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Facebook Landing Page - How to change the default Facebook landing page

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:53:10 +0000

It is important to change your Facebook landing page for your business after you create your Facebook business page such as “welcome” page or “promotion” page. Usually, Facebook sets up your default landing page as “wall / post page”, so you need to change the default landing page on your Facebook business page. It’s better to use “welcome” page as your default Facebook landing page to like your page. Here are the easy 5 steps to change the default Facebook landing page.

Log in to your page as your profile name (admin)
Click “edit page” in right hand corner
Click on “Manage Permissions” on left hand side
Go down to “Default Landing Tab”
Click on drop down box with list of your pages and select your “welcome” page
Click save changes and your visitor will land on your “welcome” page first to like your page

Facebook Business Page URL - How To Create a Facebook URL for Business

admin — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 04:23:34 +0000

Do you need a Facebook business URL? If your Facebook fan page for your business is established and has a growing fan base, then you can easily create a business vanity URL for your business Facebook page. For example, one of our clients’, Parkut International’s Facebook vanity URL is http://www.facebook.com/ParkutInternational. These URLs make it easier for fans and customers to remember (or guess) where your page is located and it gives page owners a nice brand boost. Facebook has also opened up vanity URLs for Facebook Pages for those with more than 25 fans.

First you have to set up a personal account for Facebook. Only then you can set up a business page. At first the business page will have the url of www.facebook.com/pages/……………….. Once you get 25 fans to your page, you can then change the url to your own vanity url by going to http://www.facebook.com/username and changing it to, for example, http://www.facebook.com/ParkutInternational.

There are easy 5 steps to create a Facebook URL for business.

Go to http://www.facebook.com/username/
Click [Set a username] for your pages
Pull down and select the page that you administer (see the screenshot below)
Enter a custom, personal URL for that page and click [Check availability]
Accept the vanity URL for your business Facebook page and start promoting it

Please note that your Facebook business page is not your profile page, so if you want to create the Facebook Business URL, the second paragraph is the one that you want to deal with.

When you’re selecting your Facebook vanity URL, keep in mind that the name you choose essentially becomes your URL. You can’t change it once you set it up. We would recommend using your business name, but there are opportunities to use keywords. You want to pick something that properly represents your brand and that will be easy for people to remember.

What if your business name is not available for Facebook Business URL? The requirement for Facebook vanity URL is as follows:

Usernames can only include alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) or a period (.).
Usernames are not transferable or editable.
Your page must have at least 25 fans to establish a Facebook vanity URL.

Therefore, if your business name has already taken for Facebook Business Page URL, we recommend you to use “-” (dash / hyphen) between the words.

Once you set up your Facebook business URL, you need to change the default Facebook landing page to the right Facebook landing page, which attracts visitors to become your fans. Remember that the landing tab is the decision maker of the visitors to like your fan page, so you need to create a warm, unique “welcome” page. For how to change the default Facebook landing page, please visit “Facebook landing page“.

Google Places Optimization - how to optimize Google Places

admin — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:02:06 +0000

To get a top listing on the Google Places (Google Maps), you need to do “Google Places Optimization“. You probably want to know how to optimize Google Places. The three main factors that influence website rankings in Google Places are:

Back links from local directories (online yellow pages)
Back Links from user generated reviews.
Local Business Listing information

How To List A Business with Multiple Locations On Google Maps

admin — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 06:50:45 +0000

Many business owners are concerned about how to list a business with multiple locations on Google Maps (Google Places). Look at the Starbucks. They have multiple locations. The best way to list your branches or stores in multiple locations is as follows:

set-up multiple listings under one account
use a different address for each location and different local phone number
fill out the LBL (Local Business Listing) completely (100%)

It is okay to use the same domain name for each location. Also, you can use the same business name. What you have to be careful is to do “over optimization” . For instance, if you use your business title of Google places with extraneous keywords for optimization, which doesn’t look like your real business name, Google might consider that you are doing “over optimization”, because it is against Quality Guidelines for Google Places such as “Represent your business exactly as it appears in the offline world.”

