Tips on How to Optimize Your Google+ Page for SEO

In our last blog, we discussed the benefits of the new Google Social Search function, that integrates your Google+ posts into search results.  Today, we’ll focus on how to hit the basics of how to optimize your Google+ Page for SEO.  The Google+ Page, Google’s social media business page and answer to the Facebook Fan Page, was recently released by Google.  Google+ is very similar to Facebook but also has the following distinct features:

1-  Google+ Circles- Circles allows the user to sort their followers into specific group, which is ideal for target marketing.  With Facebook, you can send messages to personal and Fan Page followers only.  With Google+, you can segment your Circles into as many groups as necessary and target a message that only they can see.

2- Google+ Hangouts- Hangouts is a great video conferencing service available to Google+ members that allows you to share resources.  This function is a great and free way for companies to collaborate with different teams anywhere in the world.

3- SEO- A properly optimized Google+ Page will help you be found on the search engines.

With that last benefit in mind, let’s focus on how to optimize your Google+ Page for SEO so you may be found in the search engines.

Optimize Your Google+ Page for SEO | The 4 ‘Musts’

When you are creating your Google+ Page, for best optimization, pay attention to these 4 items:

1-  Page Name- if you are branding your business, then that should be the Google+ Page name.  If you are branding a product or service, then that should be the Google+ Page name.  And if you have a unique business and product, then create a Google+ Page for both.

2-  Tagline- you will have 10 words to briefly describe your product or service.  Use this opportunity to promote your keyword.  Consider that the combination of your Page Name and Tagline will essentially be the META description of your Page.

3-  Introduction- When writing the Introduction, consider writing this as you would the description of your site.

4-  Keywords- as you’ve probably figured out by now, you want to have your keywords throughout, but you don’t want to keyword stuff.  Make sure that you include your keywords in the tagline and introduction so the search engines will rank you.

Optimize Your Google+ Page for SEO | About Section

As is the case with any other SEO initiative, make sure in this section that you are writing thoughtful and engaging content when describing what your company, product, and/or service is about.  Massage the keywords into this description.  Also, because you are able to customize the anchor text, include a keyword in the anchor text where appropriate.  Finally, fill out as many of the fields as you can, making sure that you include photos and video components as well.  The more information that you complete in the Google+ Page ‘About’ section, the better your page will rank.

Speaking of photos and videos, everytime you upload, make sure you include a detailed description (using keywords) and provide a link back to your website.  Also, if you’re using a famous person, make sure to tag that person in your photo as well.

Optimize Your Google+ Page for SEO | Write Long Messages

Individual posts on Google+ get their own URL, so unlike Facebook and Twitter, where you are limited on how long of a message you can create, you are free to write content as long as you feel is necessary to get your point across.  And since it has it’s own URL, if the post goes viral, it will most likely rank in the search engines itself.

Optimize Your Google+ Page for SEO | Use Ripples

According to Google, Google+ Ripples creates an interactive graphic of the public shares of any public post on Google+ to show you how a post has rippled through the network and help you discover new and interesting people to follow.  You can find the Ripple of any public post using the dropdown to the right of the post.  At the bottom of the page, Google shows you the top Influencers, stats about how the post spread and the different Languages of the sharers.

Here’s an example of how a ripple works from SEOMoz.org:

Sometimes getting an influencer to share your content can be very difficult, if not impossible. Ripples provides an easy way for you to investigate who are the influencers of the influencers. Let me give you an example of how this might work in a real world situation. Let’s say I write a blog post on Google Analytics and am hoping to get Avinash Kaushik to share it, since he is a leader in the Analytics area. However, I don’t have a direct relationship with Avinash, so I need to find someone approachable who does.

Step 1 – Find an influencer

Look at Avinash’s Google+ page and see what type of content he is sharing with his circles. Find a post that he shared that has quite a few shares and view that Ripple. Look for a Ripple where the original poster has anaccount that is in a reasonable amount of Circles. Below is a Ripple I found that is perfect since it was originally shared by user with a small but strong following.

Since Avinash shared Michael’s content, there is some form of trust between Avinash and Michael. Even if it’s a fluke, there is a good chance that Michael may be an influencer on a different social network and could still be worth contacting.

Step 2 – Make a connection

Reach out to Michael and make a connection. All of his contact methods are displayed in his profile on Google+. Most users have linked their Google+ account to their Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts which gives you plenty of ways to reach out and make a connection. Establish some sort of “relationship” before asking him to share your content. I suggest that you provide something of value first or other comment on something he has posted as the first point of interaction.

Once a connection is made, share your content with him via Google+ and ask him to share. With luck he will share your content and it will catch the eye of Avinash and he will re-share it exposing it to thousands of more people than you had before. Even if Avinash doesn’t re-share it, you did get Michael to share your content and expose it to another group of people outside of your norm. Plus there is a chance that he will expose your content on other social networks which he may have more visibility on.

