This is a mistake I would not want to make.
It turns out that the app OpenTable, draws customers to reserve and book at restaurants that are ON the app, but is not generating any extra dine-outs.
Restaurants have no choice but to pay for its presence on OpenTable,
in order not to lose the competitions.
It may have caused a bit of convenience for the users, but not much benefits to the restaurants. OpenTable ATE up all the margins.
This is not something I'd like to see in what I'm gonna do.
2011年7月27日 星期三
Why businesses don't like Groupon
Are you fed up with Groupon yet?
The truth is, businesses
1. need a model that gives them more control over discounts to suit their needs
(that is, CRM)
2. don't want to cut margins for something that DO NOT generate repeat businesses.
I pretty much like the quote of such indiscriminative discounts being
"the lowest form of marketing, as much as puns are the lowest form of humour"
How long will these Group-buy sites continue to live?
The truth is, businesses
1. need a model that gives them more control over discounts to suit their needs
(that is, CRM)
2. don't want to cut margins for something that DO NOT generate repeat businesses.
I pretty much like the quote of such indiscriminative discounts being
"the lowest form of marketing, as much as puns are the lowest form of humour"
How long will these Group-buy sites continue to live?
2011年7月13日 星期三
another 5-star guide - How to improve Facebook Edgerank
Another very useful guide on improving your Facebook "EdgeRank"
What you need to know - the 3 factors of Edgerank
1. Affinity - how much you interact with a friend ... reciprocally
2. More comments the better - and comments rate higher than Likes
3. Time matters. Old things go to the bottom
Therefore:
1. invite interactions with your posts
2. Create Forum/discussions (hence more comments and higher chance to appear on TopNews)
3. Images and videos thumbnails prompts people to click in itself. Add a comment to make it work.
4. So are links.
5. If something is ignored - move on. Or try reposting it (later?)
6. Don't be shy - ask people to Share and Like you. (nicely!)
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6 Tips to Increase Your Facebook EdgeRank and Exposure
Ever wonder why you can have 548 friends on Facebook, yet only 15-20 show up in your news feed? It’s not that those other friends have stopped using Facebook; chances are they’re still there. It’s just that they aren’t showing up in your news feed.If you haven’t noticed, there are now two settings on your Facebook news feed: “Most Recent,” which shows most of the content published by your Facebook friends in chronological order and “Top News,” which filters content based on EdgeRank.
Friends and fan pages with a high EdgeRank are more likely to show in your “Top News” stream. Users with a low EdgeRank may not even show in your “Most Recent” news feed.
For businesses or others looking to market, promote or just interact through Facebook, the implications of this change are huge. “Top News” is the default setting, so unless a friend or fan changes their default, it’s quite possible that they will never see your updates. No matter how good the content, no matter how well you manage your Facebook page, EdgeRank might be holding you back.
EdgeRank Defined
Facebook looks at everything published as “objects.” These can be status updates, links, photos, video or anything else that can be shared on Facebook. Every object receives a ranking (EdgeRank), which determines if it will show in your personal newsfeed. Objects with a high EdgeRank appear in your “Top News” feed. Objects with a low EdgeRank will not. According to a study conducted last fall by The Daily Beast, objects with a really low EdgeRank may not even show in your “Most Recent” news feed.
An object’s EdgeRank is based on three factors: affinity or the relationship between the creator and user, interaction with the object (likes, comments, etc.) and timeliness. Add the three factors together using a formula that only Facebook truly knows and you’ve got an object’s EdgeRank.
Unlike Google’s PageRank, which stays the same from user to user, every object is scored based on the individual Facebook user who may (or may not) view the object in their news feed.
Let’s take a closer look at the three factors that determine EdgeRank.
Affinity
An object’s affinity score is based on the interactions you have with the friend or fan who published the object. Friends or fans with whom you regularly interact receive a higher affinity score. Each time you visit a fan page, click the “Like” button, comment on a user’s status or look at a picture, you increase the affinity score with that user.
