Looking for free SEO tools? Every small business owner stumbles on this tricky subject the industry has stubbed “search engine optimization” or SEO for short, which typically precedes the bitter observation of the price tag.

You’ve heard the testimonials, read articles, and felt green with envy at your competitors who already rank well in Google or you know firsthand they’re utilizing an SEO consultant.

Why can’t I just do this myself?

It’s common knowledge that entrepreneurs wear many hats, sometimes simultaneously. So why can’t I try on the ten gallon white hat of SEO? (Avoid the black hat, seriously).

For an entrepreneur who has the time and resources, this is a possibility, but you’re going to require some tools and software to get you started. Before we begin, a brief moment of silence for SEO Digger, a fantastic free website rank checker which is no longer available due to Google enforcing rules for its Adwords API. May you find peace among the great search engine in the sky.

Google Keyword Tool

SenSEO Firefox Extension.

GTmetrix

Mozcast

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With all the buzz surrounding the mystery announcement from Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it’s no wonder their stock price rose several points over the morning. As much clamor has been made for mobile ads to increase profitability or even the much joked about dislike button, the verdict was made clear at 12:00pm that you can now use Facebook search to find people and increase your already overwhelming amount of connections on the social network.



So what does this mean for the future of social media? For starters, Facebook stalking just became that much easier. As quoted in the announcement today, Zuckerberg states: “We recently started asking people who check in to a place to recommend or rate the place… By doing that we’re just enabling a massive number of people to recommend restaurants…” All stalking jokes aside, this is a great improvement over the usefulness of the search function

In Facebook’s big reveal video (which has been blasted by web traffic) portrays a list of typical queries of how someone might search for their friend’s interests. In essence, Facebook is becoming more like Google for your friends. I dread searching for “photos of friends who like cats.” Here’s some more search ideas that could go terribly awry.

Photos of friends who enjoy skinny dipping
Friends I work with who are republican / democrat
Friends who like hoarding
Friends my boyfriend has cheated with me on

Perhaps this wasn’t as monumental as a reveal as shareholders might want to see, though upon deeper inspection, the possibility of advertisements based on friend and interest searches sounds incredibly profitable. Imagine searching for friends who enjoy eating sushi and finding several paid ads for local sushi restaurants. This is the sort of market Facebook can capitalize on and reign supreme as not only the largest social network, but also the most successful as a business.

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Link Building Factors

Social Signals

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Medical SEO is a different breed than regular SEO. While many of the ground rules for optimization remain the same, however the search theory and how people search for health information online has it’s own rules setting medical SEO apart from traditional SEO. According to a recent study by PEW Internet & American Life Project, 80 percent of all Internet users search for health information online. That’s a lot of searches! It’s no wonder why Medical SEO should be a niche study of its own and there are some basic concepts.

1. Start with the symptom As with any good doctor, you have to find out the symptoms before you can get to the root cause. Let’s take the example of someone who is experiencing numbness in his or her foot for an extended period of time. The average person will not know the exact condition they are suffering from at first, so it is unlikely this will be their first search. It’s up to the SEO to know this and prepare to guide their search efforts to assist this patient. After the patient searches for their symptom they will likely find an answer from a medical information site such as WebMD or Localhealth.com, although it might be possible for you to have a landing page optimized for a common search on this symptom, it depends on your resources available to make it successful and even then it may only rank 3rd or 4th place in the SERPs at best.

2. Optimize for the condition Even for local doctors it’s important to prepare your site to list all possible conditions you treat as a specialist. It’s important to remember people are not always searching for a phone number to your office but for a quick fix or do it yourself approach to healthcare. Of course it is always important to remind the reader the importance of seeing a professional for a diagnosis.

3. Get Local Now more than ever it’s important to focus on local search for your practice. Google’s algorithm is changing rapidly and is placing a focus on ranking you for the surrounding area where your business is located. This has pros and cons as it means your reach is limited even if you serve an area nearby. This is where an SEO specialist shines in making sure your practice visible to search engines for patients from those areas.

Medical SEO certainly takes a fair amount of research and preparation for a successful campaign. You not only need to understand SEO, but healthcare as well! Oh, and that numbness of the foot condition I was mentioning earlier? It could be Morton’s Neuroma, look it up.