Step 3 – Rinse and repeat

Obviously you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket with Michael. Continue to see who Avinash is re-sharing and reach out to those people as well. Soon you will have contacted a large number of people who Avinash trusts and the chances of him seeing your post are much higher.

In summary, Google+ Pages offer more opportunities for SEO than any other social networking site.  Therefore, if you haven’t created your own Google+ Page yet, then you should absolutely do it and optimize it properly.  If you have a Google+ Page, then you should go back, follow the tips above, and optimize correctly.  As Google+ continues to grow in popularity and more people see SEO results from it, you can bet that the results of your efforts will be seen.

If you liked ‘How to Optimize Your Google+ Page for SEO’, then you may enjoy other articles about Social Media Marketing and Social Media Education available at Black Box Social Media.

My son, Jackson, has been no exception to that rule…despite the fact that he has a learning disability.  He’s taught me more in less than 2 years, than any other person alive.

I wanted to share a few of the lessons he taught me about running a business (I’ll share more of these lessons from time to time).

1. If Plan “A” Doesn’t Work, Don’t Worry. There are 25 Other Letters

While it didn't help the Texans in the playoffs, Jackson was a hit at school (and all around town) when he learned to sign "touchdown".

Kids with Down syndrome tend to have delays in verbal communication.

At almost 2 years old, the only word he says is “DaDa” and sometimes he even manages a spot on perfect “Dad”.

While I love being his one and only word, as a parent I know that he needs to be able to tell us when he’s hungry, thirsty, sleepy or wants to play. And even though we would love for him to speak like a typical child, the end result of  why we want our kids to speak is so that they can let us know what they want, right?  It’s not so we can hear an audible sound…its simply that we want them to be able to communicate.

Since speaking wasn’t happening, we had to find a different route.

Enter sign language (specifically, the Signing Times DVD’s).

Now, Jackson can let us know just about anything he wants using American Sign Language (ASL). He has over 15 signs he uses on an almost daily basis with us, other family members, his teachers and therapists.

LESSON LEARNED FOR BUSINESS: If you aren’t hitting your goals on your current path, find a different path to get there.

There are near unlimited ways to solve a problem. We tend to get fixated on the task at hand, and not what is advancing us towards the real goal.

When you are having issues, step back, reassess what you are really trying to accomplish, and see if there is a different path to the end result.

2. Don’t Be Afraid to Admit You Need Help

Dad, what the hell did you just stick me in?

Just like speech, children with Down syndrome often have other delays too.

Jackson was having problems with crawling, feeding himself, stacking blocks, etc.  Many of these things we didn’t even notice (he is our first child) at first. But as we spoke with other parents and doctors, we realized that he was getting further and further behind typical kids his age.

We took action, and hired several therapists and specialists to work with him. We have a Speech Therapist, Play Therapist, Physical Therapist and Occupational Therapist. At his school they also provide, Dance Therapy and Music Therapy.

These 6 (yes, SIX) specialists work with Jackson up to several times a week, on very specific things that they are an expert at individually.

We’ve seen a dramatic improvement since we got serious with Jackson’s therapy (almost walking, feeding himself with a spoon, stacking blocks, working with puzzles, etc)

LESSON LEARNED FOR BUSINESS: If you are having problems in an area of your business, hire a coach (or coaches) to help you. Get as specialized as possible.  I’m not a big proponent of Life Coaches, or Business Coaches.  I recommend going as niche as possible.

If you are having problems with your marketing, get a marketing coach. If you are having employee issues, hire an employee relationship coach.

Recently, I was having operational issues, and hired Beth Schneider to coach my team on setting up our processes.

But go even deeper than just coaches.  Maybe you can’t get your site to rank and you really need traffic to your website.  You would be better off using something like Instant Linkerati to do if for you, rather than learning SEO yourself. Same thing with graphic design and programming.  Just pass it off to the experts.

3. Don’t Constantly Compare Yourself to Others

I may not be walking yet, but that's cool. Cheerleaders dig dudes in sports cars.

If I compared Jackson’s milestones to other kids of his age, I’d be a hurting’ Daddy all the time.

Every year, I am reminded of how far behind he is when we visit the Down Syndrome Clinic of Houston. They assess and rank him on many different areas of development. As you can imagine, its tough to see your little boy falling behind kids even half his age.

But that feeling washes away when he hits the tiniest of goals.  Recently, he was able to finally get the star-shaped block through the hole.  His eyes got big, smiled the biggest grin and screamed at the top of his lungs.

He worked hard figuring out how to get that star block through the hole, and deserved to be that happy.