Now, some say “it’s best to setup individual Google Accounts and pages for each location. That way if something happens to one listing, it doesn’t effect the whole”. This is an interesting opinion. We do the same thing for some of our clients, too. Either having a single account or multiple accounts is not against Quality Guidelines for Google Maps, so it is all up to you.

For other local search, visit our Google Maps Algorithm page, Google Maps Optimization (Google Maps SEO) page, Live Search Map and Yahoo Local page.

Google Sitelinks Has Expanded To 12 Packs

admin — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:13:13 +0000

Google has announced the expansion of sitelinks to provide better search experiences to the Google users. Google sitelinks was 4 packs - a single row of just four links, but now Google sitelinks has expanded to 12 packs as shown below.

Sitelinks are quite useful, because it gives you a good overview of a website’s content ,which helps you quickly navigate to the most relevant part of the site.

Service Areas vs Business Location

admin — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 06:31:03 +0000

Google wants to know whether your business serves customers at their locations or not. If your business provides services, such as delivery or home repair, to locations in certain areas, you should choose service areas under Google Places’ “Service Areas and Location Setting”. Then, you have two options: “Select how your service area will be specified, either through a distance from a location point, or through a list of locations (towns, zip codes, etc.)” I believe there are some issues with the option to select area by radius, so choose “List of areas served”, and list all of cities and zip codes that you actually serves.

For other local search, visit our Google Maps Algorithm page, Google Maps Optimization (Google Maps SEO) page, Live Search Map and Yahoo Local page.

Page Speed and SEO

admin — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 19:16:06 +0000

Google has publicly announced that the time it takes for your web pages to load will be a factor in your ranking. In another word, site speed has became one of Google search ranking algorithms. There is an interesting SEO news that Google is incorporating site speed as one of the over 200 signals that we use in determining search rankings. Before choosing a web host for your web site, be sure that clients using their hosting solutions have fast web sites. Some web hosting companies are over-burdened, making the web site of all their clients load slowly. Make sure to optimize your flash files if you use flash animation in your website.

Owner-Verified Listing on Google Place Page

admin — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 02:29:12 +0000

It seems to have a positive impact on your ranking when you do owner-verified listing on Google Place Page. Google values the information from the owner of the business than somebody else.

For other local search, visit our Google Maps Algorithm page, Google Maps Optimization (Google Maps SEO) page, Live Search Map and Yahoo Local page.

Name, Address and Phone Number Matching Place Page Information

admin — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 03:14:14 +0000

It is important to make certain your business name, address and phone number on your website are visible to the search engines and match up with what is in published in your Google Places listing. Your business name, address and phone number need to be in text on your website and they must match your places, other Trusted Provider and citation listings. If you want to use a toll free number, don’t forget your local phone number. If you want to use P.O.Box address in your website, don’t forget to insert your physical address in text on your website.

For other local search, visit our Google Maps Algorithm page, Google Maps Optimization (Google Maps SEO) page, Live Search Map and Yahoo Local page.

Cell Phone vs Landline Phone in your Local Business Listng

admin — Sun, 01 May 2011 01:36:49 +0000

Nowdays a lot of people run their businesses from their cell phones, particularly those in the service industries. It is hard to imagine not being able to use a cell phone as the primary business number. However, when it comes to Google Maps SEO, using a landline phone in your local business listing (LBL) leads your website to rank well in Google Maps (Google Places). If you don’t want to have a landline phone due to the nature of your business such as delivery or home repair service to locations in a certain area, then, go to LBL, and select how your service area will be specified, either through a distance from a location point, or through a list of locations (towns, zip codes, etc.).

For other local search, visit our Google Maps Algorithm page, Google Maps Optimization (Google Maps SEO) page, Live Search Map and Yahoo Local page.