The 5 NEW Rules Of Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Social Media Optimization: An Easy Guide to Marketing and Distributing Your Content Online from Rohit Bhargava

About a week ago I started seeing a curious number of tweets, links and Google Alerts to a popular blog post I wrote 4 years ago. The reason was that today happens to be the four year anniversary of that post which first introduced the idea of Social Media Optimization or SMO as it is now popularly known into the world of digital marketing and on Wikipedia. For many of the readers who consistently read my posts today, this SMO post may have been the reason they first stumbled onto my blog. It became an unintentionally big idea that captured the attention of a growing niche of digital marketers who saw themselves at the intersection of working in search engine optimization (SEO) and wanting to branch out into new world of social media. 

In the four years since that post I have tried to focus this blog on my real passion of sharing insights that could inspire people to create better marketing to sell their ideas to the world. SMO was a point on that journey and given the interest that this one idea has sparked among digital marketers around the world, it is one that is worth revisiting today. As I thought about this post today, I realized that the ideal way to revisit SMO would be to try and answer the one question I have been asked most frequently by marketers around the world about SMO: Would you change these “5 rules” today given that the original post was written before Twitter or Foursquare or many other big trends or sites that are now becoming a big part of the social web?

The short answer is yes. The core change I would make is to add and focus on a word that I think truly describes the social web today in a way that few people really grasped four years ago:sharing. So, based on this, here are my thoughts on the 5 NEW Rules Of Social Media Optimization:

1. Increase your linkability Create shareable content – Four years ago I focused on linkability because the main currency that could drive up your traffic was how many people were linking to your content. Today content can be liked or tweeted and it is about more than links – it is about creating content that is shareable. The better your content is, the more people will want to share it with their entire social networks whether they link it, like it, dig it or share it.
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy Make sharing easy – Following from the previous point, tagging and bookmarking only scratch the surface of the many ways that people can share content with others. They can post a short link to their profile, embed a video, send out a tweet or create a hashtag for a conversation. Limiting the ways of sharing to just tagging or bookmarking doesn’t make sense anymore. The core of this rule, however, was the point about making it easy and that is still at the heart of this new rule. Once you have shareable content, it has to be one-button-easy so people will do it with minimal effort or thinking.
3. Reward inbound links Reward engagement – In 2006, the main thing most marketers were concerned about were inbound links. It was a time when Technorati was the standard by which we all measured the performance of our content and many bloggers focused more on their number of inbound links than their readership or traffic numbers. Today the real currency is around conversation or engagement. While there are a million definitions for “engagement” ranging from comments and discussion to posting or sharing content – this is the behaviour that matters most in the social web and the one that we should all focus on rewarding when it happens.
4. Help your content travel Proactively share content - This was the weakest of the original 5 rules, as the original rule simply talked about publishing your content in other formats such as PDFs or videos and submitting them to other sites. Instead, the essence of the new version of this rule is all about proactively sharing content in a different way. This encompasses everything from creating slides to post on Slideshare or documents to share on Scribd – as well as tweeting about your content or offering embeddable versions of it, or using RSS feeds to syndicate it. Proactively sharing even includes posting your content to social networking profiles or creating profiles on video sharing sites.
5. Encourage the mashup Encourage the mashup – The last original rule of SMO is the one that I would leave intact. The concept of the “mashup” where people take and remix your content by adding their own input and voice has only grown over the past four years. The mashup will be around to stay, whether the term continues to be used or not. Allowing people to take an ownership over the social content you publish will continue to be a key way that you can optimize your content for the social web.

On the original 5 rules, several other smart folks jumped in to add 12 more rules to the list … it only makes sense for me to try and invite the same input this time around. What do you think of these updated rules? Are there others you would add to the list?

Weekly PPC Update: Gettin’ Your 2015 PPC Game On Edition

All that fuss, and it’s over in the blink of an eye. Can you believe the holidays are officially over? Another year bites the dust, and 2015 is officially upon us. That means a clean slate, new opportunities, and a new chance to make this the best year of your life to date. Happy New Year!

The past few weeks have been filled with planning, scrambling to get holiday preparations completed in time for big events, and of course a little partying. Not surprisingly, the folks at Google and Bing have been a bit quiet this past week as their respective teams have had more important things on their minds. So that said, today’s Weekly PPC Update will be a bit different. Nothing to report from either Google or Bing by way of major updates, news, or informative blog posts, so we’ll skip right to the web-at-large to see what’s been shaking during the busy holiday season this past week.

