Many have tried, and failed, to write a good post about how to SEO a Facebook fan page.

For example, optimizing the filename of your profile picture is one popular piece of advice that doesn’t really matter, considering Facebook just renames the file something like 198135_10150109366….jpg. Another popular tip: you should link to your main website from your Facebook page. Yes, you should for visitors. But this doesn’t optimize your fan page because Facebook just nofollows, redirects, and clusters your URL in a mess of code anyway.

So let’s take a different approach to Facebook SEO today.

I want you to imagine that your Facebook fan page is your website – or another website for your brand at least. While it may not ever rank first for a keyword, you still want it to be optimized.

If you want to keyword optimize your Facebook fan page, these are the areas that actually pull SEO elements from your page’s content for additional optimization.

Your Facebook Fan Page SEO

• SEO title: The name of your page plus | Facebook.
• Meta description: The name of your page plus the About description of your page, followed by | Facebook.
• H1: The name of your page.

This is like the search optimization of the homepage of your fan page / website. If you didn’t consider keyword optimization when you created it, and you have less than 100 fans, you’re in luck. You can still change your page’s name.

Two things to keep in mind aside from search optimization includes:

• Branding: It may be more important to have your page as a recognizable brand than a specific keyword phrase.
• Appearance: Whenever you comment as your page, or people tag your page, your entire name will come up, so if you’re page is Your Brand – Keyword, Keyword, and Keywords it might look a bit excessive (and lead to less tagging).

Your title can be as long as you choose, but keep in mind the standard length of SEO titles (70 characters) before getting too crazy. Also, since your page name is also a part of your meta description, you might not want it to make it too long and overshadow that.

To edit your About information to make a great meta description, go to your page and Edit Page > Basic Information, and fill in the About field with a 140 character description like you would with any website meta description.

Facebook Fan Page Updates

• SEO Title: The first 18 characters of your update.

If you’re posting a standard status update, the SEO title will be pulled from the first 18 characters (approximately 18 characters, sometimes a bit less). The following update by Search Engine Watch’s fan page has a title of Yahoo Search, which is pretty good.

If you’re posting a link to your fan page wall, you’ll have an option to “Say something about this link…” – the first 18 characters of what you enter in this field are going to be the SEO title for the individual page of that status update.

If you don’t post something there, the SEO title for your update will just be Facebook. Plus it won’t take up as much real estate in someone’s news feed, which means it will be less noticeable. So I would suggest that, regardless of whether you care about the SEO, you fill this part out when adding a link to your wall.

If you’re concerned about optimizing your updates while considering them as individual pages for your overall fan page / website (click on the timestamp for any update to see it on its own page), then you might want to consider sticking some keywords right at the beginning of your comment.

Using the above example, I could simply put the post category / main keyword as start the update such as Google Analytics and then write the rest of my comment. If I continued this trend with my updates, my fan page would have lots of “pages” underneath it optimized for my main keywords.

The best part is, unlike Twitter status updates that don’t go that far back, you can see your Facebook fan page updates at least two years – mine go all the way back to when I created my fan page, which was in February 2009.

Facebook Fan Page Notes

• SEO Title: The title of your note plus | Facebook.
• Meta Description: Your page name wrote a note titled the title of your note plus | Facebook.

Facebook notes – they don’t get a lot of love anymore, but they do have a more controllable SEO title when you create them and, of course, they add to the additional “pages” underneath your fan page / website. Notes allow you to add lengthier updates to your fan page without having to take your fans offsite to get more of your content.

Some people use them to syndicate their blog posts on their fan page, but I find this feature is a little inconsistent. Unique notes, on the other hand, could add more value to your page.

Facebook Fan Page Discussion Topics

• SEO Title: The title of your discussion’s topic | Facebook.

Ever wanted a little forum / discussion board, but don’t want to invest in forum software? Facebook has an often-overlooked discussion board, with each topic giving you a little SEO title credit.

It might be a nice place for you to have discussions with your fans that they don’t necessarily want on your wall. If you don’t have one on your profile already, you can get it by going to theDiscussion Board and using the Add to My Pagelink to add it to your pages.

Your Facebook Fan Page SEO Tips

Those are the parts of the Facebook fan page that I’ve found specifically have controllable SEO titles, descriptions, and so forth. What other parts of the Facebook fan page have you tried optimizing for SEO, and what results have you seen?

Editor’s note: This column originally was published on September 20, 2011, and comes in at No. 6 on our countdown of the 10 most popular Search Engine Watch columns of 2011. Over the final two weeks of 2011, we’re celebrating the Best of 2011 by revisiting our most popular columns, as determined by our readers. Enjoy and keep checking back!

Adelaide SEO Experts | HAPPY Technologies

By Kristi Hines | Search Engine Watch

As technology advances, so does our means of communications with others and the public.  The radio and television were two technological mediums that companies used to advertise to their target audience.  However, since the mid-1990s, the Internet has drastically changed the way we share information.  It has turned into a new way for businesses to market their products or services directly to their target audience.  Online platforms, such as websites and social media, offer a lot to companies such as higher ROI on their marketing campaigns and more business.

Research shows that more than half of all U.S. residents and more that 3/4 of all U.S. adults are online.  A recent survey found that 92% of online adults use search engines to find information on the Internet, with 59% who do so on a typical day.  Of these daily searches, 46% are forinformation on products or services.  89% of U.S. Internet users search online before they make a purchase, even when the purchase is made at a local business.  With an astounding amount of people and potential customers online, it is important for companies to have an online presence so they do not miss out on opportunities and business that could be found on the Internet.

Top 5 Ways to Create Strong Online Presence

1. Website – This allows companies to post valuable information about their company and their products or services.  It is a centralized location where users can learn about what the company has to offer.  60% of all organic clicks go to the top three organic search results.  With correct SEO and keyword placement and number of indexed pages, websites are able to rank on search engine results – helping them get found by users who are searching for topics related to their company.  Stats:

2. Blogging – 65% of daily internet users read a blog.  By keeping a frequent blog, 2-3 times a week, you are contributing to your website’s SEO and are generating traffic to your site.  B2B companies that blog generate67% more leads per month than those that do not.  Businesses that blog at least 20 times a month generate 5 times more traffic and 4 times more leads than those who only blog a few times a month.  Blog posts need to be valuable and remarkable content and need to be of interest to your target audience.  Instead of solely company news, you should write about industry updates or other information that is of value to your target audience.  By continuously updating your blog with industry updates and information you are positioning yourself as a subject matter expert.  Also, by opening up the comment box, you are allowing direct communication between you and your potential customer – a place where you can offer advice and suggestions.