As The Daily Beast study points out, this affinity score only works one way. I can’t increase my affinity score in another user’s feed by constantly clicking on their “Like” buttons or looking at their pictures. Although doing so will increase the likelihood that you’ll see their updates, your objects won’t do better in their news feed until they return the favor.
Level of Interaction
Different types of interactions are weighted differently on Facebook. Activities that require higher levels of user engagement get a higher score than those that don’t. For example, leaving a comment on a photo takes more effort on the user’s part than clicking the “Like” button. Objects that receive higher levels of interaction are more likely to show in a user’s newsfeed.
Timeliness
Most people don’t want to read yesterday’s news. Newer objects have a better chance of showing up in your news feed than older ones.
Armed with an understanding of these three elements, here are six tips on how you can increase the likelihood that your content or objects will appear in your friends’ or fans’ “Top News” feed.
#1: Publish Objects That Encourage Interaction
Unless they’re interesting enough to draw comments, simple status updates aren’t going to move you into Top News feeds. Publish content that naturally encourages click-throughs or creates discussion. Objects such as creative games that require a response (i.e., trivia or caption contests) open up opportunities to add highly weighted interaction and build affinity with new users.
Top News is Facebook's default setting. Top News only shows objects with a higher EdgeRank.
#2: Create a Forum
Ever notice how political content on Facebook can generate a ton of comments? Although it doesn’t take long to realize that Facebook and politics don’t mix, people love to debate and discuss hot issues. Make your fan page a place for constructive discussion on the latest industry topics. Although this approach takes careful management, objects from a fan page filled with healthy discussion are more likely to receive a higher EdgeRank.
Objects such as surveys require user interaction which can build EdgeRank.
#3: Make the Most of Photos and Videos
Photos and videos show up in the Facebook news feed as thumbnail images. Due to their size, they almost require interaction as users click on them to make them large enough to see. Be sure to add a comment that encourages users to open the photo and add comments of their own.
By their very nature, videos and pictures encourage interaction.
#4: Share Links
Links require interaction as users click on the link to view the object. While it’s good to share content from your own website, don’t be afraid to promote interesting content from other sources. Twitter users discovered long ago that the more content of value you share, the better chance you have of driving followers to your own content when the time comes. Again, a comment that encourages opening the link or leaving comments can go a long way.
An object that receives comments is more likely to show in the Top News feed and also builds affinity with users who comment.
#5: Keep It Fresh
The Facebook stream moves quickly. If you’ve got objects that aren’t getting a response, don’t be afraid to let them go and move on to the next thing. If the object is good but didn’t get the response you desired, consider repurposing it or sending it out again at a different time of day.
#6: Ask Users to Share
Don’t be afraid to ask users to share objects or click on the Like button—especially if you’re new to Facebook. It can take a little while for a Facebook page to gain momentum. Anything you can do to help it along will only speed the process.
Although the introduction of EdgeRank may make it more difficult to share information on Facebook, ultimately it still comes down to content. Publishing content that users want to share and interact with has always been vital to any Facebook marketing campaign. With the recent Facebook changes, that content may now need a little extra push to get it the attention it deserves.
How have the changes to Facebook affected your approach to Facebook marketing? Leave your comments and questions in the box below.
5-star useful - Optimise pictures for search!
Very helpful advice - even your images can be search-optimised!!!!
1. use the right filenames (descriptive, precise, and include "emotional words" which people would search for
2. use alt tags
3. in a position close to the image, add descriptive text4
4. put important pictures on top headline
5. put pictures within posts (rather than sidebars, often interpreted as adds/add. elements)
6. pictures should be with good quality even in thumbnails (that's what they'd be shown on Search engines)...
9. Check how many pictures Google have indexed (see at bottom)
(For the two other tech ones, read on!)
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9 Ways of Optimizing your Site for Image Search
All the major search engines have their own image search engines. These may actually generate a lot of traffic. Here’s how you attract image search visitors to your site.People may have different reasons for using image search engines. There are teenagers looking for pictures of their teen idols, iTunes users looking for an obscure cover of a 1960′s album, and bloggers looking for an image to use for their blog (in violation of all copyright regulations, of course!).