What role will social networks play in paid advertising moving forward? PPCHero takes a look at The State of Paid Search and, in particular, how social networking is reshaping the paid advertising space. In fact, PPCHero suggests that advertisers should make focusing on non-Google advertising opportunities a focus in 2015.

Of course, there are well-known paid advertising ops on the big three:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

But as social networking continues to maintain strengthened user bases, other platforms are entering the mix with advertising opportunities of their own, such as Pinterest and Instagram. Not to mention, new social networks are cropping up all the time – some make it, some don’t, but nonetheless, you should keep your eye on the prize and always be on the lookout for promising advertising platforms. Read what PPCHero has to say about social networking and its role in paid advertising in this post.

What impact does PPC have on brand awareness? PPCHero looks at what is generally a focus of traditional marketing: associating your brand name with a non-branded term so much that they practically become synonymous. Think: Kleenex and tissues. But PPC can have a substantial impact on these types of associations, as well. For tips on making this happen with search, display, remarketing, and even YouTube, check out this post.

Speaking of branding with paid search, 3Q Digital is jumping in on that action, too. This post covers the ins and outs of how to set goals for a PPC branding campaign, the metrics that matter, and more. Hmm, might we have stumbled onto a PPC trend for 2015?

2014 was a pretty up-in-the-air year for SEO, while many businesses struggled to figure out how to make organic SEO work in the new era of Google. 3Q Digital highlights six big SEO what-ifs for 2015, pondering questions such as, “What if some queries showed zero organic listings in 2015?” Intriguing stuff; check it out.

Have you written a 2015 PPC Game Plan? If you didn’t get to the pre-game plan, don’t worry. It’s still the beginning of the year, and it’s never too late to get your act together and a solid plan underway. For some great tips on how to craft a 2015 PPC Game Plan, head over to this post from Clix Marketing.

Search Engine Watch reveals its #1 most-read article of 2014: Escape Google With These 12 Search Engine Alternatives. Natch, it seems fitting to re-post the top article of 2014 on the first day of 2015, and that’s just what they did. If you missed it back in May when it was originally published, you can check it out here.

Curious what the other most-read articles of 2014 were? Here are the rest of the top five:

#2: The 10 Best Shopping Engines

#3: Index Your Content Faster With the Fetch as Google Tool

#4: 5 Advanced YouTube SEO Tactics to Drive More Traffic to Your Videos & Website

#5: Google Launches Panda 4.0

What a better way to wrap up the first Weekly PPC Update for 2015 than a look back at the “Best of the Best” from 2014? WordStream, of course, was on top of its game with their year-end roundup on December 30th. It’s a must-read to kick off your 2015. Read it here.

If you faced ups and downs with PPC success in 2014, had a really crappy year in general, or it was your best year yet and you’re shooting for an even better 2015, it’s a New Year – time to ramp up your game and make it happen! And of course, checking in with little old me every week will help you stay on top of the latest and greatest PPC news and strategies (ahem, shameless plug). Hope you all had a fantastic New Year and are resting up this weekend to get ready to kick some serious 2015 butt on Monday. Show up with your game face on; I’ll be sporting mine.