3. Facebook – 93% of U.S. adult Internet users are on Facebook.  As of date, there are more than 800 million active users on Facebook.  When users “like” company pages get updates made to the business’s profile, such as new wall posts (blog and industry news updates), pictures, videos, discussion questions and more.  Facebook allows companies to easily provide updates to followers as well as interact with users via comments.

4. Twitter -  There are 100 million monthly active users on Twitter with over 250 million daily tweets.  Companies with over 1,000 Twitter followers get 6 times more traffic.  70% of U.S. Twitter users are more likely to recommend the brands that they follow.  Twitter accounts allow companies to share quick industry or company news, as well as blog posts to followers.  Since posts are only allowed to be 140 characters, they are read quickly by followers, allowing them to easily decide if the topic is of interest to them.  These updates can link back to your website or blog to drive traffic to updates you have made.  With more than 1/2 of active Twitter users following companies, brands or products, it is important to make sure your company creates a continuously updated page for them to engage with.

5. LinkedIn – As of date, there are over 135 million professionals on LinkedIn.  Company profiles allow businesses to connect with other professionals and establish themselves in a professional setting.  They are also able to provide status updates on industry or company news as well as blog and Twitter updates to its followers.  It grants companies the opportunity to network with others in their industry as well as become members in groups consisting of other members that may be of interest to them.

Establishing your company on the Internet allows your business to develop its online presence and reach towards potential customers.  Websites provide information to help users make an informed decision about their buying purchases.  Social media platforms keep users updated on the company and industry.  Actually, 71% of Internet users are more likely to purchase based on social media referrals.  By making use of what the Internet can offer your company, you have the opportunity to boost your sales and business.

Adelaide SEO Experts | HAPPY Technologies

By Sarah Faglio | Business 2 Community

here’s a few favorite SEO terms to define and clarify in order to help those wanting to start the road to SEO success.

• Search Engine Optimization: Simply put, search engine optimization is the process of improving the quality and volume of web traffic to a website by employing a series of proven SEO techniques that help a website achieve a higher ranking with the major search engines when certain keywords and phrases are put in the search field.

• Black Hat SEO: Using unethical techniques to gain ranking in search engines. The search engines filter for such techniques and you may get banned from displaying in search engine results. This may include using keyword stuffing, using invisible text and doorway pages.

• White Hat SEO: The use of accepted SEO practices in order to get higher rankings, more traffic, etc. This includes writing quality content, using titles and meta tags and doing keyword research.

• Search Algorithm: Google’s search algorithm is used to find the most relevant web pages for any search query. According to Google, the algorithm considers over 200 factors, including the PageRank value, the meta and title tags, the content, age of the domain, etc.

• Doorway Pages: This is basically a fake page that the user will never see. It is purely for search engine spiders, and attempts to trick them into indexing the site higher.

• Keyword Stuffing: Since keyword density was an important factor on the early search algorithms, webmasters started to game the system by artificially inflating the keyword density inside their websites. This is called keyword stuffing. These days this practice won’t help you, and it can also get you penalized.

• Anchor Text - An HTML tag or text that allows you to create a link to another document or web page or to a bookmark within the current web page. 

• Nofollow Link: A link used to instruct search engines that a link should not influence ranking. They are used when you want to cut down on irrelevant content to improve the quality of search engine results. Don’t use nofollow when linking to internal pages in your website. Use it when linking to external pages that you don’t want to endorse. Dofollow links do not have the nofollow attribute and do pass on link juice to the sites they link to.

• PageRank: The algorithm that Google uses to estimate the relative important of pages around the web. The basic idea behind the algorithm is the fact that a link from page A to page B can be seen as a vote of trust from page A to page B. The higher the number of links (weighted to their value) to a page, therefore, the higher the probability that such page is important.

• Alt Text: This is basically alternative text placed for images, so that when you hover over an image a text box displays describing what the image is.

• Spider (bot, crawler, robots): Programs written to scour the web automatically for various reasons, like indexing pages, for spamming purposes.

• Cloaking - Showing a different web page to a search engine spider than what is normally seen. The purpose is to get the page ranked for specific keywords, and then use the incoming traffic to promote unrelated products or services. This practice is considering spamming and can get you penalized (if not banned) on most search engines.

• Link farm. A link farm is a group of websites where every website links to every other website, with the purpose of artificially increasing the PageRank of all the sites in the farm. This practice was often used in the early days of search engines, but today these sites are seeing as a spamming technique (and thus can get you penalized).

These are just a few of the many, many SEO terms used to help marketers and small business understand how to optimize their website.  I’m curious to know the terms you find confusing.  Do we need to create another list?

Adelaide SEO Experts | HAPPY Technologies

by Ali Goldfield | Social Media Today

1. Start bar

Love it or hate it… well, actually, everyone pretty much loves it. The Start Bar is, some would say, one of the truly original innovations from Microsoft that debuted in Windows 95 and has been with us since. It’s evolved in Windows 7 but the primary function remains the same: the place to launch programs through the Start menu, the Taskbar to monitor running programs, and the System Tray for informative widgets. The Mac OS X Dock combines program launcher and taskbar, but it becomes cluttered very quickly with a lot of programs, which if they’re not on the Dock need to be launched from an equally cluttered Applications folder instead of easily navigated by menu as with the Start bar. Lion attempts to remedy this with the iOS-stylised Launchpad, but it’s simplistic and still not as easy to use.

