As the latest social media star pupil, Pinterest has been gaining popularity steadily and looks set to confirm this status as the fastest growing social media platform of 2012. Think of a virtual pin board where users pin items of interest and make a real connection with someone else who may well share the same pastimes, interest or hobbies. And that’s Pinterest. But why should you consider Pinterest for your business?

You could say it is almost the most human of social networks. As it has been set up to let you organise items of interest to you in the form of images. It has been used to plan weddings, decorate homes and organise recipes (which is a personal favourite of mine).

The guys at Pinterest are also pretty clear in what they’re trying to do. Their mission states…“Our goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting. We think that a favorite book, toy, or recipe can reveal a common link between two people. With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests”

What’s so great about Pinterest?

• Helps build your brand online and increases exposure of your products
• Cross platform collaboration with Facebook.
• Great analytics – you can easily see your activity and others activity on your boards etc
• Pinterest also provides two pin it buttons. The Pin It Button, allows your site audience to click on that button and could even pin your articles or content to their pin-board. The other button which is the “Follow me on Pinterest” button allows you to send people to your own Pinboards. This really is very beneficial for a website or even a blog.
• Each image links back to the page the image came from originally
• It’s so easy to use … re-pinning and sharing is simple.
• You can overlay your price. You can simply put the price in the description field and the price overlays the image, allowing pinners to see how much the item costs and click back to where they can buy it (Only working with $ and £ at the moment but we hold out hope for the €)

So, can the images on your site be pinned? If you don’t know you need to find out – and fast. Download the Pin In plugin for your browser and start pinning your own images http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/

And if you’re not on it yet, just let me know and I can send you an invite…

Check me out on http://pinterest.com/sandrahennessy/#

A quirky way to introduce you to SEO tips & advice, from a slightly whacky Irish SEO to you.  Merry Christmas.

On the first day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me a talk on website usability

On the second day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 2 key word research tools (Google Keyword Tool & Wordtracker) and a talk on website usability

On the third day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases (SEO Tips), 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the fourth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the fifth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me the 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the sixth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the seventh day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the eight day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the ninth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the tenth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the eleventh day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 11 great free online resources, 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the twelfth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 12 tips to do my own SEO audit, 11 free online resources, 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Facebook is making some great changes recently – one of the most recent and possibly the one that will have the biggest impact is where you can allow people to subscribe to posts that you share publicly through your personal profile account.  You may have noticed that when you are posting to Facebook you can now decide to share it publicly, with friends or customise who sees it. 

Allowing people to subscribe means that posts from your personal account can reach a larger audience.  So how do you activate the “Subscribe” button.  It’s easy, log into your personal profile, on the left just under your profile picture you will see a new link called Subscriptions. Click on that and you will see a button at the top to Allow Subscribers.  Below that you will see who you have subscribed to.

 This is ideal for those who don’t want to have both a business page and personal page and would like to reach a larger audience through their personal page. If your goal is to represent your business or brand on Facebook I recommend that you set up a separate business fan page.

You can have unlimited subscribers but you can only subscribe to 5,000 peoples updates.  

 A good move by Facebook, have you activated your Subscribe button yet?  Got many subscribers?

Here is a list of some useful tools that may come in handy with your online marketing, all are either free or very low cost.  There is an additional list available on a previous blog post – Some great free online tools for you to try

Sweet Captcha - ever wondered what the security code that you have to fill in when sending in a request via an online enquiry for is called? Well it’s a captcha. This means that only real humans can fill out the form and will stop spammers sending in dozens of enquiries. Sweet Captcha is a fun alternative to the usual numbers and letters.  Try it yourself on www.sweetcaptcha.com

This captcha is asking the user to drag the flower to the bouquet

RSS Include – Want to add an RSS feed to your website and don’t know how to do it, well this tool is really easy.  Simply add the feed url, customise the look and feel and bingo, it generates the code. You can use it to create a box for everything from a blog, Facebook box to a simple ticker box.  There is a Premium account which costs only $36.50 a year so very affordable.  Have a go https://www.rssinclude.com/my_rssboxes/create_new_box 

SEOmoz – Have access to all the tools you need to optimise your website, their research tools include Inbound link reporting and analysis (great to see where your competitors are getting their inbound links), a SEO toolbar,  SEO reports – generate regular reports that will detail where you appear for your target search terms and identify any issues like duplicate titles, errors seen etc I highly recommend upgrading to the pro account – starts at $99 a month.  www.seomoz.org