6 Changes Your 2015 SEO Strategy Must Focus On

SEO is constantly changing. New updates are released, new trends are discussed and new strategies are developed. It is something that will constantly evolve. In 2014 alone, there have already been 13 updates to Google’s algorithm, according to Moz’s change history. These are just the notable and more public ones -- there are refreshes and changes almost daily behind the scenes. My company, Market Domination Media, is constantly adjusting SEO strategies for our clients based on a number of factors. We recently sat down and discussed the biggest changes that SEO efforts are going to need to adjust to as we enter 2015. Let’s look at six of them right now: 1. Create and optimize for mobile traffic Back in 2012 ComScore predicted that mobile traffic would exceed desktop traffic in 2014, and they were correct. Google has always said that it feels responsive websites provide the best user experience, and recently starting including a “mobile-friendly” notation next to websites in mobile search results that are indeed mobile friendly. You can see if your website passes Google’s mobile-friendly test by clicking here. Bing has also stated it prefers a single responsive URL. Related: Why Every Entrepreneur Should Focus on Local SEO 2. Optimizing for Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo Could 2015 be the year that some other search engines begin to take more market share? It seems like this is the million-dollar question every year, but some recent developments suggest that it could be possible. Firefox kicked Google to the curb and Yahoo will now be the default search engine for the browser. Google’s deal is also up with Safari in 2015, and reports have both Bing and Yahoo trying to secure that spot. The option to switch default browsers in iOS 8 and OS X from Google to DuckDuckGo also exists. With options other than Google becoming more popular and accepted it will make it important to have visibility across these search engines in addition to just Google. 3. Switch your focus from keyword rankings to ROI metrics If you or your SEO company is still putting an emphasis on keyword rankings and determining the success of the campaign based on keyword positions, then it is time for a major wake up call. Ranking reports can be made to look pretty and some SEO companies will even target useless keywords just to say, “Hey look -- you are ranking number one!” If you are a business owner spending money every month on SEO, what would you rather hear from your SEO agency? “Congratulations, you are ranking number one for ‘buy blue widgets online’ but we aren’t sure what that translates into dollar wise.” “The infographic that we published last month resulted in earning 67 links and it was also responsible for 45 conversions and $22,480 in revenue.” Do you want a fancy PDF ranking report or do you want to know what your return on investment was? 4. More focused social-media approach Social media was once just a platform to share content, so businesses would sign up for every social platform under the sun and blast their content everywhere. Social media is now a marketing channel as well as a customer-service channel. Your social audience expects your brand to engage with them on a more personal level. Related: How to Improve Your Google AdWords Campaign This Holiday Season It is more effective to focus on two or three social-media platforms and be very active and accommodating. This not only helps you generate more leads, sales and revenue, but it also helps to build a very loyal following that will share your content. This can introduce new people to your brand and even present opportunities to earn links. 5. Earning links rather than building links Through all of the updates and algorithm changes over the years one thing remains the same: inbound links are the most influential signal of trust and authority. This isn’t going to change -- not in 2015 or anytime soon. The days of building links on irrelevant blogs and chasing large quantities of links to game the search results are over. Earning a single link on a high-quality relevant website is valuable for multiple reasons including SEO, attracting referral traffic, leads, sales and branding exposure. Look for traditional PR and SEO to work closer together in 2015. 6. Targeting more precise keywords and search phrases The days of targeting broad keywords are coming to an end. While they tend to have a huge search volume, they don’t attract highly targeted traffic and they are expensive to rank. Targeting long-tail search queries not only attracts qualified “buyer” traffic, but these terms will typically have much less competition. Keyword research along with understanding the shopping and purchase patterns of the target consumer can help to identify search terms and phrases to go after. Businesses will always crave organic search traffic, and search-engine optimization is the vehicle to drive that highly coveted traffic. What are some SEO changes that you foresee in 2015?

Linkedin Consultant | Linkedin Consulting

5 Tips to Build and Grow Your LinkedIn Network

Do you want to tap into LinkedIn’s 150 million–member worldwide network?
It’s important to focus on the right kinds of activities that will yield the best results.
In this article, I’ll reveal five key strategies and activities you can focus on to build and grow your network.

#1: Update Your Status Frequently and Consistently

Only one-third of LinkedIn members visit the site every day, and another one-third of members visit the network several times a week, according to a survey conducted by Lab42. You can check out the complete infographic from Lab42 on LinkedIn Members.
When you log into LinkedIn, notice each time who shows up in your home feed. Most likely you will see the same few people frequently.

Active LinkedIn users will show up more frequently in your home feed.

These individuals are getting more visibility because they are more active, and you can do the same if you commit to staying active on the network. This is a subtle but powerful way to build influence with your network connections.
If you make the commitment to become more active in the network, you have a real opportunity to shine! It takes time, effort and dedication, but the payoff from staying top of mind can be significant in developing new introductions, relationships and business opportunities.
Here are a few ideas on how to be an active LinkedIn member:

• Update your status at least three times a day on the actual site itself, versus using third-party tools so that you have full control over your message and increase engagement (see image below).
• Share and comment on the updates of your first-, second- and third-degree connections at least once a day.
• Send an invitation to connect to at least one new person per day.
• Start and/or participate in LinkedIn Group Discussions three times a week.
• Answer questions on “LinkedIn Answers” three times a week.
• Comment on profile updates from the companies you follow on LinkedIn once a day.
  

  By updating your status manually in LinkedIn, you can control your message and increase engagement.

Important note: Be careful about sharing your tweets directly on LinkedIn. When you do this, you don’t give your LinkedIn network connections any opportunity to engage with you within LinkedIn. Be selective about the tweets you choose to send automatically into LinkedIn from your Twitter account. There may be some value in saving time and increasing visibility by doing this, but realize no further engagement will take place within LinkedIn.
Sending all of your tweets into LinkedIn can get very annoying for your connections!

