Facebook’s Open Graph search engine: Should Google be worried

July 13th, 2010

I’m pretty sure you all remember the day when Facebook unleashed Open Graph: the day we all got to see those “Like” buttons everywhere we go on the internet. It looks like Facebook isn’t stopping with seeing those darned like buttons all over the web – they’ve also launched a search engine that will display liked pages in search results.

The Open Graph Search Engine, as people have unofficially dubbed it, is – to paraphrase a few bloggers – a big, big deal. Right now, the system is a bit rough around the edges (more on that later) but if Facebook manages pul this off, it may mean that the like may very well be the new link. It means if you and your company want to matter on the web, you need to be on Facebook. There’s just no ignoring it.

Should Google worry?

People spend three times more time on Facebook over search engines now, according to one study, and obviously Zuckerberg and company have decided to take advantage of this and launch their own stealth engine, albeit stealthily. At first glance this looks like a good idea – people don’t need to go to Google to do a web search from now on.

Search results ranked by “likes” cannot compete with results produced by companies that actually crawl the web. There’s just no way Open Graph Search can produce reliable results. Also, since the system is reliant on Open Graph likes, this is a system that can be easily gamed. Remember the time when link farms could really mess up Google’s results? As early as now, we are seeing “Like Farms” – websites like Likey.net and LikeItPage that spam Facebook with random quotes and phrases.

No, Google and Bing need not worry. Well, not now, at least.

How to rank in Facebook search results in under 60 seconds

If you’re really intent on ranking on Facebook’s Open Graph search, AllFacebook.com has an interesting tutorial to do this, on any term, in under 60 seconds. They used a tool in l1k3.com to create 9 Open Graph objects, and instantly their pages were the top results.

This means you need to create your own Facebook fan page for your website and fill it up with fans before your competition does. Facebook considers fans as their SEO, so whoever amasses the most fans wins. And we all know about Facebook’s huge, huge, PageRank right? That might impact SERPs over on Google and Bing – your Facebook page might even outrank your website.

However, people search for apps, fan pages of the mundane (I BET THIS TOOTHBRUSH GETS MORE FANS THAN KE$HA),  and of course, other people on Facebook. If people are doing research, or just plain surfing the web, I think they’d be perfectly happy to use Google and Bing. Speaking of Bing, Facebook provides a web search option as well, and its being run by, well, Bing.

What do you think? Does Facebook’s Open Graph seach have the potential to give Google and Bing a run for their money or will it end up as one of Facebook’s forgotten features?Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

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Using Articles for Website Promotion

May 27th, 2010

Best practices in handling articles …

One thing that is forever stressed in most of the search engine optimization strategy guides and web sites is the importance of articles.

Writing articles is a sure fire way of gaining practically all of the benefits of a good search engine optimization strategy.

First, the articles can be used to beef up the content in your web site, while also helping build the reputation of your web site with regards to the topic or topics at hand. At some point it could even be enough to make your web site an authority in the particular niche.

Second, the regular posting of content is a great way of enticing visitors to the web site and encouraging them to visit again and again.

Third, the articles can be submitted to article submission sites and this will help in building links for you – not counting the links that you will generate from people who will link to the article if they find it informative.  It even plays a crucial role in building up the keywords in your web site.

Lastly, all of the benefits discussed above will help in pushing your status in search engine results pages. It’s a win-win situation for you. 

But writing and posting the articles is just half the battle. Articles, in order to become effective tools for search engine optimization, should be used properly and optimized correctly in order to fully maximize its potential. Below are some top-notch tips you cn use to ensure that you are really taking advantage of what articles can do for your web site:

  • Always remember to use the correct keywords when writing articles. Always remember that writing articles is not enough, in search engine optimization the keywords are very important. That’s why you should learn to identify what keywords you should use and only use quality keywords in the articles. This makes it easier for search engine spiders to notice them and index it. It doesn’t matter if the articles will be used internally for the web site, posted on your blog or submitted in article submissions sites – you should always use the keywords. But don’t overdo it, keyword stuffing is not a good idea and could even result in your web site being banned from search engines.
  • Tags are another SEO tool that you should never forget to include in your articles when you post them in your web site. The tags serve an important role as markers that will help visitors in finding the articles they are searching for. Tags are also used by search engines in helping them access information look-up. The best way to use tags is to use as many relevant tags as you can. Don’t forget to also include your keywords in the tags.
  • As I’ve mentioned above, links are important in building the SERP status of your web site. It is also effective in promoting it. That’s why you shouldn’t forget to add them in all of your articles. At the very least, insert a minimum of two links in your article.

Once you’ve writtten your articles effectively, then is the time to use some of the article promotion tools such as the Article to Video software, or the Article Rewriter Software (to make proper readable copies to increase the potential and spread of your article).

Happy writing!

Vic Carrara
MasterwebSoftware.com
Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

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Selling Off Some UK Domains

May 14th, 2010

Having a clearout of my domains as I’ve just got too many to deal with, and I really want to focus on my core interests.

Looking for offers starting at £10 (UK Sterling), and best offer by Sunday 16th May gets a bargain.

You can view the domains on one of two forums:

.co.uk Domains for Sale on Acorn Domains UK
.co.uk Domains for Sale on Digital Point Forums

Any questions, best to PM me from the forum.

Vic Carrara

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Internet Video Marketing

April 13th, 2010

Talk among many marketers are that long web pages jammed with sales copy are over … that people’s attention span is over, and that video salesletters are the way forward. strong>Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

While not completely scrapping all my salesletters, I am introducing more and more videos on to my sites, and the evidence is that conversions increase. 

I’m using both, text and videos, but some of the top marketers are going “all the way”, with just a headline and a video. 

The challenge is as always what software to use, what to put on the video, what quality is required etc etc … 

Well here’s a top marketer who’s been properly testing video marketing without using salesletters. He’s worked out that it takes about 10 percent as long to make a video compared to a standard text slaesletter … 

But, what is much more exciting is that his video salesletters convert over 300 percent more. 

I’ve got a couple of domains that I’m going to develop with just video – a headline, perhaps a graphic, and a video. I can create 2 or 3 of these sites a day compared to taking 2-3 weeks creating a website template, building content, and writing a salesletter
You can find out more (on a video of course) now right here: Video Marketing

Enjoy!

Vic Carrara
MasterWebSoftware.com

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Creating a WordPress Site Using Affiliate Feeds

March 23rd, 2010

I’ve talked about adding the Clickbank, Amazon, Ebay affiliate feeds on a standard html/php website (RSS Gadgets Affiliate Feed Aggregator). But you can also use this script on a WordPress blog.

I’ve shown some examples of using the individual feeds on seperate posts here: Amazon Feed, Clickbank Feed, Ebay Feed, but next I decided to build a complete WordPress site around a few articles and affilate feeds.

The beauty is that the site self updates with the latest best selling products, so once complete it’s hands free. I haven’t got round to finishing the site completely, but you can have a look here to see exactly what you can achieve: Digital Book Reader

To help you understand more how easy it is to use this script, I made a short (rough!) video:

Apart from the script itself (RSS Aggregator), all you need is a free WordPress plugin called runPHP.

This was my first go at creating a site just using this script, and it took less than a hour to get everything setup and running, with categories set up, main posts etc etc. You could easily product several of these niche sites a day. Plus, I never got round to adding the YouTube, Twitter or GoArticle feeds (though I may have updated the site by the time you visit.

So here’s the demo site: www.DigitalBookReader.net

Here’s where you can buy the script: RSS Affiliate Aggregator Script

Enjoy!

Vic Carrara
MasterWebSoftware.com

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