Be sure to include a link to your website here, and in order to make your link clickable, don’t forget the http://
   before the www. (Note – this statement can be changed at any time, so it is a great place to highlight a promotion or other important happening for your company.)
3. Wall Settings – Another important tool in the set up of your page are the wall settings. You have to decide if you want visitors to be able to post messages for everyone to see or if you only want your own messages shown. Unless you have a super controversial company, I recommend starting with allowing everything. It will help you build your wall faster because people like to post messages. If the posts become out of control or unflattering, you can always delete individual posts or change the setting later. (You will find “Wall settings” under “Edit page.”)

Once you fill in all of the basic information, you have successfully created a fan page. Don’t forget, it is easy to change, so don’t sweat it.

Now you are ready to take your page live. It is important for you to let people know about your page. This is where having an already active personal profile comes in handy because if you already have a lot of “friends” who are interested in your company, you can “suggest” your new page to them.

Alright you have a page. You have suggested to all of your friends – now what? Now you start the real work. Marketing and branding takes time and attentiveness. You can’t just set up this page and hope people find you. If there is nothing on your page that interests people, no one will become a fan. Social media is fun – your fan page should be too. Post interesting things about your company, but don’t
be afraid to post something fun too. Try posting open-ended questions (to entice responses from your fans) such as “What is your favorite XYZ?” “What do you plan to do for the XYZ holiday?”

Posting links and/or photos are also a great way to get people interested, plus they are more visually appealing so people are more apt to pay attention. Posting links to your website has the added benefit of pushing people to your site to find out more. Try posting on your fan page every time you update your blog – “Check this out” and attach a link to your blog.

Remember, the most important reason you have a Facebook fan page is to use it as a branding strategy to promote your personal brand. So, if your company is very “green” conscious, share tidbits about being green. If your company is all about marketing and branding (like us), you might post pictures of events, links to blog posts and information about the companies you help brand.

Those are the basic features of a Facebook fan page, but once you get going you will realize that there are many more things you can add to your fan page such as customizable apps, connecting the page to your Twitter feed, and much more. But you can’t do any of the fancy things until you get started with the basics, so for now create your page and start building your fans. Oh, and don’t forget to include a new link on your website to let people know they can become a fan on Facebook.

And that is how you can use Facebook as a branding strategy for your business.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Use Facebook as a Branding Strategy for Your Business

This is particularly useful if you’re out on the street and saw something which you might want to buy. You can just search for the product on your mobile phones, and if Google mobile search returns a search result with a blue dot, you can check it out to find out where you can buy the product. You can also see the distance of the nearest store from your current location.

Some popular retailers are already participating in the said feature including Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn or West Elm.

To try this feature, point your iPhone, Palm WebOS or any Android phone to google.com, tap on the “more” link and then choose “shopping” from the options. Alternatively you can check out the “shopping results” section from the Universal Search results provided by Google mobile search.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Google Adds Blue Dots to Product Search Results

It's an effective process.  On the YouTube Biz Blog, Filipe Lima noted with respect to the first effort, "It was a success, receiving almost 3,000 ideas and more than 300,000 votes.  We even launched a few features that directly addressed some of the requests - namely, an HTML5 Beta (there were many HTML5 advocates who participated) and a sneak peek of our new cleaner video page (some desired a 'less cluttered' YouTube)."

So now we'll see where round two takes us.

The deadline for both new submissions and votes is April 12th.  If you have any suggestions, get them in earlier, though, for the sake of giving them more time to become popular.

Personally, going into the course I thought I was pretty familiar with the social media areas I was anticipating studying. I was excited to learn more of course, but didn’t have the highest of hopes. I honestly thought it would be nice to have a recap on the social areas I work with daily and after a few months of reiteration, I would obtain a certification to show off my knowledge.

I have to say my original thoughts were narrow minded. I have been continuously surprised at the insight I am gaining each week.  Until now, I have been responsible for watching videos each week and partaking in conference calls with the faculty.(The course takes a turn now and the responsibilities change but I will write about all of that in a few days). The videos have each had such detail. They are unique to the faculty members who make the videos and specialize in the areas they are teaching.

Market Motive resources that have been provided to me and that have impressed me throughout each week’s video viewings:

1) Examples of useful books to buy pertaining to the areas being taught that week which are based on social media current events and practices.

2) Informative commentary (humorous when applicable and serious when appropriate)

• Current
• Authoritative
• Timely

3) Graphs

4) Tools that the faculty use and recommend

• Seo plug ins
• Twitter tools
• Better headlines
• Tracking your Brand

5) Viral Marketing Brainstorming Checklist

6) Pitching check list

Brief Video information for each week:

1)  Length of each video is provided

2)  2-7 videos necessary to watch each week

3)  Average 25 minutes per video

• Viewings do not have a specific deadline but rather anticipated due dates which are flexible. They are listed as an ideal due date but it is up the student to get things done in a timely manner. Weekly meetings with the faculty help ensure that students are on track and are not missing any points.

4)  One Quiz to follow all videos combined for the week

• The quiz each week is just for practice. A grade is assigned but does not count toward the overall grade. They are meant as preparation for the final exam and reiterate the material in the videos. The quizzes help make sure the students have understood what is being portrayed in the videos.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

I Admit It – These Videos Taught Me a Few Social Media Tricks