When you send a tweet to LinkedIn, your network connections are unable to engage with your update within LinkedIn. Instead, if they click "Reply" or "Retweet," they'll be taken to Twitter.

#2: Build Connections Constantly

One of the best things you can focus on in growing and engaging your LinkedIn network is to always look for connection opportunities. LinkedIn recently enhanced its People You May Know feature.
Take advantage of this opportunity to review whom you may know and send them a personalized invitation to connect right there from the People You May Know tab.

The new People You May Know feature makes it easy to discover potential connections in your target markets.

The “Alumni” search feature on LinkedIn is also quite powerful, as you can narrow your search by geographical location.
In the example below, I’ve selected the high school I attended and my current geographical location, which uncovered 74 new connection opportunities for me! Make sure to plug in the high school(s) and college(s) you attended to expand your results.

A search for new potential connections who attended my high school and live in my area.

#3: Be Strategic about When You are Active on LinkedIn

Studies have shown that LinkedIn members are more active in the afternoons and are more likely to use the mobile site in the evenings. With this in mind, focus your participation activities during the times when you have the best chance to be seen.
I would also recommend experimenting with this depending on where you live and what industry you work in. Mix up your strategy and record the results over a week’s time, such as how many new connections you gained and how many engagement opportunities you created during each week based upon when you participated.
For example, I have found that engagement within my industry and target market is quite high on weekday mornings AND on Saturday mornings. Therefore, I make LinkedIn one of my first stops of the day as much as possible.

#4: Join and Actively Participate in LinkedIn Groups

You’ve probably heard this recommendation before, but LinkedIn Groups are one of the most active areas of the network and the participation stats are quite compelling.

A survey and infographic from Lab42 reveals powerful LinkedIn Group participation stats.

Simply joining a group on LinkedIn won’t get you anywhere. You must jump into the new and popular conversations and add value as a member!
One of the best successes I’ve ever had in a group within my targeted niche was to ask for advice. I needed to find a resource to complete a certification and that simple question generated over 30 responses.
Be careful not to over commit to too many LinkedIn Groups. Pick three to five groups that make sense for you to be actively involved. Here are five ways to use LinkedIn Groups to build influential connections.
LinkedIn has just made it much easier to find groups within the network that might be valuable for you to join through the new LinkedIn Group Search feature.
Now, group conversations are being indexed within LinkedIn search. Additionally, you can filter your searches and see which of your connections are also members of a particular group.

Find the right LinkedIn Groups to join and get actively involved through the new LinkedIn Group Search feature.

#5: What You Share Matters

What you share on LinkedIn does matter. This is what will define you as a trusted authority within your industry and with your target markets. The key is to share news, articles and insights that are relevant to your connections if you want to attract and grow the right audience.
If you’re plowing your blog posts into LinkedIn as status updates or into LinkedIn Groups without asking a question or trying to achieve engagement, you won’t get very far. Believe me, I’ve done this and so have many other marketing experts. It is perfectly okay to share your content, but it’s important to be considerate when you do so and position it in such a way that can potentially get your connections to engage with you.
I’m a big believer in the idea that creating and sharing your own content is extremely important for establishing yourself as a thought leader and becoming the trusted authority in your niche. Just avoid phrases such as “check out my videos” or “check out my latest blog post” because honestly, no one cares about you until you care about them. Be a resource and be helpful to your connections in addition to finding ways to create dialogue with them.
Keep in mind that when you share something that is “share-worthy” and members of your extended network see it and share it, you increase your visibility significantly because you gain exposure to their connections.
To easily find and share content that is interesting and relevant to your target markets, consider using the LinkedIn Today site. This is a great tool for finding popular, trending and relevant content to share with your network.
Now it’s Your Turn
I hope you find these recommendations for growing and engaging your LinkedIn network helpful. As the network itself continues to develop and add new features, it’s important to refresh your LinkedIn engagement strategy and make sure you are leveraging all of the great features!
What do you think? What other tips do you have for building and engaging your network on LinkedIn? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Facebook Consultant | Facebook Consulting