LESSON LEARNED FOR BUSINESS:  I always compare my success to others…specifically to others at a higher level where I’m at currently.

For example, both Masterminds I’m in have several people earning 7-figures a month. Some have massive lists, systematized businesses that run like clockwork, etc. When I compare my success to one of these guys, I want to jump out a window.  :)

But when I step back, and look at the facts…I make more in a month than most households make in 2 years…I work from home…get to wake up every day and do a job I love…I got a damn good life.

Do the same with yourself.  Don’t measure yourself up against the boss, or your friends.

Now, I’m not saying to be “happy where you’re at” either.  We should push ourselves to improve and be better…but not beat ourselves down because we aren’t doing as good as someone else.

If you enjoyed these 3 tips, give this a “Like” to share Jackson’s lessons with others..and leave a comment below.

That is one of the 2 big internet marketing events of the year…hands down.  The other one, is Yanik Silver’s Underground event.

That one is coming up very soon, and yours truly will be speaking there.  :)

I’ll be sharing some new SEO tricks and techniques that I have never shared live before…got some killer content planned…and as always, this is a “no pitch” event, so I’m just there to share.

Since I’m speaking, Yanik is letting me pass along a discount for the event.

But, there are only a few short hours left to get the discount…

Get it here ===> Underground 8 Discount

But before your deadline expires – I wanted to give you one last notice about this event because it truly is unlike any other seminar.

You don’t see the same speakers because Yanik only selects presenters who are making their money online actually “doing it” not just talking about it.

And that’s just one of the reasons it’s become THE networking and deal-making spot to go to. (Over 50% of the audience are online entrepreneurs pulling in 6, 7 and even 8 figure+ from their businesses and they’re not even on stage!)

Frankly, not being here means you miss out on that one good idea that turns the lights on to an entirely new way of looking at your business. (Or more likely dozens of easily actionable, game-changing ones.)

Plus, Yanik has added 4 BRAND NEW bonus sessions that are worth the price of admission alone. Everything from “Spy vs. Spy” with top online marketers working to out-duel each other with their best stuff to the ’007′ sessions where audience members participate with their best 7 minutes of new ideas.

Don’t wait – because if you do you’ll miss theses bonuses and end up paying at least $1,500.00 more for a ticket (if it’s even available).

Here’s where to sign-up:

Get it here ===> Underground 8 Discount

See You On Page 1,

Brian

P.S. Remember it only takes one good idea to make this worth it for you. Don’t you think from a group of people selling tens of millions online, all the incredible attendees and VIP guests you might pick up one or two new ideas?

Get it here ===> Underground 8 Discount

Should the day when the dead actually do walk, you’ll need to know what to do to survive…just so happens that these things will also help you get a top ranked website.

Here’s how you can survive a zombie outbreak AND get your site to the top of the search engines.

1. Keep Yourself Armed

A gun is a good thing to have in a zombie apocalypse, just like SEO weapons will help your site survive and thrive.

Firearms and other explosives are your best bet as far as weaponry goes as you can keep some distance between yourself and advancing zombie hordes.

If firearms are nowhere to be found many common landscaping tools can be quite effective. Axes, hatchets, pitch forks and hell even garden weasels can be used to crack undead cranium.

How SEO Teaches Us This Lesson: Read up on the latest SEO updates and advances (like you are doing right now).  Some other good resources is Keith Baxter’s  AffiliateRadio.com, SEOmoz.org, and SearchEngineWatch.com. Your mind is your best weapon, so you have to train it constantly with the latest info and techniques.

You should also engage in daily activities to encourage link building. If you are running a business, you probably want to outsource some of this task.  I recommend Instant Linkerati’s 60 day special being offered right now (pretty shameless plug, huh?).

You can also do press releases, participate in forums, upload Youtube videos, write guest posts for other blogs (see bloggerlinkup.com and myblogguest.com…these are just 2 of several that you can, and should, participate in).

2. Avoid Heavily Populated Areas

This is not the place you want to be when zombies are roaming the earth. Similarly, you don't want to only get links from sites that have tons of outbound links.

If the zombies can spread their virus, curse or disease, a densely populated area will be more of a breeding ground than a safe haven.

On the other hand, avoid being totally isolated, in case you have to face a horde of undead yourself.

You want a moderately populated area that affords quick exits and good protection.

How SEO Teaches Us This Lesson: Try to get links from sites/pages that aren’t full of links to other sites. The “link juice” passed by that page will be distributed evenly among the links on the page. So, the less links on the page, the greater distribution of “link juice” you will receive. 

Now, it’s not a BAD thing to get a link from a “crowded” page at all.  But, it would be much better to be one of a few links on a page.  