2. The Taskbar

The Dock is pretty and all, but the Windows 7 Taskbar can have programs pinned to it as with the Dock, whilst maintaining the ability to manage running programs, make use of Jump Lists, and see a thumbnail preview of the window of a program with Aero Peek by just hovering the mouse over its name in the bar. Programs with multiple windows will display all open windows in the preview, and any one of them can be individually closed from th preview. The Mac OS X Dock doesn’t come close to this, and even though Expose allows previews, it also takes up the whole screen to do it (and when it comes to Expose, the Alt-Tab switching of Windows is quicker and less intrusive, but that’s for another day).

The Windows Taskbar and Aero Preview is leaps ahead of anything on Mac OS X Lion.

3. No global menu

Oh I hate it. And I know you do too. Mac OS X’s global menu (simply the Menu bar to Apple) tries to make things simpler for Fisher-price users, with a top menu that changes depending on which application is currently selected. But when you’re working with a few programs, and more importantly on a decent sized monitor with a large resolution these days, having to drag the mouse to the top bar and back to access common functions is anti ease-of-use. The global menu was borne of a time before pre-emptive multitasking, when computers only ran one program at a time, but that’s ancient history now and Apple hasn’t moved with the times (lets not get into those old one-button mice! Thankfully gone, but I digress…)

Making the user spend more time navigating the screen instead of using the app is an impediment — the easiest to use operating systems are those that get out of your way, not in them.

The problem is compounded if you use multiple monitors, which given how cheap they are these days is a popular option. On Mac OS X Lion programs on a second monitor still have their menus on the main screen’s global menu, making for long mouse movements to use functions. Windows, by comparison, has excellent multiple monitor support.

4. Jump Lists

Jump Lists are much more than Mac OS X’s Stacks, providing a recently opened files list for any app you right-click on the Taskbar, making it a huge time-saver for accessing the documents you work with on a app-by-app basis. On top of this, Jump Lists let you select a program’s common functions specific to the app, for example: launching recently accessed sites, opening an independent tab, or starting private browsing mode for Firefox directly from the Firefox icon in the Taskbar. You can also optionally pin entries directly to a Jump List, and even exchange entries between Jump Lists if two programs work with the same file type. This applies to every app, dependent on the app. It’s exactly the type of feature you’d expect Apple to implement, but Microsoft beat it to the punch.

Jump Lists make accessing recent files, common functions, and special tasks for a program a cinch directly from the Taskbar.

5. Windows management

Lion includes the option to resize windows from any edge, finally bringing it up to speed with Windows — but it still falls far short of Windows’ management abilities. As above, Windows 7 has excellent multi-monitor support, and you can maximise a window to any monitor with Windows 7, something Lion can’t automatically do. And Aero, which drives the Windows 7 interface, has features like Aero Snap to automatically resize windows based on the edge you drag them to: so you can, for example, compare two documents side by side by dragging them to opposite ends and having them resize to fit the half the screen each automatically.

Similarly, managing running programs from the Windows Taskbar, especially with Aero Peek, is a simple point-and-click affair and while Expose and Mission Control try to make it easier for Mac OS X users, these quickly become messy when you have a lot of programs running, something the Windows Task Bar doesn’t suffer thanks to program grouping. Purely from keeping a hold things when it comes to managing lots of programs in this age of multi-application multitasking, Windows wins hands down over Mac OS X Lion.

6. Homegroups

Networking is arguably not the bees knees for many home users, but Windows’ Home Group feature makes it possible to share files and devices with other Windows 7 machines automatically, and even stream media. Mac OS X’s AirDrop is also automatic, but doesn’t allow you to browse. Homegroup still provides options to limit access, selectively share files and folders, or provide read-only access while still removing the hassle of configuring networking or sharing. It’s as easy as AirDrop, but more functional.

The key difference with Airdrop is that it can set up an ad-hoc wireless network, but connecting to wireless networks is automated with Windows anyway, as is is automatically joining the available Homegroup. The closest Mac OS X Lion has to Homegroups is Bonjour, which allows you to find shareable resources on the local network for Bonjour supported devices, but this is a shotgun approach as it covers a wide range of services and Homegroups focuses specifically on local LAN sharing.

6. Libraries

Libraries are a great way to group similar file types spread among different folders, and even different devices. For example the Music Library can contain music from your local hard drive, a connected external drive, or even on a remote machine over the network. And you can work on files in the library just as with any other folder. At any time the contents reflect the available resources (so if you remove the external drive, its contents in the Library won’t show up until connected again). Further, Libraries are shared by default with your Homegroup, so your Music Library can be automatically available to PCs on the network for playing.

The closest thing Lion has to this is Smart Folders, but these operate off a search term not location and you can’t, for example, create a Smart Folder drawing from multiple locations.

8. Maximise actually maximises

Contrary to common sense, the maximise button in Mac OS X doesn’t maximise. Or it does. If it’s a full moon, and your offering is accepted by the Great Turtlnecked One. It depends on the application, with some programs maximising, some only partially (expanding only vertically for example) or something entirely different, like iTunes which switches to miniplayer view. Mac OS X calls this ‘intelligent’ zooming — but why is your OS second guessing you? After years of *cough* feedback, Apple finally changed this in Lion: but it now requires the user to hold the Option key and click. Why the extra step? Why not just do it properly? And why are apps like iTunes allowed to break with consistency? Oh, and lets not get started on the ‘X’ quit application button that doesn’t actually quit, simply closing the window and letting it run in the background, requiring the user to forcibly close a program down from the Dock, or use the Command-Q combination (again, extra steps getting in the way of the user — see above re: operating systems helping not hindering).

Wait, can it be? Maximise and close buttons actually do what you expect them to do? Only on Windows.

9. Price

To get Mac OS X, you need to buy a Mac, something Dan forgot to mention. Mac hardware costs considerably more than PC hardware, even from big name brands like Dell. When you add the cost of the operating system to the platform to run it, it’s much more costly to go Mac OS X, a problem further exacerbated for us in here in Australia thanks to Apple’s region-based price discrimination — Federal Labor MP Ed Husic has even raised this issue more than once in Parliament. Despite Apple recently dropping the price of Apps for the App Store in Australia, we still pay more for apps, music, and Apple hardware than other regions, discrepancies that can’t be explained by importing, taxes and distribution costs. If you’re an Apple fan, why are you supporting what is a blatant rip off for you and fellow Australians? As the saying goes, a company will charge what the market will bear — send a message to Apple that its products are overpriced here by not buying until the prices drop, and you won’t be fleeced.