Facebook Advertising Guidelines Advertising philosophy At Facebook, we believe that every part of our site, including the adverts, should contribute to and be consistent with the overall user experience. Thus, we are committed to protecting our user experience by keeping the site clean, consistent and free from misleading advertising. We believe that we can help transform existing advertising into messages that are tailored to the individual user based on how their friends interact and affiliate with the brands, music artists and businesses they care about. Advertising Guidelines The following guidelines apply to all adverts appearing on Facebook, including adverts within canvas pages of Facebook Platform applications. In addition, all advertising on Facebook must comply with the Privacy policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Advertising appearing within applications on Facebook Platform must comply with all additional Facebook Platform policies. Facebook reserves the right to reject or remove advertising that we deem contrary to our advert philosophy. These guidelines are subject to change at any time and Facebook may waive any of these guidelines at its discretion. 1. Accounts 1. Advertisers cannot create or manage multiple Facebook accounts for advertising purposes unless given permission by Facebook to do so. 2. Advertisers cannot programmatically automate the creation of accounts or ads unless given permission by Facebook to do so. 2. Landing pages/destination URLs 1. Adverts that contain a URL or domain in the body must link to that same URL or domain. 2. Adverts must send users to the same landing page when the advert is clicked. 3. Landing pages cannot generate a pop-up (including "pop-overs" and "pop-unders") when a user enters or leaves the page. 4. Landing pages cannot use "fake" close behaviour (ie. when a user clicks the 'close' icon on the page, the page should close down and no other behaviour should result). 5. Landing pages cannot utilize "mouse trapping" whereby the advertiser does not allow users to use their browser "back button" and traps them on their site and/or present any other unexpected behaviour (for example, navigation to another advert or page). 6. Adverts cannot require viewers to click on the advert to submit Personally Identifiable Information (such as name, date of birth, phone numbers, social security number, physical addresses or email addresses) on the landing page or in the advert, except to enable an ecommerce transaction and where the advert and landing page clearly indicate that a product is being sold. 3. Facebook references 1. The following conditions apply to all ads that have a Facebook Page, application, event, group or Connect site as its destination, except as otherwise specifically permitted to those subject to the Branding and promotion policy section of the Platform policies: 1. Adverts may make limited references to "Facebook" in its title, body or image for the purposes of clarifying the destination of the advert; 2. Adverts cannot imply any endorsement of the product, service or ad destination by Facebook. 2. All other adverts, destination adverts and landing pages must adhere to the following restrictions: 1. Adverts cannot mention or refer to Facebook, its site or its brand in any manner, including in the title, body, image or destination URLs; 2. Adverts cannot use Facebook logos, trademarks or site terminology (including but not limited to Facebook, The Facebook, FacebookHigh, FBook, FB, Poke, Wall and other company graphics, logos, designs or icons); 3. Facebook site features cannot be emulated. 4. Advert copy and image content 1. Adverts must directly relate to the content on the landing page. 2. Adverts must clearly represent the company, product or brand that is being advertised. Products or services promoted in the advert must be directly available on the landing page. 3. Adverts must not include unsubstantiated claims, including but not limited to prices, discounts or product availability. 4. Adverts cannot insult, harass or threaten a user. 5. Adverts must not contain audio that plays automatically, without a user's interaction. Any automated animation must cease after 15 seconds and must not replay. 5. Prohibited content 1. Adverts must not be false, misleading, fraudulent or deceptive. 2. Adverts will not be permitted in cases where a business model or practice is deemed unacceptable or contrary to Facebook's overall advertising philosophy. 3. Adverts, or categories of adverts, which receive a significant amount of negative user feedback or are otherwise deemed in violation of community standards will not be permitted. 