So, do what it takes to get noticed and get a good link from a strong page not full of other links. You can join my LinkHijack Coaching Club for just $10 a month to get strategies specific to this type of link building (it was an upsell to another product, but you can still get it from that link).

3. Beware of your fellow survivors

Don't trust all your fellow survivors (but I might still have to trust her)...and don't trust all the "SEO Experts".

Did you run into them while escaping a group of hungry ghouls?

More importantly can you trust them?

The safe answer is no. Other humans who want your supplies or who have lost their minds in the disaster could try to kill you.

Never let everyone know about all of your supplies, and never let your guard down completely. If someone is acting mysterious or weird, consider leaving immediately.

How SEO Teaches Us This Lesson: Don’t take anyone’s advice on SEO before you make sure they know what they are talking about.

Just because they say they are an “SEO Expert”, doesn’t mean they really understand the complexities of this rapidly changing industry.

I still see banner ads, and even come across an article or blog posts from time to time, that state that submitting you site to 1000 different search engines will magically make your site pop up to the top of the search results.

4. Secure Necessities

Necessities like water and food are required to survive a night of the living dead, but a reliable host and a way to monetize traffic is required to survive on the Internet.

Make sure to secure any food or water when ever possible.

You’ll need to keep your energy and wits about you. Carry with you bottled water, juices, trail mix, breakfast bars, canned goods, dry goods and other non perishable items.

How SEO Teaches Us This Lesson: Since we are talking about your website, having it up and running is the main “necessity”, right?

Get a reliable host. Don’t go cheap.  Shared hosting is OK start out with, but graduate to VPS (virtual private server) as soon as you can. You don’t want to be sharing a server with some spam site that causes it to crash.   

The other necessity is to make money with your site. Have a clear and easily identifiable call to action (CTA) on each page. This doesn’t have to be to buy something, or even to optin…you may just have an Adsense site and the goal is to drive repeat traffic. Just identify what the goal of the page is, and move toward that goal.

5. Start growing your own food.

You will have to learn to grow your own food...and you need to develop the skill to "grow" your site's content.

Why do I have to work on my f***ing gardening skills while the walking dead are terrorizing the earth?

You need to eat right? Canned food and Twinkies will only last so long.

Keep some seeds in your pocket or in your “go bag” in case you have to evacuate your current location.

How SEO Teaches Us This Lesson: You need to continually plant seeds to grow your site. Develop and add content on a regular basis.

Just like gardening, you’ll develop better skills the more you do it.

If you don’t have time to write it all yourself, get guest bloggers to write it for you in exchange for a link to their site.  Just make sure that they aren’t direct competitors of yours, and that their site is something you don’t feel bad about linking to (if you are a family friendly site, you wouldn’t want to link to a porn or gambling site).

6. Fortify your home base

Try to dress as strategically as possible.

If weather permits thick leather jackets can provide some protection from potentially lethal bites. While the thick cowhide may be effective with larger groups of walking dead masses it can also hinder movement.

If you find yourself in an arid climate this may not be practical due to overheating.

How SEO Teaches Us This Lesson: Strengthen your own site with internal linking. If a blog article on one concept mentions a concept you cover in another post,  make sure to link to that post.

There are several plugins that can automate this process for you (if you are on WordPress).

7. Stay prepared.

Don't get caught out in the open with a bunch of the walking dead...and don't get caught leaving your site open to hackers either.

It’s important to know you’re surroundings if you find a good place to hold up and defend yourself.

Come up with at least 3 good escape routes in the event that you’re over-run by a zombie horde.

Make sure to secure any doors and windows.

If possible create a watch tower; possibly in a second story window.

From here you will be able to see any advancing marauders and pick them off from a distance before they become a real problem.

How SEO Teaches Us This Lesson: Protecting a website or web server is possible only by continued efforts. Use open source scripts and update them constantly. use strong passwords and a secure admin email address

Use security plugins for that extra layer of security.

So..did I miss anything?   Leave your thoughts, so any other zombie survival techniques…or SEO stuff I missed.

Always use SEO-friendly URLs for your websites. If you use keywords in your URLs then your website will show up in a higher position in search results. Remember, hyphens in URLs are treated as spaces, but underscores or not, so for search engine purposes it is preferable to use hyphens in URLs and file names.

Do not forget that you should design your website for your web users, first and foremost. When your web users can find your site easily, and your site is well organized in its navigation and rich in relevant content, you site will do well in the ranks. A website that is organically optimized always does better in ranks than a website that is artificially pumped up with keywords.

Enlist your public relations and publicity departments in your SEO Miami efforts. Provide detailed and clear instructions about the structure of your press releases and media blurbs. Be sure to include a list of keywords that must be included in every piece and then indicate the number of times each keyword is to be included.