10. Games

Yes, Mac OS X has had games in the past. One, perhaps two. And now that Valve has released Steam on Mac and helped port titles across, there’s a muc larger catalog to choose from (approximately 240, in point of fact, from Steam). But it’s got nothing on Windows. There’s over a decade of quality gaming heritage (since DirectX 1 in 1995) on Windows, and all new releases, big or small, come on Windows first and foremost. You’re lucky if any of them make it to a Mac port, and even if they do it takes time.

Sure, Macs are good for work but when it comes to playing, Windows is your best option. And between work and play, which would you rather do?

I can hear the cries of ‘Bootcamp!’, but this requires you purchase Windows in addition to your shiny expensive Mac with Mac OS X, and you’re still playing games on Windows — and if that’s the case, why not just buy a Windows PC in the first place and get everything a Mac does and more, with cash left over (thanks to Mac products being overpriced) to buy the games you want to play?

Oh, and for the record, that sign documents feature that Dan mentioned of Mac OS X by holding up a piece of paper with your signature on it to the webcam, is very cool.

Cheap Computer Parts Online | PC HAPPY

by Ashton Mills  | APC Mag

The old Twitter joke about people saying what they had for breakfast in their tweets has a little truth to it, but failing to grasp the more powerful side of that platform is easy to do.

People who use the platform to broadcast self-referential tweets and automated random crap see almost no return on their time investment, and leave saying what a colossal waste Twitter is for their business. Without exception those who have told me about their Twitter failure story have all lacked a cogent strategy or clear goals from their Twitter plan.

Mark Schaefer has used Twitter effectively to build his business and grow a very successful blog. If there is such a thing as a Twitter expert, Mark is it. It’s not hard for anyone to apply his strategy for their personal or business success, but it takes a focused approach. In this video he shares his insights that you can start using today.

Mark recently released his new book The Tao Of Twitter. His book has been getting a boatload of 5 star reviews by readers on Amazon. You can buy it here.

Watch The Video Here

 
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By Steve Farnsworth | Business 2 Community

For your pictures to look their best, you need to set up your display to reproduce colours accurately. Find out how in our step-by-step guide.

When you process and print digital photographs, you want the colours and shades in your prints to come out looking exactly the same as the image you see on the screen. As many of us know to our cost, this isn’t something you can take for granted. Monitors and printers create colour in entirely different ways. A monitor illuminates red, blue and green pixels with a white backlight; a printer creates colour by mixing different inks or pigments on paper.

Problems arise when your monitor settings don’t reflect the way your printer produces colours. For instance, a monitor with the wrong white balance will add a colour cast to your images when they’re printed – and you won’t spot that anything is wrong until it’s too late. Your monitor’s colour settings can trip you up even if you don’t print out your images: things that look perfect on the screen aren’t guaranteed to look right on someone else’s.

It isn’t only a question of colour fidelity. Modern monitors typically leave the factory with their brightness turned up to maximum. However, prints rely entirely on subtle reflected light. When you process an image to look bright and vivacious on your screen it might still result in a dull, flat print.

The solution is to calibrate your monitor so that it displays colours as accurately as possible.

Calibration explained

There are two approaches to calibration. The most accurate is hardware calibration, in which you attach a colorimeter to your monitor while a series of tests is run. The colorimeter measures the colours your monitor is displaying, and produces a monitor profile that gives the best colour accuracy the hardware’s capable of.

The second approach is to use software to measure your screen’s performance. This isn’t as accurate, but it’s still an effective approach – and if you have a modern PC it needn’t cost a penny, as Windows 7 includes a reasonably advanced calibration tool as standard. It relies on good visual acuity, but it’s better than nothing (see walkthrough on Page 3).

No matter how you calibrate your monitor, it will never perfectly represent the printed product. Some high-end printers can produce a greater range of colours than a monitor, so it’s possible to end up working with colours that can’t be distinguished on your monitor and only become visible when you hit “Print”. However, calibration will keep unpleasant and potentially expensive surprises to a minimum.

No monitor is perfect

You wouldn’t expect a cheap LCD panel to be perfect, but if you spend a packet on the latest premium monitor – precisely because you plan to use it for photography – you might expect to gain only a marginal improvement in accuracy through calibration.

This isn’t the case. Monitors leave the factory with a number of default settings; we mentioned brightness above, but contrast and colour saturation can also be pumped up to the maximum. These settings are chosen to grab your attention on the shop floor, but they’re enemies to colour accuracy (and, in some cases, taste). If you’re viewing an image on a monitor with too much contrast, you’ll have to reduce the “punch” in your image to get it to look right on the screen. The printed version will come out looking drab.

If you invest any serious time and effort in your photography, calibrating your screen is a must. If you’ve also invested serious money in your monitor, setting it up properly will ensure that the cash hasn’t gone to waste (for more on why you should calibrate your monitor, click here).

Setting up your monitor

Before you begin delving into calibration software or hardware, it’s important to understand the idea of the “white point”. This is normally described as a temperature, measured in Kelvin, and is a setting you can adjust on your monitor to set the overall tint of your display. A high Kelvin measurement (some monitors are set to around 9300K) means your monitor will display whites with a slight blue tint, but you’ll probably never have noticed it: the human eye is very good at ignoring colour casts.

A screen calibrator can provide an accurate picture of your monitor’s performance. Here it compares a monitor’s colour reproduction to the sRGB gamut.

The onscreen appearance of your images doesn’t depend solely on your monitor settings; the environment in which you edit your photos is just as critical. Incandescent household bulbs emit a very warm light, which affects your perception of colour and explains why monitors compensate with a bluish colour temperature.