4. Adverts cannot contain, facilitate, promote or reference the following: 1. Offensive, profane, vulgar, obscene or inappropriate language; 2. Obscene, defamatory, libelous, slanderous and/or unlawful content; 3. Tobacco products; 4. Ammunition, firearms, paintball guns, bb guns or weapons of any kind; 5. Gambling, including without limitation, any online casino, sports books, bingo or poker without authorisation from Facebook; 6. Scams, illegal activity or chain letters; 7. Contests and sweepstakes unless given permission by Facebook to do so; if permission is given, you are subject to Facebook's Promotions guidelines; 8. Get-rich-quick and other money-making opportunities that offer compensation for little or no investment, including "work from home" opportunities positioned as alternatives to part-time or full-time employment or promises of monetary gain with no strings attached; 9. Adult content, including nudity, sexual terms and/or images of people in positions or activities that are excessively suggestive or sexual or provocative images in violation of community standards; 10. Adult friend finders or dating sites with a sexual emphasis; 11. Adult toys, videos or other adult products; 12. Uncertified pharmaceutical products; 13. Spy cams or surveillance equipment; 14. Web-based non-accredited colleges that offer degrees; 15. Inflammatory religious content; 16. Politically religious agendas and/or any known associations with hate, criminal and/or terrorist activities; 17. Content that exploits political agendas or uses "hot button" issues for commercial use regardless of whether the advertiser has a political agenda; 18. Hate speech, whether directed at an individual or a group and whether based upon the race, sex, creed, national origin, religious affiliation, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or language of such individual or group; 19. Content that advocates against any organisation, person or group of people, with the exception of candidates running for public office; 20. Content that depicts a health condition in a derogatory or inflammatory way or misrepresents a health condition in any way. 6. Data and privacy 1. You may not give data you receive from us to any third party, including advertising networks. 2. Unless authorised by us, your adverts may not display user data -- such as users' names or profile photos -- whether that data was obtained from Facebook or otherwise. 3. You may not use user data you receive from us or collect through running an advert, including information you derive from your targeting criteria, for any purpose off of Facebook, without user consent. 7. Targeting 1. Any targeting of adverts based on a user attribute such as age, gender, location or interest, must be directly relevant to the offer and cannot be done by a method inconsistent with privacy and data policies. 2. Adverts with adult themes, including contraception, sex education and health conditions must be targeted to individuals at least 18 years old. Platform Adverts should do this via Demographic Restrictions, not by obtaining user data. 3. Adverts for dating sites, services or related content must follow these targeting criteria (does not apply to Adverts on Facebook Platform): 1. the Relationship Status targeting parameter must be utilised and set to Single; 2. the Sex targeting parameter must be utilised and a single value of Male or Female must be selected; 3. The age targeting parameter must be utilised and the age range selected must start at least at 18 years old; 4. the Interested In targeting parameter must be utilised and a single value of either Men or Women must be selected. 8. Prices, discounts and free offers 1. Adverts cannot be deceptive or fraudulent about any offer made. 2. If an ad includes a price, discount, or 'free' offer, 1. the destination URL for the advert must link to a page that clearly and accurately offers the exact deal the advert has displayed; 2. The advert must clearly state what action or set of actions is required to qualify for the offer. 9. Subscription services 1. The advertisement of Subscription Services must comply with the conditions noted below and as determined by Facebook in its sole discretion. "Subscription Services" may include sites that promote downloading ringtones, games or other entertainment services or any site that induces a user to sign up for recurring billing of a product or service. 1. The advert must clearly state what action or set of actions is required to qualify for the offer. If the user must subscribe to a service, the service and offer requirements must both be stated in the advert. 2. The recurring subscription must be consistent with what is promoted in the advert copy. 3. At a minimum, the promoted website must clearly and accurately display the price and billing interval (such as per week or once per month) on the landing page as well as any page that prompts a user for Personally Identifiable Information (such as name, date of birth, phone number, National Insurance number, physical addresses or email addresses) or billing information (including, but not limited to, mobile phone number or credit card number). 4. If users sign up for the service by transmitting a code by text message, the price and billing interval must be clearly and prominently displayed beside the code. 5. If the service is a subscription, the website must provide a prominent opt-in checkbox or other clear mechanism indicating that the user knowingly accepts the price and subscription service. This should be on the first page where the user enters personal data, and the user should not be able to proceed without opting in. 6. All of the foregoing items should be located in a prominent place on your webpage, as determined by Facebook in its sole discretion, and should be easy to find, read and understand. 