Use your strongest keywords in your site’s name, in the sub-folders, and in the page names. This will help your site, as well as individual pages, rank more strongly. Search engines will give relevant pages high rank, and you can link those pages to others in your site. All of this strengthens your entire site and helps it to rank.

If you want to increase traffic to your website, you should first look at your content, and focus on improving it. Users aren’t going to spend time at a site unless they can find the information they need, and improving your content is one of the easiest ways to drive-up traffic.

The most important part of SEO is making sure your site has unique and fresh content. If the content on your site does not appear elsewhere on the web, the search engines will weigh it more highly than copied content. On the same token, newer content is weighted more highly than aging content.

When your site ranks at the top for popular searches, you’ll get an incredible amount of traffic. Now that you’ve read this article, you know what you can do to get your site search engine ready. Put these tips to good use so that your site can achieve the success that you’ve dreamed of.

Will Google Social Search Change SEO As We Know It?

The Google social search update, known as ‘Search Plus Your World,’ blends Google+ pages that have been made public in with regular search results on Google.   Google released it’s new Social Search program in hopes of making it easier for people to find not only information on public webpages, but also content they and their friends have posted and made available to each other privately through both the Google+ social network and the Picasa Web photo upload and sharing site.

Ironically, the ‘Search Plus Your World’ update does not include any other Google features other than what’s listed above, nor does is include any of the other social media giants, like Facebook or Twitter.  Despite this fact, is it possible that this update has revolutionized SEO as we know it?

How Google Social Search Will Impact SEO

The goal of Google was always to have the most efficient search engine results possible.  If a user wanted to find an answer to a question, such as ‘how to order pet food’, then the user should be able to have the question answered rather than have to sift through a bunch of keyword stuffed sites that exist solely for the purpose of ranking and profiting from Google Adwords.  Google has released several updates, known as the Panda, with the hopes of reducing these types of junk sites and content farms to improve search results.  But will this release of the Google Social Search reduce the importance of key word stuffing?

Google stresses to bloggers and webmasters the importance of good, quality, and unique content.  Their algorithms are set up to see how much junk is on a site, what the duplication rate is, how long people stay on the site before bouncing to another, etc… One recent update started rewarding video sites more because video is generally unique content.

Social media has some impact as well because social media provides a great signal of whether or not a site is good or not.  If a site is shared multiple times, then the Google algorithms assume that it must be of good quality; after all, people aren’t going to share junk.

Now, with the release of the Google Social Search function, people will be able to see results relevant to them as posted by their friends and colleagues at the top of the search engines!  Good bye keyword stuffing.

Google Social Search Example

Here are some examples of the impact that Google Social Search will have on search results:

If you follow the excellent and erudite Jennifer 8 Lee and search for [general tso’s chicken], Google can surface this high-quality thread from Quora:

By the way, that’s a fantastic thread for Google to highlight, since Lee literally wrote the book about General Tso’s Chicken. It’s exactly the sort of “just works” user experience you’d want.

It’s not hard to find content shared on other sites. For a search [grand unified theory of snack food], Paul Buchheit shared a link on FriendFeed, and Google can highlight that:

Or if I search for [connectbot], here’s a link that Brad Fitzpatrick shared on Live Journal:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/search-plus-your-world/

Google Social Search and SEO Summary

In conclusion, social media will have an impact in SEO thanks to the Google Social Search update.  Keyword stuffing will no longer carry as much weight as junk sites will be ignored by people, and as such, be pushed further down the rankings.  Putting out good quality content and focusing on engagement will allow you to move up the rankings.  Imagine looking in Google for a restaurant and finding one that 5 of your friends recommend; would that impact your decision?  This is the type of thinking that will influence SEO going forward and another reason why understanding social media marketing is so important in this economy.

About the Author:   Black Box Social Media (BBSM) is a ‘managed for’ social media marketing group.  Social media allows an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to connect and interact with their current and potential customer…if they effectively utilize social media.  We specialize in creating and implementing proven, successful social media marketing plans for their clients.  BBSM has also created Social Media in 7 Minutes (SMI7M) is a revolutionary do-it-yourself online training program designed to not only educate small business owners on how to apply social media into their marketing plan, but also to provide a practical tool which will allow them to implement their marketing plan in just 7 minutes a day.  This product is designed for small business owners who want to learn and implement a social media marketing plan for themselves without paying thousands of dollars for employees or outsourcing companies.

Additionally Google has a Beta test version of social search under its Labs tools that directly signals which social media outlet it has pulled results from, as well as the “+1 button” which is it’s answer to the Facebook “Like” button.

In SEOMOZ’s white board, Rand Fishkin revealed hard numbers that SEOMOZ had obtained from recent testing which gave direct correlation evidence regarding Facebook and Twitter activities and search results. This study shows that comments and shares appear to have more impact than Facebook ‘Likes’, but all showed a correlation, including Twitter.

