First Scribe Creates SEO Facebook Application

Let's face it, a good portion of an SEO Specialist's job is spent in competitive analysis. What better way to cut through the repetitive motion than with an automated tool? The First Scribe development team has built us a tool that saves us a ton of time checking inbound links and page saturation in Google. Now we're releasing it to the public!


The SEO Facebook Application by First Scribe

The SEO Widget is a fairly simple tool that saves us an amazing amount of time. The app is available as a true Facebook application and also via the SEO Widget 2.0 page on our website.

The application accepts your URL and any number of competitors. It then pings Google with the website addresses and returns the number of inbound links and current page saturation in Google.

Why go to Google repeatedly when you can fetch the list all at once?

Technorati Links:  ♦Digg it   ♦del.icio.us   ♦Facebook

SEO and Social Media Don't Mix

Given the immense growth of social media sites over the past six years and the importance of link building in search engine marketing, it's not surprising that one common and flawed question continues to come up every few months: "How much of an effect do social media sites have in determining our website's visibility and PageRank?"

The simplest answer is: little to none. Generally speaking the largest social networking and social bookmarking sites provide very little utility when it comes to link building. While many sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Del.icio.us, YouTube and even Flickr once allowed unfettered direct linking, nowadays many social media sites have been obfuscating off-site links with page forwards, frames, and the more common "nofollow" anchor tag restriction. These small changes have essentially nullified any previous and current efforts to improve a site's Google PageRank via social networks.

Naturally, from an SEO perspective, this brings us back to square one. If it isn't possible to effectively utilize social media to increase your website's visibility, then what inherent value does it even have?

One of the best approaches is to think of your social media pages as being micro-sites for your preexisting base of customers; they can serve as convenient locations where you can provide former and current customers with content that's fresh, interesting, and immediate. Whereas you would normally apply a long-term strategy of attracting new customers to your company's website in the form of competitive SEO, a Facebook page is the perfect place to connect with current customers in order to create short-term conversion opportunities in the form of product announcements, discounts, and important company news.

That's just one example, of course. But it is one of the many opportunities that social media can provide your company if you approach it as a unique, social tool and not simply as a means for improving your PageRank.

Technorati Links:  ♦Digg it   ♦del.icio.us   ♦Facebook

Social Media and Facebook

Facebook recently announced topping the 200 million users mark, surpassing many of the big traffic giants on the Internet. Google, Yahoo and MSN still claim more users but none of them have the staying power of social media.

What does it mean?

In a few short words: You probably already know what it means. That's the whole idea of social media.

The allure of Facebook, Twitter and Myspace is that they intended to mean something different for every user. Members upload photos; post links to their favorite websites; and update their own daily (or hourly) status.

Why do we care?

Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are all .COM sites. That is to say that they are all commercial ventures in search of a profit. They appear to be doing a good job on their part - now how do we monetize the situation without - and here's the kicker - without becoming a hindrance to the social media process.

There is obviously a great deal of traffic through these websites and where there's traffic, there's marketing potential. However, we're talking about social conversations (ostensibly) and interrupting that conversation with a negative distraction is tantamount to the pop-up ads of old.

How do we do it?

This post is the tip of the iceberg of conversations to come. We have a few, quick ideas for you to get started and we will circle back to this conversation over the next few months.

1. Start your own profile and take a look around at the ads around the site. If it annoys you, it will annoy others.


2. Search for your favorite brands, stores, and activities. Do they have a "Fan's Page"?


3. Look at your friend's profiles. Are they pointing to favorite pages? Are they linking to product postings, notes, events, or videos?


4. Are your friend's talking about the same?

Inserting yourself into these areas is tantamount to the old-fashioned way of direct marketing. Handing people a print ad on the street, as it were.

Instead of yelling into the wind, you and your company need to start listening to the voices. Interacting with the group.

It's a brave new world out there and your old Marketing Manual doesn't work in this space.

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