Yola – need a website and dont have a massive budget. Yola online CMS is a great option for you to be able to set up your own starter website and its very easy to use. Choose from loads of different templates. Includes everything you need from editable meta data, blog, widgets, editable CSS (for the more advanced user) and much more.  There are free options but I recommend upgrading to the Silver account from only $90 a year, this will allow you to point in an existing domain and gives you access to more advanced templates.  Give it a go now on www.yola.com  

Blueface – ever wondered how you can track phone calls that come from website visitors without having to ask each and every person  where they heard about you?  Well look no further, with Blueface you can rent you a new phone number for a very low cost.  Use this number on your website or on a specific campaign and every time a call is made you can see the details in the handy online reports. Costs start at a low €9.99 per month. The good news is that you can rent a number with the area code for where you are located so if you are in Cork city you can have a 021 number or in Bantry you can get an 027 number.   More information on www.blueface.ie

I hope you find these useful, if you want to achieve something online and don’t know of a tool to help, contact me now and I am sure I have the ideal tool for the task.

Google’s new +1 button is currently being rolled out on Google.com so it will be a while before we see it on Google.ie (most people’s default in Ireland).  When it comes you will be able to see the +1 beside the search engine listing, this allows people to see the content/listings you recommend but also you will be able to see what other people are recommending.   So no matter what you are looking for or selling, if people endorse it by clicking +1 it will make your listings stand out and more relevant to the user. Google have said in a recent blog post that the +1 ” will be one of many signals we use to calculate organic search ranking”.    This move is good as it will ensure that content with value gets the traffic it deserves.

To +1 listings you will have to set up a public profile and a new tab will store all the sites that you +1 making it really easy to find that great web page you were on last week.   Google are also rolling out a +1 button for your website so people can +1 the page/content while they are on it.

So what now, if you dont have content that people will want to +1 you need to start creating it.  This button will be powerful and will play a big part in people’s decision making process when choosing the listing they click on, it will also impact your search engine position so it cannot be ignored.

For more information read http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/1-button-adwords.html and http://www.google.com/+1/button/

After a long wait, Facebook deals is finally here -  it is currently being tested with some of the leading brands A|Wear, AXA, Champion, Guinness Storehouse, Insomnia, Meteor, Milano and SuperValu.    Facebook Deals means that (when out of the test stage) you will be able to offer freebies and discounts to people who check into your business using Facebook Places.

Out of the 500m Facebook users, over 200m of them access their Facebook page via a mobile device making deals an ideal way to build loyalty, get new customers and spread the word fast.  

Think of someone on the street near your business, lets say you are a restaurant.  If this person uses Facebook Places to check out what restaurants are nearby and you are using deals, they will see your listing with an icon beside it which will let them know that you are running a promotion.  Now you have given them a reason to drop in and make a purchase.  To avail of the offer they will check in using Facebook Places and as a result their friends will be made aware of their location. You can then build loyalty by offering your most loyal customers specific discounts.

There will be 4 types of deals available:

• Individual Deals – one time deals. You can offer this to new and existing customers to launch a new product, offer a new gift etc.
• Loyalty Deals –  the promotion can be claimed after a certain number of checking. This is a great way to build loyalty.
• Friends Deals –  offer discounts of groups of up to 8 people when they check in together. In order to claim your deal, your customers need to introduce what you have to offer to their friends and family.  Great way to build exposure.
• Charity Deals –  every time a user checks in, you donate to your favourite charity.  Let them know you care.

This is a great move by Facebook and I look forward to checking in and claiming my deal.   I hope it does not take too long for deals to be rolled out to everyone.

For more information visit http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/Deals_businesses_US.pdf .

On the first day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me a talk on website usability

On the second day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 2 key word research tools (Google Keyword Tool & Wordtracker) and a talk on website usability

On the third day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases (SEO Tips), 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the fourth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the fifth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me the 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the sixth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the seventh day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the eight day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the ninth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the tenth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the eleventh day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 11 great free online resources, 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the twelfth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 12 tips to do my own SEO audit, 11 free online resources, 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Do you have a blog?  Not sure how to optimise it? Using WordPress.org?   Here is a list of my top 5 plugins that you should be using on your WordPress Blog to ensure your blog is well optimised and users can share the information easily on their social and business networks.