So from all this, you can say that Facebook ‘Likes’ do affect SEO.

But the real question is this: How much weight does a Facebook ‘Like’ carry in SEO?

Facebook ‘Likes’ Affect SEO | How much affect does it have?

If you are a web master, where do you rank Facebook ‘Likes’ and the role is plays with SEO with other SEO strategies?

The answer is that focusing on Facebook ‘Likes’ is probably the least important strategy for SEO.  Focusing on proper linking techniques, for example, weighs far heavier on SEO rankings than Facebook ‘Likes’.

Facebook Likes may be slowly working its way into the Google search algorithm but all this truly means is that you should not put all of your eggs in one basket and have a more diverse approach to search marketing.  Good unique content and a strong link profiling are still the foundations for a profitable ranking and your social media marketing should work almost parallel to traditional SEO practices.

Facebook ‘Likes’ will promote social proof that you have good unique content and may help not only increase the likelihood of the visitor reading your article, but will impact whether or not they will share your blog.

Facebook ‘Likes’ Affect SEO | What’s the value?

Our company, Black Box Social Media, has tested the effects of Facebook ‘Likes’ generating more ‘Likes’ on an article.  Each week, we send out a newsletter to our readers with 5 popular articles.  Some of these articles are freshly written, and as such, have less than 10 ‘Likes’.  Then we’ll send out a link in the same newsletter to a more seasoned article that has over 100 ‘Likes’ on it.

What we’ve found is that an article with less than 10 ‘Likes’ won’t have many more Facebook ‘Likes’ added to the article.  But the article with 100+ ‘Likes’ will increase it’s ‘Like’ count anywhere from 20-30%.   As such, our analytics show that these ‘seasoned’ articles will have more views than the newer articles on the same newsletter.  Why is that?

When these articles are ‘Liked’ they are then shared on other Facebook pages and viewership of the article increases, thus leading to more ‘Likes’ and more views.  So while focusing on Facebook ‘Likes’ may not move you up significantly in the search engine rankings, they can certainly help increase your viewership and clicks to your blog page.

And isn’t this the point to social media marketing?

About Black Box Social Media: Black Box Social Media (BBSM) is a ‘managed for’ social media marketing group.  Social media allows an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to connect and interact with their current and potential customer…if they effectively utilize social media.  We specialize in creating and implementing proven, successful social media marketing plans for their clients.  BBSM has also created Social Media in 7 Minutes (SMI7M) is a revolutionary do-it-yourself online training program designed to not only educate small business owners on how to apply social media into their marketing plan, but also to provide a practical tool which will allow them to implement their marketing plan in just 7 minutes a day.  This product is designed for small business owners who want to learn and implement a social media marketing plan for themselves without paying thousands of dollars for employees or outsourcing companies.

In the book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill reveals the secret using the words, “thoughts are things.” Dennis Waitley has worked with U.S. astronauts and Olympic athletes on their inner games. Author Tim Galloway explores the ideas of his books, The Inner Game of Golf, The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Selling.

Interestingly, there is a never-ending connection between the inner game in sport and the inner game in business, allowing experts like Waitley, Galloway, ex-quarterback Fran Tarkenton and golfer Arnold Palmer, among others, to step back and forth between expounding on success techniques in the athletic and business worlds.

In all cases, these people speak much more about attitudes than aptitudes for a good reason. Surveys, studies and research consistently reaffirm that 85% of your success will depend on attitudinal factors, 15% on aptitude. Yet in your formal education and in most continuing education, the emphasis is on the opposite – 15% on attitude, 85% on aptitude.

Certainly technical knowledge and skills are important. In your profession, you must deliver excellence based on your staying up to date in techniques, products, materials and ideas.

However, such excellence alone will never build a successful, growing, profitable business. The excellence that will is an excellence created and sustained in your own mind. This is the most difficult, least tangible aspect of building your business that we’ll ever talk about, but it is also probably the most important.

Yeah, but what is it? So what is the inner game? The way I see it, the inner game can be broken down into four major components:

• Self esteem
• Self image
• Self confidence
• Self discipline

Quality in these four areas is a necessary foundation to personal and professional success.

Self Esteem

Self Esteem is essentially your feelings of worth. How much success do you deserve? How much money should you make? How much is your time worth? Here, briefly, are seven ideas for strengthening self-esteem:

1. Establish worthwhile, meaningful goals and values.
2. Take massive action to get your own financial house in order if it isn’t now. Reduce debt, bring expenses under income, and invest every single month.
3. Give yourself recognition for each and every accomplishment.
4. Manage your time productively. Procrastination and disorganization rob many people of their self-esteem.
5. Associate with positive-minded, happy people who encourage and motivate you. Don’t hang out with folks who are negative, unhappy, critical or jealous.
6. Continually acquire new know-how in you profession and in the areas of business, sales and communication.
7. Regularly invest in improving your office and home environments, tools and equipment, wardrobe and other external things that impact on your attitudes.