There will also be shoppers looking for pictures of cars, furniture, holiday destinations or clothing. If you are selling products or services it is the shoppers you are looking for. However, all of these persons may be potential future customers or subscribers. And they may become regular readers. You want that!
Note also that all the major search engines now include image search listings in regular web search results. If you have optimized your images correctly, you can get yourself a very attractive top 10 position by tagging your images correctly.
Help the search engine understand what the image is about
If you want your images to rank higher than others for a particular keyword phrase, you need to help the search engine understand what the picture is depicting.
You can do this by the following means:
1. Use descriptive file names
Make sure that the file name describes the image with keyword phrases searchers are likely to use.
Bad: www.yoursite.com/images/photo-356789.jpg
Good: www.yoursite.com/images/row-boat-by-lake.jpg
Good: www. yoursite/images/red-volkswagen-beetle-car.jpg
Good: www.yoursite.com/images/row-boat-by-lake.jpg
Good: www. yoursite/images/red-volkswagen-beetle-car.jpg
2. Use the HTML ALT tags actively
(If you do not know what that is, make sure you use the description field in your blog or content publishing software when adding an image).
Bad: <img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/6789stp.jpg” alt=”Image”>.
Good: <img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/young-woman-pc-reading-news.jpg” alt=”Young woman reading news on PC”>.
If you have a series of images, use variation:
“Blond woman reading news on PC”
“Black woman twittering on a Mac”
“Asian man with laptop on table”
“Black woman twittering on a Mac”
“Asian man with laptop on table”
Both photographers and webmasters are notoriously bad at using words for feelings, abstracts and the like — even if people do search for images that may be used to illustrate non-concrete topics. This is where you can gain a competitive advantage.
“Happy woman using PC to search the Web”
“Moody and cranky girl”
“Green background texture”
“Moody and cranky girl”
“Green background texture”
3. Add descriptive text close to the picture
In order to determine what the picture is depicting, the search engines will also look at the text close to the image.
Good: An increasing number of women are found to be searching the web on their PC when looking for news. <img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/young-woman-pc-reading-news.jpg” alt=”Young woman reading news on PC”>.
This text may also be used by the search engine as a snippet that describes the image.
4. Keep the most important images close to the top headline or title
Embedding the image close to the top headline (which should be very similar to the TITLE-field) will increase your chances of having your picture in Google News, as it helps Google match the content of the article with the image.
It is a fair guess that the same principle applies to Image Search.
5. Put the photos within articles and blog posts
The search engines have a tendency of ignoring images in sidebars and other places where they can be interpreted as ads or navigational elements.
Images in articles and blog posts have the greatest chance of success.
There are also other technical issues to keep in mind:
6. Do not add code to break out of frames
The Bing Blog recommends you to watch out for frame breaking:
“Sites that attempt to break frames make it more difficult for the image to display correctly within search. Make sure you’re testing your site against the search engines.”
If you don’t know what we are talking about, you are probably in the clear.
7. Use images that read well when thumbnailed
Use high quality pictures with high contrasts and clear, bright, colors. The search engines will generate small thumbnails to include in search engine results, and you want images that survive that reduction in file size.
If you are not a photographer yourself, you can buy royalt free high quality images from stock photo suppliers like Photos.com and Shutterstock for a reasonable price.
Google are looking for large size photos with good aspect ratios.
8. Make the photos accessible
Make sure that the directory that contains your images can be accessed by the search engine crawlers.
Check your robots.txt file or ask your IT people to do it for you.
9. Use the social photo sites
Upload some of your images to photo hosting sites like Flickr.com. Add links back to the relevant page on your site.
Flickr may generatate traffic on its own, and the search engines may also include Flickr images in their image search results.