A bigger concern is the quantity of ambient light around your monitor. If your computer is in a room with lots of light, it’s likely your monitor’s brightness will be turned up to keep things legible. That’s good for visibility, but it means you’ll be processing your images on a monitor that’s excessively bright. The result? Prints that are too dark. The ideal photo-editing environment is one with neutral lighting, closed windows and closed blinds. At the very least, this is the environment in which you should set up your monitor. A hardware calibrator will also be handy here, since it can detect both the luminance (brightness) and colour temperature of ambient light: a useful guide as to whether you’re on the right track.

When to calibrate

When you come to calibrate your monitor, don’t do it immediately after turning on the display. An LCD’s brightness comes from its backlight – a series of bulbs that light the red, green and blue pixels that form the image on screen. Most monitors are lit by cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) tubes, and these can take a while to warm up to their full brightness. For this reason, before calibrating your monitor or doing colour-sensitive work you should allow your screen to warm up for around 30 minutes. Attempting to calibrate a cold monitor is an exercise in futility. The exception to this is monitors lit by LED bulbs, which reach full brightness as soon as they’re turned on.

CCFLs also start to lose their brightness as they get older. This means that, over time, your monitor will become dimmer and the colour temperature will slowly rise, ultimately producing images that appear warmer than they should be. This means calibrating your monitor isn’t a one-off operation. Monitor manufacturer Eizo recommends recalibrating a screen once every 300 hours of use. On monitors used during normal working hours, this equates to roughly once every two months; monitors used at home and recreationally will need less attention.

Software calibration

If you’re using Windows 7, the built-in colour calibration tool can be a big help in getting your monitor set up correctly (see walkthrough, p3). Those on older operating systems – and without the inclination to splash out on dedicated hardware – needn’t despair, though. It’s still possible to make an educated guess as to how your monitor needs to be corrected, and you can normally do it for free using tools included in your graphics card drivers. These typically let you choose your own settings for brightness, contrast and gamma, the latter of which controls the lightness or darkness of mid-tones. It’s best to make these alterations here rather than using your monitor’s onscreen display (OSD). Most LCDs don’t offer the ability to set gamma, and some prevent you from changing contrast.

When you adjust these settings, the driver usually displays a reference image so you can see the effect of your changes. If you prefer, you can use a reference image of your own. A simple way to do this is to print out a photograph with a reputable professional printer (www.photobox. com remains a firm favourite at PC&TA), hold it next to your monitor, and look closely for differences. It’s best to use images of people: the eye can be tolerant of variations in abstract colours, but you’ll be able to spot an incorrect skin tone from a mile away.

It’s then simply a matter of making the required adjustments. For example, if the final print looks fine on screen but too dark when it’s printed, turning down your monitor’s brightness will help images look the way you want.

Understanding colour spaces

Adjusting your monitor according to a single printed image will bring its colours into line with that particular printer, but it doesn’t guarantee that your images will appear on other people’s screens in the same way as they do on your system, nor that they’ll look identical on all printers. To achieve this, you need to be aware of colour spaces.

A colour space represents all the shades of colour available to a device. The two colour spaces you’re most likely to come across are sRGB (standard red, green, blue) and Adobe RGB. Of the two, Adobe RGB offers a wider gamut, which is to say it can represent a wider range of shades. When you shoot JPEG images on a DSLR camera, you’ll normally have the option of using either the sRGB or Adobe RGB colour spaces. Depending on which you choose, the colours seen by the sensor will be encoded in slightly different ways. (If you shoot in RAW mode, the camera uses its own, far larger colour space, and leaves you to perform your own conversion when you process the image.)

Mid-range monitors lit by CCFL tubes rarely display the full range of colours in the Adobe RGB space (high-end LCDs, especially those with LED backlights, can produce a wider gamut). However, if your monitor is correctly calibrated and your editing software understands which colour space was used to encode an image, you should see a reasonable onscreen approximation of the appropriate colour. Mid-range and high-end printers are also normally designed to support a wide gamut, so it makes sense to use Adobe RGB for images you want to print.

If you want to share your images online, it’s a different story. Most web browsers ignore colour-space data and assume your images should be shown as sRGB. This can cause them to look subtly wrong: for example, the Adobe RGB space offers a smoother transition from yellow to green than sRGB. If you view an Adobe RGB image using the sRGB colour space, the contrast between these colours will appear exaggerated.

To add to the confusion, most mid-range and high-end printers can produce colours not covered by either the Adobe RGB or sRGB colour spaces. It’s therefore possible that your images will contain shades of colours that are indistinguishable on your monitor, especially if you work in the ultra-wide ProPhoto RGB colour space favoured by Adobe’s photographic software. In most cases this won’t produce unpleasant surprises when you print, but if you’re concerned about the detail it’s worth producing colour proofs before committing to expensive, large-format prints.

A final word to those looking to produce books or other unusual formats: print services will sometimes expect you to provide images in CMYK format, in which colours are produced by combining cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink. CMYK represents a much smaller colour space than sRGB and Adobe RGB, so colours from your original image may need to be “clipped” to match those within CMYK’s gamut. Applications such as Photoshop allow you to soft-proof your images using different colour spaces, and can warn you if large areas of your images contain out-of-gamut colours.

What are ICM profiles?

After calibrating your display, your settings will be saved as a “profile” – an ICC (International Color Consortium) or in Windows an ICM (Image Color Management) profile. The two are largely cross-compatible. Windows Vista and 7 also support a proprietary Microsoft format called WCS (Windows Color System).

A monitor profile specifies how the colours and shades described in an image file should be sent to your monitor to ensure they look correct when displayed. For example, if your monitor produces unusually weak-blue shades, a suitable profile would tell the operating system to compensate by boosting the blue content of the picture it sends to the display.

Calibrators measure ambient light as well as your monitor’s colours, so you can see whether your environment is too bright or warmly lit.

Printers also have profiles, althoughmodels aimed at home users don’tnormally come with tools to calibratethem. Just like monitor profiles, theseprofiles tell the software how toproduce colours that look as intended.

With the right monitor and printerprofiles, colour hues should lookidentical whether you’re viewing themon screen or on a physical print-out. Ifyou use an inaccurate ICM profile – oryou don’t create one at all – coloursmay be lost or mistranslated, resultingin wonky prints.