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Before creating a Facebook Ad, it’s a good idea to ask yourself the hard question of “why am I doing this?” After all, you’re spending money for a reason. Whether it’s to drive more sales for a new product or just to get more likes, determine the goal first and follow these 3 helpful tips to make effective Facebook Ads.

1. Your Image

Visual marketing is key to creating effective Facebook Ads. Why do you think Pinterest has caught on so rapidly? Visual content sell. Period. You want your image to pop out and convey a message just as much as the text does. I always prefer the balanced approach, an image that grabs a reader’s attention and properly address what your business does. In other words, strive to have your cake and eat it too.

2. Your Message

Once your image has caught their attention away from the target’s newsfeed, you have to sell them into the next step, your Facebook page or other landing site. The word choice is critical and important. This is where the reader internalizes the decision to take 0.5 seconds to click on your ad or ignore it completely. No pressure, just another part of making effective Facebook Ads.

Utilize a strong call to action one of two ways, in the beginning or at the end. This works much like Google Ads in execution, only without Capitalizing Every Letter Of Every Word. I prefer to have the call to action in the beginning if the ad, such as “Check out my secret page” or “Learn more about SEO” but this is just personal opinion.

CAPS CAN WORK FOR YOU! This is one of the few times you might actually consider smashing into the keyboard with full-blown caps lock. Whatever you do, do not type the entire ad message with caps lock, as this is painful for the eyes and sickens some people almost as bad as comic sans. Aim for the most important part such as “HALF PRICE RIBS” or “FREE TICKETS”. Again, you have to consider your company’s image and whether or not caps will clash with your branding. If it’s an upcoming event or huge promotion, try a split test between two Ads, one with caps lock and another without. You might be surprised at what you find.

3. Your Audience

Now it’s time to target your audience, the fun part. Facebook makes this easy to do and will pull up people’s interests that are similar to the ones you’re adding.

Get creative and think like your consumer here, if you’re creating an ad for a Greek restaurant, look at people’s likes for similar restaurants in the surrounding areas.

Remember the event in particular, if it’s for a romantic dinner for two, make sure to go into “advanced options” and narrow down the choices to those in a relationship, married, or engaged.

Tell Us About Your Effective Facebook Ads

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Does your Facebook page feel bland? Does it taste similar to a hamburger without any cheese or condiments served with a watery vanilla shake and fries wilting like month old flowers? Fear not fellow social media goer, there’s a simple way to add some pizzazz, turn up the flavor, and inject an energetic blast of unicorn breath back into your Facebook. Today find out how to create Facebook tabs, it may seem a little tricky if you’re unfamiliar with any of the following criteria, but stay with us and you’ll soon be on the path to a bright and shiny navigational tab.

1. Create A Google Site Page The best way to do this, although it’s not the only option, is to create a Google Site page. The biggest perks for a Google Site page is that A.) it’s FREE and B.) they host the pages in both http and https which is necessary for a Facebook page tab.

You can create multiple sites for different Facebook pages you manage, so make sure to name them appropriately. For a top level overview of your site, you may need to navigate to the “Manage Site” option on the drop down menu, located in the top right corner of the user panel. Here you can change quite a few details or make page templates if you happen to frequently create pages of the same style, although this is a topic for another day.

2. Add in the content Simply include any pictures, text, or other insert-able options inside of the Google Site. Seriously, take a long minute to go over all the options Google Sites provides in the insert menu, you can even add a Google Map to point out your location! Make sure you eliminate headers, comments, file attachments, and any other unnecessary options that may be included on a standard Google Site. This helps the Facebook tab page appear cleaner and directs the user where you want them to go. Unless you absolutely have to have these, maybe you want someone to send you LOLcats pictures? Don’t close out of the Google Site just yet, we’ll come back to this later to fetch the URL we want the Facebook tab to redirect to.

3. Log in to the Facebook Developers page. Once you see the Facebook Developer home page, click on the “Apps” tab located at the top, this will prompt you to log in as your Facebook account. Once inside you’ll want to select “Create New App.”

