Facebook Likes are good, but Shares are better. That's because a Share means your content is being passed around social networks and creating buzz for your business.

But getting your Facebook content shared isn't as simple as throwing something onto your Wall and expecting the Shares to just happen. You need to create share-worthy content.


To do just that, Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith offers 14 ways to boost your content's visibility and viral sharing on Facebook—all in the following infographic by ShortStack.

Among the tips shared are the following:

Use eye-catching images. Rather than just putting text boxes galore on your Facebook Wall, vary the content by posting infographics, photos, and artwork.
Keep it short. Increase likes, comments, and shares by keeping posts between 100 and 150 characters long.


Offer value. Consider your audience when sharing content on Facebook. Ask yourself, "Will this entertain or inform my audience?"

How to Optimize Dynamic Website or Pages?



Definition of Dynamic Pages :



Dynamic pages are the pages generated "on-the-fly" from a database. It is also known as database-driven pages. PHP, Perl, ASP, etc are using to generate dynamic pages.


It is difficult for the search engines to read the dynamic pages. It is generated when user select variable. It is not possible for search engines to select those variables and this reason these pages cannot indexed.


Dynamic URL's contains strings like &, %, ? and due to these characters problems starts for the search crawlers to read the content. But it is possible to index the dynamic pages also.


Here, I am writing the way through which a dynamic page can be readable by the crawlers :



  1. Place links of the dynamic pages on static pages. Further it can be submitted in search engines manually. Most of the dynamic pages will indexed by the search engine by this way.
  2. Coldfusion and other softwares are available which can replace special characters like ?, %, & with alternative text. 
  3. Using help of CGI/Perl, we can convert query string in the url with suitable text. Path_Info and Script_Name are environment variables which contains complete URL including strings in dynamic pages.
  4. Web hosting company also provides module with Apache software that can convert dynamic URL into urls that can be indexed by search engines. The mod_rewrite available for Apache that converts requested url into search engine friendly urls.


New Social Media Tool - Google +1 and Search Engine Rankings



Google has launched the new application called Google +1 very recently. If you have seen carefully, there is a +1 sign next to each search result in Google search results page. In this article, let’s take a look at this new tool on how it works, what are its effects on PageRank, are Google+1 and Search Engine Rankings related to each other, and how you can use it on your website.


Basically +1 is acts same as that of “Like” button on FaceBook or “Follow” on Twitter. But the effects of +1 are different from other two, as Google is basically a search engine as well as social media and blogging platform too. With +1 launched, Google is trying to strengthen its position in social media sector. As far its working is concerned, it will add one vote to the search result, website or blogpost, if a user presses on +1 sign next to it. When more number of people press +1, means vote for your website, it will be more trustworthy for Google.


Adding the Google+1 button to your own website is very easy. You have to copy-paste the following code on your website’s homepage and it will start working instantaneously. You need to place inside the <head> or just above the </body> tag of the webpage.


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
<!– Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render –>


<g:plusone size="tall"></g:plusone>


Now comes the important question. Are Google +1 and Search Engine Rankings connected to each other in any way? Whether +1 also affects the Google PageRank of a website, is still not very clear. Some people say that it affects not directly but indirectly somewhere down the line. Whereas others claim that the PageRank is not at all affected by this new tool. However, there is good news for PPC marketers as +1 is going to be a permanent addiction in the Google AdWords. The anti-spam mechanism is already in place and if someone tries to vote more times to his or her own website to improve score, the website can be penalized.


According to some experts Google +1 is going to work in phases. During the first phase, Google will collect all the information for analysis and then during next phase, it will try to provide more personalized experience for searching and ranking operations

Now onwards Blogger blogs will redirect to country level TLD extension. Usually I read Google webmaster central blog, Google blog, Gmail blog etc to know about latest updates from Google. Today i.e. Jan 31st 2012, I observed that "Blogspot.com is automatically redirecting to Blogspot.in". As I live in india, it's redirecting to ".in". It might redirect to .co.uk, if I live in UK.



Here is the official information from Google regarding this change - Blogspot.com is redirecting to country specific URL

Points to know regarding this change:

1. Duplicate content issue is the 1st thing we notice in this case. However Google is stating that "rel=canonical" tag will be used across all country level extensions and their team is trying to make less negative impact on search results.