Check how many pictures Google has indexed
To check what images Google has indexed from your site, use the following URL, replacing “yoursite.com” with your domain name:
http://images.google.com/images?q=site:yoursite.com
Note that it normally takes longer for the search engines to index pictures than ordinary text content.
See also our Search Engine OptimizationTutorial!
2011年6月27日 星期一
Google talks... tips to higher ranking in search
from the official Google blog -
23 questions to ask yourself for higher rankings in
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: More guidance on building high-quality sites: "Webmaster level: All In recent months we’ve been especially focused on helping people find high-quality sites in Google’s search results. ..."
More guidance on building high-quality sites
Friday, May 06, 2011 at 11:22 AM
Webmaster level: All
In recent months we’ve been especially focused on helping people find high-quality sites in Google’s search results. The “Panda” algorithm change has improved rankings for a large number of high-quality websites, so most of you reading have nothing to be concerned about. However, for the sites that may have been affected by Panda we wanted to provide additional guidance on how Google searches for high-quality sites.
Our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google’s current ranking algorithms or signals. Some publishers have fixated on our prior Panda algorithm change, but Panda was just one of roughly 500 search improvements we expect to roll out to search this year. In fact, since we launched Panda, we've rolled out over a dozen additional tweaks to our ranking algorithms, and some sites have incorrectly assumed that changes in their rankings were related to Panda. Search is a complicated and evolving art and science, so rather than focusing on specific algorithmic tweaks, we encourage you to focus on delivering the best possible experience for users.
What counts as a high-quality site?
Our site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find "high-quality" sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content. The recent "Panda" change tackles the difficult task of algorithmically assessing website quality. Taking a step back, we wanted to explain some of the ideas and research that drive the development of our algorithms.
Below are some questions that one could use to assess the "quality" of a page or an article. These are the kinds of questions we ask ourselves as we write algorithms that attempt to assess site quality. Think of it as our take at encoding what we think our users want.
Of course, we aren't disclosing the actual ranking signals used in our algorithms because we don't want folks to game our search results; but if you want to step into Google's mindset, the questions below provide some guidance on how we've been looking at the issue:
- Would you trust the information presented in this article?
- Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
- Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
- Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
- Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
- Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
- Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
- Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
- How much quality control is done on content?
- Does the article describe both sides of a story?
- Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
- Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
- Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
- For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
- Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
- Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
- Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
- Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
- Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
- Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
- Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
- Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
- Would users complain when they see pages from this site?
Writing an algorithm to assess page or site quality is a much harder task, but we hope the questions above give some insight into how we try to write algorithms that distinguish higher-quality sites from lower-quality sites.
What you can do
We've been hearing from many of you that you want more guidance on what you can do to improve your rankings on Google, particularly if you think you've been impacted by the Panda update. We encourage you to keep questions like the ones above in mind as you focus on developing high-quality content rather than trying to optimize for any particular Google algorithm.
One other specific piece of guidance we've offered is that low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site’s rankings, and thus removing low quality pages, merging or improving the content of individual shallow pages into more useful pages, or moving low quality pages to a different domain could eventually help the rankings of your higher-quality content.
We're continuing to work on additional algorithmic iterations to help webmasters operating high-quality sites get more traffic from search. As you continue to improve your sites, rather than focusing on one particular algorithmic tweak, we encourage you to ask yourself the same sorts of questions we ask when looking at the big picture. This way your site will be more likely to rank well for the long-term. In the meantime, if you have feedback, please tell us through our Webmaster Forum. We continue to monitor threads on the forum and pass site info on to the search quality team as we work on future iterations of our ranking algorithms.
2011年6月21日 星期二
what you need to do for your website
I'm on the last mile of my website project...
this should have come a lot more earlier! LOL
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this should have come a lot more earlier! LOL
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12 Social Media Tools recommended by the Pros
Now here they come...
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12 Social Media Tools recommended by the Pros
Recommended by the Pros
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12 Social Media Tools recommended by the Pros
Recommended by the Pros
Are you struggling to make social media work for your business? Sometimes a few well-chosen tools are all you need to get your social media marketing working for you.