Name the app something appropriate such as “About Us” or “Our Location”, whatever you want the tab to be about. You don’t need to worry about the App Namespace or Web Hosting, press Continue to move on.

4. Create the tab Now comes the fun part, you get to add your URL and actually make the app. Scroll down to the bottom of the App creation page and click on “Page Tab.” Here’s where we need to fetch the URL we want. Fortunately, Google Sites also have the https option so let’s go to our Manage Site screen and copy the URL.

Paste the URL into the “Secure Page Tab URL” field in the Facebook App creation page. You’ll notice how it copied the https version first! Simply re-paste this into the “Page Tab URL” field and delete the ‘s’ in https to make it say http.

Now for the finishing touches, the Page Tab Image is what shows up on your Facebook, much like the Impyre crown you see on our Facebook page.

Add an image of your choice by uploading it, simply click “change” on the far right and the Facebook Developers page will give you the lowdown on what type of image you want to use. Next, select the Page Tab Width. I personally recommend 810px as this size seems to be an industry standard. However, if your design quirk demands something slimmer, go for the 520px. Save changes and hang on to your seat, we’re almost done.

5. Add the tab to your Facebook page Congratulations for making it this far! Now it’s time to add the app to your Facebook page, but how-oh I say how-do I do this? This is the easiest part, take this URL as provided below and paste it into your browser with the App ID# added in:

https://facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?next=http://www.facebook.com&app_id= Insert App ID# here

Replace where it says “Insert App ID# here” with your unique App ID number that you just created. For example, something like this:

https://facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?next=http://www.facebook.com&app_id=412141108845595

After pasting this into your browser, you are taken to a page that prompts for which Facebook page you want to add it into (especially convenient if you manage multiple accounts).

Select Add Page Tab and viola, you have a fresh new tab taking your loyal followers where you want them to go.

I hope you gained a new skill to use today that will benefit you, your audience, and any clients you may serve. Now go forth and teach others how to create Facebook tabs! Feel free to leave comments below linking to your Facebook page so everyone can view your handiwork or other insightful tips about this topic and suggestions for future topics.

Until next time.

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We know we’re jumping the gun here as 2012 still has a few months left, but I feel it’s necessary to highlight some of the big catastrophes that have occurred recently as they are big news and there is much to learn from them. Without any further ado, here is the current top 5 social media fails of 2012.

1. Progressive Insurance

2. Chik-Fil-A

 3. Burger King

4. Voula Papachristou, Olympic Athlete

5. Celeb Boutique

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Some companies host a “happy hour” of sorts, whether it involves a cheese tray or alcoholic beverages (we prefer the latter) these small events make a big difference in the culture of a business. So in the spirit of modern blogging we’ve lined up 7 shots, I mean reasons to have a company happy hour.

1. Building camaraderie Who bonds over filing paperwork or writing emails? A company happy hour is meant to build coworker relationships the only way you can in the office, over enjoyable drinks, food, music, or all three!

2. Seeing another side to everyone A company happy hour lets everyone drop their “work-mode” and slip back into their at ease personalities. This is a step in the right direction when everyone can see each other’s human side, not the mindless robotic automaton performing website maintenance.

3. Something to look forward to People need a reason to come to work, and Friday being the last day of the week is an exciting time for those who contribute to the national employment percentage. Incentivized people work harder and get more done in a shorter period of time than those with a whole day to kill.

4. Stress relief Stress is serious business, it is estimated that as many as 90% of doctor visits are due to stress related symptoms. So cut back on your health insurance premium (or not, medical coverage is appealing) and sponsor a company happy hour!

5. Building company culture Who doesn’t love inside jokes and stories to tell? Let it all out at the company happy hour! Every company has a culture highly valued by the employees and separates it from the faceless image most outsiders perceive it as. So break the mold and celebrate what makes the team special.

6. Bring out the competitive side Everyone knows success comes from a deep rooted sense of competitiveness, when employees challenge eachother to drianking contessts it cahn be goih2dll for hther ao…

7. It gets the mind ofer works ohne moar shot? Okays. wehn the hapy huro ishak togethehrs evernun can see wai theh offsish can be a gerat bigg happy faimly! This doesetysa3ioqn;jladhs;jkn.al-92i40ou3ejik ahnywayouwantitthat’sthewaeyuuninee8dit!@TQGREWRFin

<Author’s Note: No employees were intoxicated during the creation of this blog.