Correctly setting up your monitor istherefore essential if you don’t wantto waste time and money on sub-parprints. And getting your screen onthe right track is quick and easy. Evenprofiling your monitor using dedicatedhardware is reasonably cheap (seeHardware calibration, above). If youwant to get the best from your digitalphotos, there’s no reason not to do it.

Walthrough: Profiling your monitor with Windows 7

Step 1:

Make sure there are no light sources shining on your monitor and give your screen30 minutes to warm up. Ensure it’s set to its native resolution. When you’re ready,you can reach Windows’ colour management settings through the Display option inthe Control Panel: look for “Calibrate Color” in the bar on the left-hand side. [Click on pic to enlarge]

Step 2:

The next step is to set your monitor’s gamma. Too high and images will be washedout; too low and you’ll lose detail in the shadows. It should normally be set to 2.2, butWindows’ calibration tool doesn’t give a numeric measurement. You can get close byadjusting the slider until the dots on the screen blend in with the surrounding area. [Click on pic to enlarge]

Step 4:

Windows makes finding the right brightness and contrast settings simple. Using the sample images, adjust the settings until you’ve produced a good facsimile of the reference image. Some monitors don’t let you adjust the contrast if the screen is hooked up to your PC via a digital connector such as DVI or HDMI. [Click on pic to enlarge]

 

Step 5:

Next you need to find a neutral white point for your monitor by adjusting the levels of red, green and blue. Juggling the bars can take some time, not least because moving one often means you’ll have to move another to compensate. This step is very important, as it will ensure you’ll see an accurate display of colour on your screen, so it’s worth the effort. [Click on pic to enlarge] 

Step 6:

The final screen shows you the before and after versions of your monitor profile – and the Color Management panel provides more options. You can view all the colour profiles associated with your monitor, as well as profiles for printers etc. The All Profiles tab shows all the profiles installed, useful if you need to add a profile for an external printer. [Click on pic to enlarge] 

Hardware calibration

Although Windows 7’s calibration tool is free and easy to use, dedicated hardware will do a better job. When you use calibration software, you’re relying on your eyes to make decisions about contrast and brightness. There are two problems with this. First, different people perceive colour and brightness differently, introducing a significant margin of error. Second, the apparent brightness of your monitor will depend to some extent on the lighting in the room – which in turn is affected by the age of the bulbs, the amount of light coming through the window, and a host of other factors.

 

LaCie blue eye pro Proof Edition

Hardware calibration devices are inherently more accurate, and because they attach, limpet-like, to your monitor screen, ambient light isn’t a factor. However, some calibration software, such as GretagMacbeth’s i1Match software (www. xrite.com), can also measure the colour temperature of ambient light, which will give you another significant accuracy advantage when it comes to your editing environment.

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by Dave Stevenson | PC Authority

If you’ve decided to outsource your SEO to a consultant or firm, your new SEO company is going to need three things from you in order to create, launch and maintain a successful SEO campaign. Without these three things, your SEO will never get up to full-throttle and won’t reach its full potential by any of the great SEO companies out there:

1. Trust
Remember that your SEO partner is on your side! They are pulling for your website to succeed as much as you are and are going to do everything in their power to help your site and brand reach their full potential online. However, in order to maximize their efforts you as the SEO client have to be willing to trust your SEO company to do the work you hired them to do!

Case in point, I was working with a client that didn’t feel comfortable letting us handle their blog commenting (part of their link building campaign). So we just researched the blogs they should be commenting on every month and passed it back to them; they were supposed to leave the comments. Guess what happened? They never left the comments! The hardest part of blog commenting is finding good, relevant blogs to comment on. Leaving the actual comment takes hardly any time compared to the amount of time spent researching. If the client had just trusted us a little bit more to leave well-written, quality comments on their behalf, their link building would have been much more effective and well-rounded.

2. Content
In my opinion, the worst thing a company can do is launch a blog and then NOT routinely write in it. I will spend all day arguing the benefits of a business blog, but I would rather a client not even launch one than create it and not write for it. Just about every component of SEO and inbound marketing relies on the consistent creation of content. Social networks consume billions upon billions of pieces of content every day, the search engines weigh content to determine a site’s importance, great content helps you connect with your target audience, builds your online reputation and so much more. Without content, your SEO is essentially flat lined. Content is what propels you forward and takes your site to the next level.

Not every business or website owner is a great writer and that’s ok! If you don’t feel comfortable writing content for your blog, than let your SEO partner handle it. They know how to create good content that is both search engine AND user friendly, that works to build your brand and encourages your target audience to share it with their social networks. Again, it comes back to trust. If you don’t trust your SEO partner to write content (say you work in a highly specialized field and your SEO partner just doesn’t have the knowledge) than it becomes your responsibility to supply your SEO partner with the content. You write it up and they will leverage it for your website.

3. Involvement
Handing your SEO campaign off to a consultant or agency does not mean you get to wash your hands of SEO completely! Your SEO partner is going to do everything they can to help your site succeed, but they need direction from you to know what “success” means. What are your online goals? Who is your target audience? Have you done any serious link building before? What are your assets and weaknesses? No one knows your brand better than you and your SEO company needs access to the information you have if you want them to do their job properly! You provide the direction and your SEO partner will provide the experience.

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By Nick Stamoulis | Business 2 Community

Everyone uses a search engine! And yet, not everyone in marketing understands the difference between SEO, PPC, metatags and keywords. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. I know it can be confusing but…

To be a successful marketer today, you need to understand how to show up in the search results of your buyers’ search engine activity. To do this you must understand keywords and content and how they interact with each other to gain that coveted top spot in the search engine results.

This is not just about being a successful marketer. This is about driving real business results in the form of traffic to your website, getting more consumers of your content and ultimately to obtaining more paying customers…

Keyword Research Is Important To The Whole Business!

Last week, the folks at OpenView Venture Partners launched A Business Guide To Keyword Research: Better Keywords, Better Customers.” I was honored to have a quote included in the guide because of the passion I hold for this topic.

I truly believe that understanding the elements of search engine marketing and keyword research goes beyond just good marketing, and even successful digital marketing – all the way to being a dependency on running a successful business.