In our recent Social Media Success Summit, there were presentations that covered all the key topics you need to make your social media marketing easy. In this article, I’ll share 12 of those tools that were recommended by the pros.
Do you think any of the tools above can make your social media marketing easier to execute? Please let us know in the comments below if you’re going to try any of them.
In our recent Social Media Success Summit, there were presentations that covered all the key topics you need to make your social media marketing easy. In this article, I’ll share 12 of those tools that were recommended by the pros.
Tools to Refine Your Visibility and Engagement
Here are three tools recommended by Mari Smith during her first presentation on increasing your visibility and engagement on Facebook.#1: Socialbakers
Get useful stats from Socialbakers. Socialbakers offers paid services to monitor your Facebook statistics, but it also provides useful free statistics for Facebook and LinkedIn. Check out the useful marketing data on Socialbakers.
#2: Kurrently
Find out what’s being shared on social media with Kurrently, a free, easy-to-use, real-time search engine for results from Twitter and Facebook. “Companies can capitalize on just-in-time marketing and social CRM opportunities like never before.” You can search through Facebook or Twitter or both.
#3: Blekko
Select the sites you want to search with Blekko. You can create “slashtags” for groups of URLs, friends, experts and communities and you can “slash in” what you want and “slash out” what you don’t want to search. With Blekko, you have more control over your search results thanks to the slashtags you create.
Tools to Measure Specific Social Media Goals
Jay Baer gave a fantastic presentation on measuring social media. He clearly identified the different goals a company could have on social media and recommended tools to use to monitor results for each specific goal. Here are three of those tools.#4: Social Mention
If social awareness is your main social media goal, then be sure to check out Social Mention, which allows you to set up social media alerts so you can measure awareness for specific keywords. "Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user-generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information."
#5: Klout
Klout is another tool you can use to measure awareness on Twitter and Facebook. Check out the different graphs for your score results on Klout.
#6: PostRank Analytics
If customer loyalty is your main social media goal, you can use PostRank Analytics to measure results in improving loyalty. PostRank Analytics is a favorite tool of social media marketers.
Tools to Get the Job Done
Frank Eliason gave an overview of how to use social media in business and shared two of the tools he’s found useful.#7: Blogsearch.Google
Use Blogsearch.Google.com for better search results than Google Alerts. There are many tools to monitor keywords. Don’t forget to use this one! Remember to check out what blogs are writing about you through Blogsearch.Google.com.
#8: Twitterfall
Use Twitterfall when you need to show executives how you can monitor what’s being said about your brand on Twitter. Twitterfall specializes in real-time tweet searches.
A Useful Tool for Twitter Marketing
Hollis Thomases showed businesses how to use Twitter marketing to grow using this tool:#9: Friend or Follow
Friend or Follow helps you improve your Twitter marketing. It tells you who’s not following you back on Twitter and who you’re not following back. Use Friend or Follow to craft a stronger Twitter presence with your audience.
Tools to Make Video Blogging Easy
Steve Garfield always makes video blogging easy for everyone. Here are three tools to create on-the-fly videos to enhance your social media content.#10: Wetoku
Sign up for Wetoku to make the popular side-by-side video interviews. All you need to do is sign in and send an invite code by email to the person you want to interview. Wetoku is an easy tool to use for interview videos.
#11: Socialcam
If you have an iPhone or an Android phone, be sure to check out Socialcam. Steve says this is the easiest way to share videos with your social networks. Socialcam combines video sharing with social communities.
#12: Stupeflix
Use Stupeflix to integrate after-effects and photos to your videos. If you want to do editing without using editing software, this tool is for you. Stupeflix is an easy way to make your videos more appealing.
Find the Tools You Need
One of my takeaways from the summit was that you don’t need to use all of the tools available. Businesses have different cultures, different goals and are at different stages in integrating social media into their marketing mix. These social media pros found the tools that worked best for them.Do you think any of the tools above can make your social media marketing easier to execute? Please let us know in the comments below if you’re going to try any of them.
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