Self Image

Self-image is how you see yourself; it’s who you think you are. Your self-image is controlled mostly by self-imposed limits. Very few people ever perform beyond those self-imposed limits.

A salesman whose father never earned more than $25,000 a year in his life may well see himself as a $25,000 a year guy. And he will subconsciously screw up the opportunities to earn more that come his way.

In the financial area, the controversial Reverend Ike calls this a money rejection syndrome, and I am convinced that such a thing definitely exists. One man I know, who made over $100 million in his business in its first three years from scratch, had gone broke in business several times before. After the three years of remarkable success, he said, “Making $100 million is about the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Believing it could happen to me was the hard part that took 20 years.”

Your self-image was created and is sustained through self talk, the use of affirmations – and that is also the method you can use to alter and modify your self image, literally as you wish.

I call the process self image goal setting, because most people who set goals set only “to get” and “to have” goals; they fail to set “to be” goals. I encourage you to balance your approach to goal setting by including some self-image modification.

Self Discipline

Self-Disciple, the fourth component of the inner game, is quite possibly the most important.

Success lecturer Jim Rohn says that most people do not associate lack of discipline with lack of success.

Most people think of failure as one earth-shattering event, such as a company going out of business or a home being foreclosed on. This, however, Jim Rohn says, is how failure happens.

Failure is rarely the result of some isolated event; rather, it is a consequence of a long list of accumulated little failures, which happen as a result of too little discipline. I agree. I find that most people understandably tend to look everywhere but in the mirror for the sources of their failures as well as the victories.

I’m here to tell you it’s not the town you’re in, not your location, not the economy, not the weather, not your competitors – it’s your own discipline that makes the difference between excellence or mediocrity, between getting by or getting rich.

It’s interesting to observe professionals. I often say to my associates, “Let me watch the professional’s behavior before, during and after the seminar, and I’ll guess his annual income within a few thousand dollars.” It’s actually pretty easy to do.

Jim Rohn says that discipline is the bridge between thought and accomplishment.

I’d encourage you to take the self-discipline challenge very seriously.

Select those areas that you know are your weakest links – timely paperwork, punctuality, daily self-improvement study, being happy and enthusiastic first thing in the morning, whatever your personal stumbling blocks are – and apply new, tough, demanding disciplines to yourself in those areas.

You’ll find that success in these particular areas of your day-to-day life will roll over into greater success in all parts of you life.

For example, let’s look at the ultimate game players – professional football players. A pro ball player knows that every single moment of his on-the-job performance is recorded on film, to be replayed and reviewed later in stop-action slow motion, for critique by his superiors and co-workers.

If your day was filmed and reviewed, how would you feel during the replay?

Of course, the professional football players who have to put up with this sort of thing are highly paid.

Yes, the inner game stuff is tough. If being a big success were easy, everybody would be one. You’ve got to decide what you really want to be, do, have, accomplish – and decide whether or not you’re willing to adhere to the disciplines necessary to get it.

In order to have the opportunity to accomplish virtually any goals you honestly desire, you must accept the related responsibility for everything you get.

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DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America.

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Do you get confused while trying to learn what Social Media Marketing is today, in 2011? Social Media Marketing in this new century makes marketing tools of earlier years obsolete. Those who manage to anticipate the changes and adopt them quickly have better chances of survival. The marketing tool of Social Media Marketing is attracting more and more companies every day. Though, it’s still in its infant stages, many marketing strategists already are harping about the next big marketing revolution, called Social Media Marketing, which is taking its early form.

Marketing always has been a crucial part of any business. Good companies have become great on the sheer basis of effective marketing strategies. The promotion of customer loyalty, promotion of products, and advertising are essential ingredients for any organization seeking success in today’s market. The concept of marketing continuously has been evolving with the passage of time. If a company wishes to remain competitive in the marketplace, it’s imperative to constantly be updating their marketing strategies. If there is one factor that really has affected the way marketing plans are being defined then, without doubt, it has to be the advent of new technologies.

Four of many pluses of Social Media Marketing:

• Its use provides a major advantage over competitors not using this tool
• The costs are low
• The potential of outreach is high
• The concept remains new, allowing for major growth for early users

The concept of Social Media Marketing basically refers to the process of promoting business or Web sites through social media channels. It is a powerful marketing medium that is defining the way people are communicating. Businesses likely will find no better low-cost option to reach a high number of potential customers than to work through social media channels. Politicians often say that name familiarity is the key to success, and that works for businesses as well when they gain huge exposure through Social Media Marketing. Progressive companies are utilizing Social Media Marketing not only to reach a wider audience, but to sell their goods at lower prices per item or service.