2. Google will receive so many requests to remove content from few blogs. So they would like to manage country wise removal of content . Few countries may not accept some content, but other countries will. Through this latest update, Content removed as per a country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD and available for other countries.

3. Custom domains will not see any affect. Free blogspot sites will just redirect to country wise extension, remaining all same.

4. If visitors would like to visit non-country specific version, Here is the format: http://domain.blogspot.com/NCR

If you’ve been wondering how you can rank really high in search engines with seo articles, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve been writing seo articles for a little under a year now and I have more 1st page google rankings than I can count. The truth is that it is extremely simple with a blog. Now of course there are many other factors that play in to ranking really high in the search engines, but that is an entire training in itself. To write seo articles is just one piece of ranking well.

SEO Articles Are About Focus

The biggest thing about writing seo articles is that you have to focus on a keyword phrase. Notice in this article I keep saying the phrase seo articles. Well, more than likely when I’m finished writing this article and go through the rest of my process, it will rank well for the phrase seo articles. There again, it’s not completely predictable because so many other things influence your rankings, even when you can write really good seo articles.

So you start by selecting a keyword phrase that you can write about and actually have it make sense. Nobody wants to read an article that doesn’t read well or provide something of value for the reader. It also doesn’t make any sense to write an seo article that can rank really well and then nobody reads it because it sucks.


Dynamic URLs vs. Static URLs







The Issue at Hand

Websites that utilize databases which can insert content into a webpage by way of a dynamic script like PHP or JavaScript are increasingly popular. This type of site is considered dynamic. Many websites choose dynamic content over static content. This is because if a website has thousands of products or pages, writing or updating each static by hand is a monumental task.

There are two types of URLs: dynamic and static. A dynamic URL is a page address that results from the search of a database-driven web site or the URL of a web site that runs a script. In contrast to static URLs, in which the contents of the web page stay the same unless the changes are hard-coded into the HTML, dynamic URLs are generated from specific queries to a site's database. The dynamic page is basically only a template in which to display the results of the database query. Instead of changing information in the HTML code, the data is changed in the database.

But there is a risk when using dynamic URLs: search engines don't like them. For those at most risk of losing search engine positioning due to dynamic URLs are e-commerce stores, forums, sites utilizing content management systems and blogs like Mambo or WordPress, or any other database-driven website. Many times the URL that is generated for the content in a dynamic site looks something like this:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date

A static URL on the other hand, is a URL that doesn't change, and doesn't have variable strings. It looks like this:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/the-challenges-of-dynamic-urls.htm

Static URLs are typically ranked better in search engine results pages, and they are indexed more quickly than dynamic URLs, if dynamic URLs get indexed at all. Static URLs are also easier for the end-user to view and understand what the page is about. If a user sees a URL in a search engine query that matches the title and description, they are more likely to click on that URL than one that doesn't make sense to them.

A search engine wants to only list pages its index that are unique. Search engines decide to combat this issue by cutting off the URLs after a specific number of variable strings (e.g.: ? & =).

For example, let's look at three URLs:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=67890&sort=date

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=13579&sort=date

All three of these URLs point to three different pages. But if the search engine purges the information after the first offending character, the question mark (?), now all three pages look the same:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php

Now, you don't have unique pages, and consequently, the duplicate URLs won't be indexed.

Another issue is that dynamic pages generally do not have any keywords in the URL. It is very important to have keyword rich URLs. Highly relevant keywords should appear in the domain name or the page URL. This became clear in a recent study on how the top three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, rank websites.

The study involved taking hundreds of highly competitive keyword queries, like travel, cars, and computer software, and comparing factors involving the top ten results. The statistics show that of those top ten, Google has 40-50% of those with the keyword either in the URL or the domain; Yahoo shows 60%; and MSN has an astonishing 85%! What that means is that to these search engines, having your keywords in your URL or domain name could mean the difference between a top ten ranking, and a ranking far down in the results pages.

The Solution

So what can you do about this difficult problem? You certainly don't want to have to go back and recode every single dynamic URL into a static URL. This would be too much work for any website owner.