The quote they used:

“I often talk about the importance of putting our audience at the center of everything we do and creating customer-focused marketing plans. Keyword research is fundamental to that process because it allows marketers to get inside the minds of our buyers – not just in understanding what they are looking for, but the  actual words they are using. Magic happens when businesses create content that maps directly to their needs and uses our buyers’ own language.”

And what I’m talking about is the fact that keyword strategy and keyword research start with the fundamental belief that our businesses exist at their most basic level to simply fulfill a customer need.

They own the need. And they decide when and how to go find a solution.

The Right Keywords = The Right Content

Knowing how people search for solutions is just the first step. You have to then build that knowledge of your customers into an effective Content Strategy.  If Search Engine Marketing is knowing how your buyers search, then Content Strategy involves having the content they are looking for.

And of course these go hand-in-hand. Having the right content isn’t enough. Your content needs to include those keywords so that it can be effectively indexed by the search engines.

Getting indexed for the right keywords means getting found by your buyers.

Search Engine Marketing is Really Hard!

While this all sounds so simple, the fact is that search engine marketing is really hard. The reason for this starts with the fact that buyers don’t always search for the terms we think they do.

Additionally, you cannot buy your way to the top of the list (like with most traditional marketing.) You have to earn your way there (with both paid and organic search) due to a little something called the “quality score.” The quality score is calculated by the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo in the US) and requires that you have the content your buyers want and that this content includes the keywords your buyers are searching for.

You also need to be a credible source. Credibility is often determine by the number of other people who link to you, the relative size and credibility of those sites and a whole bunch of search engine “secret sauce” that only the brilliant minds at Google and the other search engine giants know.

Last but certainly not least, in order to master the art of search engine marketing, you need to understand SEO concepts like tagging, url composition and anchor text. My advice: outsource this piece to the experts.

Better Keywords, Better Customers

The Keyword Research Guide from Openview includes:

• An Introduction to Keyword Research
• The Benefits of Keyword Research
• How to Customize Your Approach to Keyword Research
• Top Challenges
• Getting Started
• Keyword Research Checklist for the Project Sponsor
• Checklist for the Keyword Researcher
• Keyword Research Checklist for the Online Content Marketer and Social Media Marketing Manager

It also includes a foreward by freelance blogger and marketing consultant Kristi Hines (@kikolani) and some extra quick start guides, sample frameworks and more…

Another Great Example of Content Marketing

If you’ve read this far, you must be interested in Search Engine Marketing, Content Marketing and, well, running successful marketing campaigns.

The Search Engine Marketing and Keyword Research guide that OpenView produced is on a topic that I am really passionate about because I think it is fundamentally important to being successful in finding new customers for our businesses. But it is also a great example of content marketing!

It seeks to answer the important questions on the minds of their target audience in the form of Thought Leadership, it curates content from multiple sources, it validates the fact that traditional marketingpush tactics can be supplemented with a content strategy that ultimately puts customers first.

So congratulations to OpenView Partners for producing such an excellent guide on an important topic. And a huge “thanks!” to OpenView Labs‘ Amanda Maksymiw and their team for the offer to participate.

But now it’s your turn. What do you think: right topic, right approach to content or both?

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By Bill Treloar | B2B Marketing

Almost every time we speak with a new potential client we find they’ve been told something about SEO that’s either an exaggeration or downright false.In a recent issue of .Net Magazine, Mark Buckingham, owner of an SEO company in south-west London called NetSeek, wrote about his top ten favorite SEO myths. Have you heard any of these? Let us know in comments, below.

1. Satisfaction guaranteed

There is no such thing as guaranteed organic rankings. Distrust anyone who promises otherwise. There are about 200 factors in the Google ranking algorithm, and no one can control all of them. Most people who “guarantee” top rankings only do so for long-tail searches that get very little search traffic — phrases like “podiatry malpractice lawyer on Main Street in Chatham”.

2. High Google PageRank = high rankings

Google PageRank is one of the 200 or so ranking factors in Google. It’s at best a fair indicator of a page’s link popularity, and it may be weighted more heavily than many of the other factors, but it’s not uncommon for a web page with a lower PageRank to rank higher in search results than a page with a higher PageRank. It’s a visible indicator of what Google thinks of your page, but again it’s only one of many ranking factors.

3. Endorsed by Google

Any company that says they’re “endorsed”, “approved” or “certified” by Google is probably a fraud. Google has a certification for Google Analytics and Google AdWords (the PPC ads), but Google has no stamp of approval for any SEO company .

4. The meta keyword tag matters

I heard this one as recently as last week. Mark quotes Google’s Matt Cutts to totally debunk that one. Google considers the meta keyword tag to be a waste of time. We typically use it, only because it may be used by some smaller search engines, and because it’s so quick and easy to do. But we never agonize over what to put in there — as Matt says, that’s just a waste of time.

5. You can cheat your way to the top

This reminds me of an old database client of mine who once asked if I would help him send out spam. (It should go without saying that I strongly declined.) Cheating (considered “black hat SEO”) is always a bad idea. Even if it works once in awhile, as soon as the search engines find you out (or when a competitor rats you out) you risk being banned from the search engine results with disastrous bottom line results. This happened to JC Penneyrecently and to both Ricoh and BMW before that.

6. Cram those keywords in

There’s no magic number of keywords needed to get a high ranking. You need to use the keywords, of course, but using them too often creates what we call “overredundancy”. Forcing your keywords into a web page almost always destroys the page’s power to influence the person reading it and encourage them to want to buy what you’re selling. Pay attention to your keywords, and use them on the page, but make sure you’re always writing for your visitor, not for the search engines.

7. Spending on Google AdWords boosts your rankings

Google has repeatedly denied any connection  between participating in AdWords and organic rankings. SEO experts agree. There is some research showing that if you show up in both the PPC ads and in the organic results, that boosts the likelihood of the searcher clicking on one of your listings. The organic listing super-validates your PPC ad, increasing the likelihood of a click on one or the other. But having a PPC ad has no impact on where you rank in the organic results.