There are few barriers, because of the advent of the social media, to slow companies from broadcasting their promotions, product descriptions, and general information over the Internet. Even now, with Social Media Marketing in its infancy, avant-garde businesses are designing marketing plans not yet seen. Innovative businesses are designing new platforms to reach any potential customers they can find. It only makes sense that businesses looking to the future are including Social Media Marketing in their budgets. The promotion and even formation of marketing strategies is being redefined by this new, booming art known as Social Media Marketing.

Content that interests and attracts readers will encourage them to pass along that content to others, an integral component of the Social Media Marketing concept. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from a trusted third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.

There is hardly any easier means to communicate in 2011 than through social media. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often improves customer service.

Google internet marketing, in essence, is using social media commercially as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations and businesses to implement marketing campaigns. The barriers of joining in the social media parade have, for all practical purposes, been erased by Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

How to Use the Google+ Direct Connect Function

Every week, a representative from Black Box Social Media, LLC, will be sharing with readers and fans of Brian Horn how to use social media in order to improve SEO for their website.  No question that Brian is one of the leaders in the world of SEO, and our company has certainly benefited from his trainings.  We look forward to bringing you news about how social media can boost your websites SEO every week.

Today we’re going to focus on Google+ for business and how Google+ can impact your SEO.

Using Google+ Direct Connect | What is Google+ Pages for Business?

Google+ was released a little while ago and earlier in November, Google+ Pages for business was released.  Google is promoting Google+ as their social networking platform and are integrating it with all Google platforms including Google search. Obviously Google search is going to put more emphasis on users of Google+ than any other social media site, so that alone should be reason enough to get an account.   Now, Google+ Pages also would become like any other content pages in the internet.  Google+ Pages for business is similar to the Facebook Fan Page with some of the following unique differences:

• Google+ Circles- Circles allows you to break up your users into specific categories.  For example, if you have multiple businesses, you can separate your fans by specific business locations.  If you have a website with regular subscribers and premium subscribers, you can break them up accordingly.  Then, unlike with Facebook Fan Pages, you can create specific messages targeted for fans by specific categories.  This segregation will allow your posts to remain relevant to each set of eyeballs that view it.
• Google+ Hangouts- Hangouts allows you to create a video chat room with up to 9 people.  Hangouts works well with companies that want to personalize their customer support, demonstrate ‘how-to’ do something, or have contests in which a select number of people can participate with a celebrity or athlete.

Google+ is a pretty popular topic and using Google+ Direct Connect for SEO purposes is one of the reasons for its popularity.

Using Google+ Direct Connect | What is Google+ Direct Connect?

The Google+ Direct Connect functionality gives Google+ Pages more visibility in the search engine results pages when custom operators are used.  People can use Google+ Direct Connect feature to navigate to a Google+ Page from Google search, by simply typing the keyword prefixed with “+” symbol. For example, if you type +Pepsi, you could be taken directly to the Google+ page of Pepsi. To make this work, the Google+ page and website home page must be connected each other through couple of different ways suggested by Google.  The video below will show in detail how this process works.

As the video shows, Google+ Direct Connect can help you get found on search engines by using the ‘+’ function in search.

Why else is the Direct Connect function so important?  If you do a Direct Connect search, you’ll get only one result, an official page, or to be more specific, Your Page that you will want people to see. If you don’t set up Google+ Direct Connect, then you end up with the classic “10 blue links” which might do things like suggest your competitor or a negative critique of your product or service.  When you think about it, the Direct Connect function is almost a bribe from Google to business owners stating that if you use our Google+ product, we’ll allow you to promote your message while pushing down any negative comments or articles about your product or service.

I hope you enjoyed this article and video and see the value of utilizing Google+ Direct Connect into your website and implementing social media marketing into your marketing plan.

About Black Box Social Media:

Black Box Social Media (BBSM) is a ‘managed for’ social media marketing group.  Social media allows an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to connect and interact with their current and potential customer…if they effectively utilize social media.  Black Box Social Media specializes in creating and implementing proven, successful social media marketing plans for their clients.  BBSM also created Social Media in 7 Minutes (SMI7M),  a revolutionary do-it-yourself online training program designed to not only educate small business owners on how to apply social media into their marketing plan, but also to provide a practical tool which will allow them to implement their marketing plan in just 7 minutes a day.  This product is designed for small business owners who want to learn and implement a social media marketing plan for themselves without paying thousands of dollars for employees or outsourcing companies.