10. Adverts for alcoholic beverages 1. Adverts must be targeted to people 21 years old or older in the US, 19 years old or older in Canada, 18 years old or older in the UK and Ireland, and 21 years old or older everywhere else. All Facebook Pages viewer restrictions must be set at 21+ regardless of the country they are in or targeted to. In the case where a user's age cannot be determined, the advert cannot be displayed to the user in question. (Does not apply to applications on Facebook Platform.) 2. Adverts cannot include content that might appeal to (or mislead) minors by implying that the consumption of alcoholic beverages is fashionable or the accepted course of behaviour for those who are underage. 3. Adverts cannot include or target any person under the legal drinking age in the region the advert appears, or be suggestive of the presence of those who are underaged. Additionally, adverts appearing in applications on Facebook Platform must adhere to the Platform policies Alcohol content policy. 4. Adverts cannot portray or promote intoxication. 5. Adverts cannot induce people to consume alcohol in excess, make references to the intoxicating effects of alcohol, depict activities that encourage excessive consumption or that encourage drinking at a rapid rate or suggest the strength of the alcoholic beverage being advertised. 6. Adverts cannot promote any giveaways as a reward for purchasing the alcoholic product. 7. It is recommended that the ad creative contain text that promotes drinking responsibly, eg. "Drink Responsibly" or "Drink Smart". 11. Copyrights and trademarks 1. Adverts cannot include any content that infringes upon the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other personal or proprietary right. 2. The advertiser must have intellectual property rights to the creative and be permitted to display such creative as advertising on the Facebook Site. 12. Spam 1. Adverts cannot contain, facilitate or promote 'spam' or other advertising or marketing content that violates applicable laws, regulations or industry standards. 13. Incentives 1. Adverts cannot offer incentives to viewers for clicking on the ad, for submitting Personally Identifiable Information (such as name, date of birth, phone number, social security number, physical addresses or email addresses), or for performing any other tasks. 14. Downloads 1. Adverts must not contain or link directly or indirectly to a site that contains spyware/malware downloads, whether initiated automatically or manually by the user, or other auto-initiated downloads. 2. Adverts cannot contain or link to a site that facilitates or promotes: 1. Collection of demographic and usage information from a user's computer without the user's express consent; 2. Collection or request of Facebook usernames or passwords from any user; 3. Proxying Facebook usernames or passwords for the purpose of automating logins to the Facebook site; 4. Any software that results in an unexpected user experience, including but not limited to software which (i) "sneaks" onto a user's system and performs activities hidden to the user, (ii) may alter, harm, disable or replace any hardware or software installed on user's computer without express permission from the user, (iii) is bundled as a hidden component of other software whether free or for a fee, (iv) automatically downloads without Facebook's express prior approval, (v) presents any download dialogue boxes without a user's express action, or (vi) may violate or infringe upon the intellectual property rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, patent or any other proprietary right. The following sections do not apply to adverts on Facebook Platform 15. Grammar, sentence structure, spelling and spacing 1. Advert text must be grammatically correct and contain proper sentence structure. 2. Advert text must be in complete sentences. 3. Adverts cannot include excessive repetition (such as "buy, buy, buy"). 4. Adverts must use correct spelling. 5. Advert text must include grammatically correct spacing. 16. Capitalisation 1. Adverts must use proper, grammatically correct capitalisation (such as capitalising the first letter of all proper nouns and capitalising the title of the advert). 2. Adverts cannot include excessive capitalisation (such as "FREE") or incorrect capitalisation (such as capitalising the first letter of every word in a sentence). 3. Acronyms may be capitalised. 17. Punctuation 1. Adverts must include logical, correct punctuation. 2. Adverts cannot contain repeated and unnecessary punctuation (such as "Buy now!!!"). 3. All complete sentences (including if the advert title is a complete sentence) must end with a single punctuation mark. Sentences cannot end with ellipses, dashes, etc. 4. Exclamation points cannot be used in the title of any advert. 18. Symbols 1. The use of all symbols, numbers or letters must adhere to the true meaning of the symbol. 2. Adverts cannot contain repeated and unnecessary symbols. 3. Symbols cannot be used for the following: 1. To substitute for letters (e.g. "$ave" instead of "save"); 2. To substitute for entire words (e.g. "&" instead of "and" or "$" instead of "cash/dollars/money"); 3. As unnecessary abbreviations to shorten character count (e.g. "w/" instead of "with" or "@" instead of "at"). 4. Symbols may be used for the following: 1. If the symbol is part of the product or brand name; 2. If the $ symbol is paired with a dollar amount (e.g. "Save $100 today"); 3. If the # symbol is used for comparative phrases (e.g. "Voted the #1 site by The Guardian").