8. Landing pages

The concept of a “landing page” is relevant only to PPC. Almost any page on your website can show up in the organic listings. Don’t assume that people will always enter your site through the front door, for example. In SEO, any page on your site can be a “landing page”.

9. Set it and forget it

It’s true that once your pages are well-optimized there’s little or no need to constantly tweak, change, or “freshen” them up. However you can’t just forget your SEO as soon as you get great rankings. An ongoing stream of inbound links may be important to maintain your rankings, and if those links aren’t happening by themselves it may require some level of continued effort. A blog is a great way to add new content on a regular basis. But you also need to monitor your rankings. There’s no guarantee your great rankings will be permanent, especially if your website undergoes even a minor redesign or your competitors become more aggressive in their social presence and link building. At least keep an eye on your rankings so you can respond if they begin to fall.

10. Rankings aren’t everything

High rankings are great, but you’re not in business to get high rankings. The bottom line needs to be your bottom line. Do those rankings result in visitors? Do those visitors convert into paying customers? SEO can get more people to your website, but it’s the job of your website to convince them they want to do business with you and with no one else. You need great content that’s effective in closing the sale. All the rankings in the world can’t make up for a poor user experience on your website.

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By Bill Treloar | Business 2 Community

It’s Saturday morning. You wake up out of the fog. You manage to open one eye and reach for the iPhone. You push the little round button so you can say good morning to your friends. Since the rest of the family is still asleep you think “hmmm… I’ll just go into my office and send a few tweets, see what’s circlin’ on Google+ and upload the photos from the seminarthis week to Facebook.”

Well, that was at 7:00 am. It’s now 11:00 and you are still in your jammies with messy hair. Your significant other has made breakfast. The kids are watching cartoons & fighting and the house is a mess. The big plans of mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage and hittin’ the gym all before noon are history. You would much prefer to stay in the safety and quiet of your little tweet heaven just for one more hour.

You have experienced this situation before. You have friends who do the same thing. You have wondered if you might have a slight addiction problem to the twitter bird and all his friends. Below are a few (50 of them) signs that you might want to seek professional help.

Disclaimer: I am a marketing nut and by no means should you take the advice written in this post to determine if you need professional help. Only you can figure out if you have the will power to put your tweet weapon of choice away this weekend!

I wrote a similar post “60 Signs You’re Addicted to Social Media & Twitter” earlier this year. Figured it was time for an update. I’m pretty certain there are no duplicates.

50 Signs of Social Media & Twitter Addiction & Need for Professional Help

1. You have a tweet station installed next to your toilet inclusive of a few mags,  extra toilet paper & a special iPhone charger extension cord.

2. Your kids were jealous, so with a little Jerry riggin’ the toilet tweet station now doubles as a Nintendo potty station.

3. Your cute little twitter bird dreams  have unfortunately turned into nightmares of entire bird families.

4. The grocery store clerks are all trained on twitter & know your Twitter handle by heart. Too bad they don’t tweet.

5. If you had to choose between one whole day without eating or one  day without tweeting you would toss the eats & keep the tweets.

6. Granny officially knows what twitter is. By the time I write my next list granny will probably be tweeting.

7. If necessary you could type a tweet on your iPhone or Android with eyes closed.

8. You knew Google+ wouldn’t kill Twitter no matter what they say.

9. Even the most unsocial savvy guy at most unsocial savvy client now tweets and love it.

10. Your kids can better explain social media than most of your clients.

11. Your kids have twitter handles of their nick names.

12. Your kids tell other kids their parents should really learn how to tweet.

13. Your dog has a twitter account and barks in 140.

14. You know the Klout score of your dogs twitter account.

15. According to Klout your dog has influence on YOU.

16. 140 x 1000 =  number of days since you had a life.

17. Thanks to Foursquare you now know all of the other social media addicts in the area.

18. You have at least one social media stalker.

19. You have been proposed to at least 5 times on Twitter.

20. You at one time were mayor of your church.

21. When you go out to eat your 5 yr old always says “mom don’t forget to check in.”

22. Your kids try to sell you on going to Chili’s as they know they can get free chips and salsa for checking in

23. Your kids don’t understand why you haven’t put any of your own deals on Foursquare

24. Your kids are a top source for leads.

25. Kids at school know you by videos their parents have watched on YouTube.

26. You are no longer bothered by bullies & trolls. You laugh and also feel sorry for them.

27. Even if you don’t frequent Empire Avenue often you still know your stock price within a few bucks.

28. You have a Google+ account but don’t consider yourself addicted yet.

29. You know who @TwitJailWarden @TwitChiefJudge are.

30. You have been or know someone who has been in twitter jail.

31. You know the secret ninja api’s & tools to avoid Twitter jail.

32. You already have the words in your head for almost every 80′s tune that would be perfect for a viral video

33. You are glad not all of your neighbors and family are on Twitter or Google+

34. You can write an entire blog post on your iPhone while on the elliptical at the gym.

35. Your family has given up trying to understand what you do for work.

36. At least 80% of your family has de-friended you on Facebook.

37. You want to pull a big chunk of hair out of your head when you see people begging for Facebook likes.

38. You could place bets (and win) on the local small businesses in your area who will be out of business within 2 yrs who still think Internet is a fad.

39. You have fired a client (or 2) for refusing to acknowledge social media is about the people.

40. You wish you could quit your day job.

41. You may not have a day job if you don’t get this social media addiction thing figured out.

42. You are thinking how you could implement #1 on this list to save time & keep your day job.

43. You can already think of at least 5 people to share this list with who are worse than you.

44. You are now questioning if you are more addicted or if your friends are.

45. You are now thankful you thought of at least one friend who is more addicted than you.

46. You are wondering if you are the only one of your friends who is seriously thinking about doing #1 on this list.

47. You read this entire post on a smart phone.

48. You will retweet this post via a smart phone.

49. You just now realized what an addiction you have. You wasted 2 min reading something that confirmed what you already know.

50. You are mad about #49 and know you better get back to work (your day job).

51. You read all the way to the bottom of this list. Need I say more?

Bonus: you are wondering why there are 51 signs and not 50. Don’t recount them. Get a life!

 
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By Pam Moore, | Business 2 Community