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Social Media continues to thrive and grow as a dominant force in the world of marketing. Impyre’s Warren Dane recently visited the Dallas Social Media club at the Angelika Theater near Mockingbird Station and witnessed the inside view into the artful approaches of spreading online influence. The presentations involved case studies from numerous companies. The cases in particular were for the Armed Forces Bowl, Chevy (at SxSW), iFratelli, Radio Shack, Wasp Barcode Technologies, and YoCunch Yogurt. Each one catered to a unique audience through the agency’s skillful methods. Let’s skip ahead to the fun part and hear the six strategies he learned from the social media club of Dallas.

Atomic Design and Consulting handled the Armed Forces Bowl with an eventful game “find the helicopter.” They hid a toy helicopter around the stadium and challenged social media goers inside the event to find it. They cleverly placed it near the logos of their sponsors such as the trunk of a Lexus vehicle, well played Atomic Design. They challenged the crowd to find the helicopter over social media and met with great results. Not only did their efforts increase online participation but brought in a large jump in followers sure to attract an even larger following for the next Armed Forces Bowl.

Who doesn’t love freebies? Chevy not only set up booths and ran a free taxicab service around Austin, they also hosted graffiti competitions and shared the images online. Through their efforts and publicizing this through social media they made huge sales and created an astronomical amount of new Chevy owners on site as well. A notable impression made upon myself was how the Chevy case study ended with a memorable quote: “Be useful, be entertaining, or be ignored.”

iFratelli utilized social media for an entirely different goal, donating to charity. They publicized how a percentage of their sales were going towards local charitable organizations, and ended up with an amazing outreach. One of their interactions involved a teenage girl tweeting about how hungry she was and wanted pizza, their response was something along the lines of “well @hungrypizzagirl we can’t cook you a pizza now, but if you come in on Monday we’ll donate 15% of the sales to leukemia foundations.” Low and behold that simple tweet was shared to over 14,000 people.

Radio Shack partnered with YouTube celebrities to promote their old phone trade in program and met record numbers in a month. I’m sure you’re thinking the same thing I did: “I haven’t been to a Radio shack in ages” and I assure you the numbers don’t lie and they are finding success through social media.

Wasp Barcode Technologies faced the unfortunate fate of being a necessary, yet boring business. They countered this with the help of monster truck Grave Digger and promoted how they use Wasp Barcode Technologies for their inventory, everyone loves monster trucks!

Last but not least, YoCrunch Yogurt sought out the motherly market and aligned their brand behind healthy choices and playing with your food. By diving into the niche market of moms brought about amazing sharing for their contests and they received some interesting user generated content. They met with difficult resistance at first going up against the billion dollar yogurt industry and stood their ground well, the fact that yogurt is a billion dollar industry caught me off guard. Deliciously, deliciously off guard.

Each case study demonstrated an impressive boost in impressions for their social media profiles, not to mention a noticeable increase in sales and user interactions. The fascinating thing about each one of the six case studies is how they all took 6 individual approaches to social media and found incredible success. I’ll leave you with the impressionable motto of the Dallas social media club any social media geek can get behind: “If you get it, share it”

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Healthcare Internet Marketing

Healthcare receives tremendous benefit from the use of search engine optimization. More than 80% of internet users gather information about medicine, illness, injuries, and other health related topics online. We predict this number will stay the same or rise for several years to come. Medical sites provide more than simply a vanity page. The properly optimized web page generates revenue and patient volume with the help of internet marketing. Not all web pages are created equal and many website developers claim to build a search engine optimized page but fall short of the promise. The first lesson to learn with SEO involves constant change. The rules rarely stay the same especially today when search algorithms constantly improve. The world grows digitally into a new age of online searches where healthcare organizations hesitate to enter the fray. The million dollar question we ask any medical professional is: “if I looked for your services online, will I find you?” It’s time to list how SEO allows for the medical world to connect with their communities.

Building Awareness

Educating Patients

Connecting with Communities

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