All in One SEO Pack

This is my favourite and with over 6 million downloads, makes it one of the most popular SEO Plugins for WordPress.org users. It is easy to install and very easy to use. The All in One SEO Pack plugin allows you to set auto generated Meta Data for your blog posts, categories and tags.

Google XML Sitemaps

This pluging generates an XML sitemap which can then be submitted to Google Webmaster Tools.  Sitemaps make it easy for the search engines to crawl your blog and index the posts, tags and categories. You can see my blog site map here http://blog.dynamicwebmarketing.ie/sitemap.xml 

Defensio Anti-Spam

It is important to moderate your comments, this means that you have to approve comments before they are made available on the live blog.  Defensio Anti-Spam is a great free plugin that will help you capture spam comments. Using a colour code and categorisation (Somewhat spammy, Moderately Spammy, Quite Spammy and Very Spammy) Defensio will capture spam comments.

You should ensure that you review anything marked as spam as some relevant comments may get caught in the spam filter. More information available at http://defensio.com/downloads

Sociable

Automatically add links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages and in your RSS feed. Choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites! (WordPress 2.6 or above is required).

Wibiya Toolbar

Another great way to allow your blog readers to share your blog posts on their social networks.  Look down and you will see my Wibiya toolbar at the bottom of this blog post. Simply go to www.wibiya.com and create an account, choose from a range of applications and when you have finished the set up choose the WordPress Plugin.  To keep track of how many people have shared your information, log into your Wibiya account and check out your analytics and stats.

Happy blogging

As I rummage around the Internet I find great new tools that can make every day life in my web marketing business easier, here is a list of some great ones that I have been using.  I am sure you can put some of them to use:

• Irfan View: this is a great tool for resizing and cropping images, free and available to download from download.com.  I found this tool quite a few years ago and find that it great for keeping image quality.  If you download it and need help using it, just email me and I will send you on a little tutorial document I put together info@dynamicwebmarketing.ie.  
• Email Encoder: Got problem with spam, this nifty little tool might help reduce it http://www.prioritysubmit.com/seotools-page-size-extractor.html.  Spammers automatically visit websites and scrape information, like your email address of it and then send you spam, using this tool to encode the email address before you put it on your website will mean that the spammers will only see a pile of numbers and letters but the user on the site will see the click-able email address. Nifty eh!
• SurrealCMS: Got a website but cannot update it?  Why not get this brilliant CMS added www.surrealcms.com, its easy to use and allows you to edit the page content, images and meta data.  It can work really well but it will depend on your website, sometimes it may not work that well if your site uses a lot of tables. Talk to your developer before trying to get it implemented.
• RGB to Hex / Hex to RGB Converter:Working in web marketing means setting up websites, blogs, newsletters and personalising social media pages for clients. So it is really important that I replicate the brand colours easily. On occasions I have been given the RGB colours of the brand but on the web everything is done using hex colour strings.  This great little tool enables me to convert the RGB to hex quickly http://www.javascripter.net/faq/hextorgb.htm  without having to annoy the client or their brand company.
• Colorzilla: This is a great Moxilla  ad-on www.colorzilla.com.  Unsure what designer created your logo and do not know how to get hold of the RGB or the hex code of any of your branding colours?  Simply download, click on the dropper in the status bar (bottom left), hover over your website and in the status bar you will see the RGB and hex of any colour on your website. Tip: You have to download it while in Mozilla FireFox browser, do not try to download it while in another browser.  I know because I tried to do it the very first time, granted that was a good many moons ago now.
• Broadband Speed Test: Got broadband, know what you are paying for but unsure what speeds you are actually getting?  www.speedtest.net allows you to test your upload and download speed. If you are experiencing problems, the best thing to do is complete a few speed tests at different times of the day, take a screen shot and email it to your provider.
• HTML & CSS Validation: All websites should have their HTML and CSS validated. Download this Firefox ad-on  and test to see if your CSS and HTML validate. If errors are returned, send them to your web developer and ask them to be corrected,  some errors can effect usability, accessibility and even your search engine performance.  Don’t forget to download it while in your Mozilla FireFox browser.  Once downloaded click on Tools – Web Developer and Tools.

Happy times with your free tools