What Is Google Analytics Intelligence

Google has added a new module to Google Analytics called Intelligence. The currently in beta module displays custom and automatic alerts that are created from website traffic operations. It is not sure yet if all Google Analytics users have access to this new module of the website traffic analysis service yet or if it has been made available to select users only.

Google Analytics users who can access it will find a display of their website’s traffic graph along with another bar below that is showing the alerts for the corresponding days. Alerts are color coded with automatic alerts using a light green and custom alerts a light blue color. There will only be automatic alerts in the beginning.



The automatic alerts will give a webmaster immediate information about traffic jumps. This includes major traffic changes to certain pages on the website, a change in a page’s bounce rate, pageviews or a higher or lower than usual visitor stream from a specific country, state or region.



This gives the webmaster a quick overview of traffic developments on a specific web project or website. There are certain possibilities where Google Analytics Intelligence module can help. Webmasters could for instance investigate traffic increases or decreases more effectively as it will for instance display a decrease in traffic to a very popular page on the website. The webmaster could then analyze the issue further.

It is furthermore possible to create custom alerts and this could be very interesting to some webmasters. Custom alerts are created from a list of available alert conditions. The webmaster selects a traffic type to be monitored. This can be all traffic, traffic from a campaign, keyword, medium and landing or exit page. This traffic type is then combined with a metric that is triggering the alert. This again can be pageviews, total visitors, revenue or pre-defined goals. The selected metric is then given a threshold value. An alert is then automatically created whenever that value is crossed.

Another interesting option is to look at weekly or monthly reports which even gives a better overview as day to day variations are something that every webmaster has to live with. Google Analytics Intelligence is available in the left sidebar menu of the Google Analytics

Process of 301 Permanent Redirect

How to implement the 301 Redirect at htaccess level:

Procedure:

1. To create a .htaccess file, open notepad, name and save the file as .htaccess (there is no extension).

2. If you already have a .htaccess file on your server, download it to your desktop for editing.

3. Place this code in your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.htm

4. If the .htaccess file already has lines of code in it, skip a line, then add the above code.

5. Save the .htaccess file

6. Upload this file to the root folder of your server.

7. Test it by typing in the old address to the page you've changed. You should be immediately taken to the new location.

Notes: Don't add "http://www" to the first part of the statement - place the path from the top level of your site to the page. Also ensure that you leave a single space between these elements:

redirect 301 (the instruction that the page has moved) /old/old.htm (the original folder path and file name) http://www.you.com/new.htm (new path and file name)

When the search engines spider your site again they will follow the rule you have created in our .htaccess file. The search engine spider doesn't actually read the .htaccess file, but recognizes the response from the server as valid.

During the next update, the old file name and path will be dropped and replaced with the new one. Sometimes you may see alternating old/new file names during the transition period, plus some fluctuations in rankings. According to Google it will take 6-8 weeks to see the changes reflected on your pages.


Other ways to implement the 301 redirect:

1. To redirect ALL files on your domain use this in your .htaccess file if you are on a unix web server:

redirectMatch 301 ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com

redirectMatch permanent ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com

You can also use one of these in your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /index.html http://www.domain.com/index.html
redirect permanent /index.html http://www.domain.com/index.html
redirectpermanent /index.html http://www.domain.com/index.html

This will redirect "index.html" to another domain using a 301-Moved permanently redirect.

2. If you need to redirect http://mysite.com to http://www.mysite.com and you've got mod_rewrite enabled on your server you can put this in your .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]

or this:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Tip: Use your full URL (ie http://www.domain.com) when obtaining incoming links to your site. Also use your full URL for the internal linking of your site.

3. If you want to redirect your .htm pages to .php pages and you've got mod_rewrite enabled on your server you can put this in your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule (.*).htm$ /$1.php

4. If you wish to redirect your .html or .htm pages to .shtml pages because you are using Server Side Includes.


(SSI) add this code to your .htaccess file:

AddType text/html .shtml
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml .html .htm
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
DirectoryIndex index.shtml index.html

IIS Redirect

In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
Enter the redirection page
Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
Click on 'Apply'


ColdFusion Redirect

<.cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently">
<.cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.new-url.com">

PHP Redirect

Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>

ASP Redirect

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<% Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently" Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www.new-url.com/" %>

ASP .NET Redirect

JSP (Java) Redirect

<% response.setStatus(301); response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.new-url.com/" ); response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" ); %>

CGI PERL Redirect

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect("http://www.new-url.com/");

Ruby on Rails Redirect

def old_action
headers["Status"] = "301 Moved Permanently"
redirect_to "http://www.new-url.com/"
end

HTML Redirect

The HTML redirect allows to introduce a delay before the redirection is performed. It is sometimes called “META refresh” redirect.

Browsers will display the page during the specified time and then move forward to the page pointed to by the redirection.

HTML Redirect Source Code



…
seconds;URL=the-other-url">
…


…

Seconds: the number of seconds the page is displayed, before performing the redirection.

the-other-url : any absolute or relative URL that will be displayed after the delay has expired.

It is recommended that a standard link be added in the page for the few users of browsers that do not automatically follow redirections.

Examples of HTML Redirects


The redirecting page will be displayed during 5 seconds. After this 5 seconds delay, it will be replaced by “the-other-page.html”.


The redirecting page will be displayed during 12 seconds. After this 12 seconds delay, it will be replaced by the home page of this site.


The redirecting page will be displayed and immediately replaced by “another-page.html”. With this zero-delay, many users will not even notice the presence of the redirecting page.