Will Adding a Google + Button Increase Referring Site Traffic? [Research]

• By: Milena Savovic
• Categories: Google, Social Media Optimization
• Comments: 1

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Ever since Google + went live, there’s been great speculation as to its effectiveness in referring traffic back to websites. Because of this, SEO Inc. decided to take a closer look at Google +.

The Experiment

SEO Inc. compiled and reviewed statistics of eight diverse companies in varying industries. SEO Inc. looked at four companies that had Google + integrated on their websites, and four companies that did not. It should be noted that none of the companies we recorded information from were in the publishing industry, and only one company was in the tech industry.

For the companies that had Google + installed on their website, we took a look at the following numbers:

Texting is a Hit Among Teens and Young Adults

• By: Milena Savovic
• Categories: Mobile Search
• Comments: 0

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It comes as no surprise that a recent Pew Research poll found that people between the ages of 18 and 24 were the most text-savvy among us. With the average young person in this category exchanging 109.5 (that’s right, point 5) texts on a daily basis. But what may be more intriguing is that 83% of Americans own a cell phone, and 73% of those cell phone owners exchange text messages.

The poll also showed that the majority of texters who exchanged 50 messages a day would rather receive a text message than a phone call. 55%, to be exact, would much rather have their friends/loved-ones/whoever text them as opposed to phone them. Thus defeating the whole purpose of a phone, but wait, maybe not.

Facebook is Still Trying to Outsmart Us. Now With Smart Lists

• By: Milena Savovic
• Categories: Facebook
• Comments: 0

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Facebook recently devised a new way to outsmart the unassuming Facebook public with the addition of ‘smart lists’. As if subscribing to people you don’t know wasn’t enough of a Godsend, now being able to categorize your friends into classes and categories should be enough to keep you going.

The way that smart lists work is like this: in the left-hand sidebar of your personal profile page you will see ‘Lists’. Underneath the ‘Lists’ will be categories that Facebook has compiled for you and segregated your friends into. So, for example, my categories include: close friends, family, University of California San Diego, and acquaintances. You can even create your own category, think of the possibilities!

Once a category is selected, you can see the news feeds of those friends of yours who are placed in that particular list. In addition, to manage who is in each list, click on a category and in the upper right hand corner hit the ‘Manage List’ button. From there you will be able to remove and add friends as much as you please.

Why the New Facebook Subscribe Button will Change How you Use Facebook

• By: Milena Savovic
• Categories: Facebook, Social Media Optimization
• Comments: 0

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For a long while I thought that Twitter would be the one taking cues from Facebook, however the exact opposite has happened. With the new Facebook Subscribe button Facebook has taken one great leap toward making Twitter obsolete… maybe.

Subscribe buttons work in much the same way that Follows work on Twitter and are something that need to be incorporated into your social media optimization process. Once someone decides to subscribe to a Facebook user, they will receive status updates, photo updates, and all other updates available on Facebook in their news feed. Right, so this is sounding a lot like the newsfeed updates we’re already receiving.

Not quite. Facebook added clever features to the button that allows subscribers to choose what type of updates they wish to receive. Features include opting in to receive all user updates, only important user updates, event updates, game updates, etc. The option really helps subscribers weed out all of the information they really don’t care about. Because let’s be honest, sometimes you really only want to read the important stuff and not the mundane day-to-day posts. In addition to this, you don’t have to be Facebook friends with a person to subscribe to them.

Disqus: A Comments Platform

• By: Milena Savovic
• Categories: Blogging, Social Media Management
• Comments: 1

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As social media sites progress so do their social media integration features. One of the more popular, and fastest growing social media management tools are commenting platforms.

Commenting platforms have been a point of topic on the SEO Inc. blog for quite some time now. Just a few months ago we posted about the new additions to the Facebook commenting platform. What’s so great about the Facebook platform is that once a person posts a comment on a website, their comment automatically appears on their Facebook wall and in their friends’ newsfeeds.  This works in the favor of the website since the website URL and the article title will also be broadcast along with the comment.

But Facebook is not the only social media site dabbling in commenting platforms. In fact, there are websites out there that exist solely for the purpose of developing and sustaining attractive comment platforms. Sites like Disqus.

Discover Your Online Klout

• By: Milena Savovic
• Categories: Social Media Marketing
• Comments: 0

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The days of guessing how popular your social media sites are are long behind us now. With Klout.com you will be able to know, within a day or so, just how influential your online presence is on the world around you.

Klout.com gives you a ‘Klout’ score between 1-100. 1 meaning that you have little to no ‘Klout,’ and 100 meaning that when you tweet or post something, the world listens. Klout scores are compiled once you connect your social media sites with the application. The main sites used to compile a Klout score are: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.