If you are hosted on a Linux server, then you will want to make the most of the Apache Mod Rewrite Rule, which is gives you the ability to inconspicuously redirect one URL to another, without the user's (or a search engine's) knowledge. You will need to have this module installed in Apache; for more information, you can view the documentation for this module here. This module saves you from having to rewrite your static URLs manually.

How does this module work? When a request comes in to a server for the new static URL, the Apache module redirects the URL internally to the old, dynamic URL, while still looking like the new static URL. The web server compares the URL requested by the client with the search pattern in the individual rules.

For example, when someone requests this URL:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/the-challenges-of-dynamic-urls.html

The server looks for and compares this static-looking URL to what information is listed in the .htaccess file, such as:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule thread-threadid-(.*)\.htm$ thread.php?threadid=$1

It then converts the static URL to the old dynamic URL that looks like this, with no one the wiser:

http://www.somesites.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345


You now have a URL that only will rank better in the search engines, but your end-users can definitely understand by glancing at the URL what the page will be about, while allowing Apache's Mod Rewrite Rule to handle to conversion for you, and still keeping the dynamic URL.

If you are not particularly technical, you may not wish to attempt to figure out the complex Mod Rewrite code and how to use it, or you simply may not have the time to embark upon a new learning curve. Therefore, it would be extremely beneficial to have something to do it for you. This URL Rewriting Tool can definitely help you. What this tool does is implement the Mod Rewrite Rule in your .htaccess file to secretly convert a URL to another, such as with dynamic and static ones.

With the URL Rewriting Tool, you can opt to rewrite single pages or entire directories. Simply enter the URL into the box, press submit, and copy and paste the generated code into your .htaccess file on the root of your website. You must remember to place any additional rewrite commands in your .htaccess file for each dynamic URL you want Apache to rewrite. Now, you can give out the static URL links on your website without having to alter all of your dynamic URLs manually because you are letting the Mod Rewrite Rule do the conversion for you, without JavaScript, cloaking, or any sneaky tactics.

Another thing you must remember to do is to change all of your links in your website to the static URLs in order to avoid penalties by search engines due to having duplicate URLs. You could even add your dynamic URLs to your Robots Exclusion Standard File (robots.txt) to keep the search engines from spidering the duplicate URLs. Regardless of your methods, after using the URL Rewrite Tool, you should ideally have no links pointing to any of your old dynamic URLs.

You have multiple reasons to utilize static URLs in your website whenever possible. When it's not possible, and you need to keep your database-driven content as those old dynamic URLs, you can still give end-users and search engine a static URL to navigate, and all the while, they are still your dynamic URLs in disguise. When a search engine engineer was asked if this method was considered "cloaking", he responded that it indeed was not, and that in fact, search engines prefer you do it this way. The URL Rewrite Tool not only saves you time and energy by helping you use static URLs by converting them transparently to your dynamic URLs, but it will also save your rankings in the search engines.
SEO Experts Mumbai, India, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization - Vivek More


SEO and Comment Spam: A Cautionary Tale


If you’re SEO and social media strategies run afoul of best-practices, you might have a bigger problem than diminished Google rankings: Your brand's reputation might take a very public hit. That's what happened after Adam Singer received this comment at his Future Buzz blog:


"Small businesses should focus more on the quality of their marketing campaigns because consumers are, indeed, conducting more research now than ever before. [Company] has tools that can help you monitor your results and offers insight on your campaign success! Here is a link to some of the [products] from [company]." [Editor's note: We've redacted the company and product names; Singer did not.]


Singer wasn't pleased. "It is inappropriate of you to leave a comment like this when the discussion section is respected by everyone else who contribute thoughtful, valuable comments and not simply try to push their wares," he noted. "You are trying to take but not give."


He approved the comment to make his point, and—hoping to begin a positive conversation—sent a snarky-but-friendly tweet to the offending company. "Thanks … for link spamming my blog comments. You'll provide a great example of what not to do for readers tomorrow."


The company's social media manager sent Singer a conciliatory email about "working to find the right balance between authentic social media engagement and SEO best practices."


It soon became clear, however, that the company was using a "shady" SEO vendor that operated independently of its in-house social media team. "Their separate digital teams clearly have no idea what anyone is doing," says Singer. "Except the Web, of course, sees it all."


The Po!nt: Engage with caution. No matter who makes your SEO decisions, or why they're made, social media