Create a Google+ Page

The first step to getting set up with Google Plus is to create your Business Page. This is different from a Personal Profile. You can set up a Business Page here:
https://plus.google.com/pages/manage

Add The +1 Button

In order to facilitate easy sharing of the products and pages on your website, you will want to add the “plus one” button. The code for that can be found here:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/

Add A Google+ Profile Badge

Then ext step is to get customers and site visitors to follow you on Google+. The best way to do this would be to display the Google+ Profile Button. Go to your Google+ Business Page and copy the URL. Paste it into the form on this page and it will output the correct code for your profile:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/profilebutton/

Image Credit: Hongkiat / Artbees

Social Media & SEO

Recently, major developments have taken place within search algorithms to weigh social signals as ranking factors. Social signals present additional cues which can be leveraged by search engines, and these elements have been incorporated as secondary datapoints to be utilized when engines decide which pages to rank at the top of the results.

The reason for this shift is pretty clear. Search engines have been dealing with the problem of link spam in link manipulation for years now. Outside of on-site HTML, search algorithms really do not have many other factors to weigh.

The secondary link market caused search results to rank that were less than ideal for Google. The engines know that the competitive advantage they have is primarily attributed to query relevance.

Relevance is the key to everything that happens within Google’s business. If Google doesn’t give you, as a user, a phenomenal experience by providing accurate and quality solutions to the questions you pose within the search engine, you will simply use another engine and click on their paid listings.

Because AdWords (i.e. Paid Search) makes up over 90% of Google’s revenue this is clearly something that they protect as their number one strategic initiative, keeping their listings more relevant than any other search engine on the market.

Spammers and manipulated links are the number one threat to Google’s relevancy. For so many competitive listings, there are sites that are clearly built on scraped content, that have been manufactured solely for the purpose of generating affiliate revenue, and that have achieved top search engine rankings through link manipulation techniques.

Many of these sites were eliminated from the search engine results with the panda update that took place earlier in 2011, but still, many sites that present a less than ideal user experience are frequently at the top of Google’s search engine results.

In my opinion, Google realized that they had to add additional variables to their internal ranking algorithms to ensure that relevancy not only improves, but also that the additional garbage content that exists on the web is eliminated. The social web that exists in a high percentage of overall internet traffic, provides exactly what Google needs to supplement their existing page rank algorithm.

Facebook and Twitter are the two principle components of what I am calling the social web. The social web is the interconnection between humans that serves as a filter for content.

Because humans pass content that is of value, and that also provides connections on an emotional level, or for some type of learning experience, search engines can take these user actions of sharing and incorporate these “signals” into the link driven ranking algorithms that exist today.

What Should You Do?

So what are you to do as a marketer? Well, the first plan of attack should be to isolate the influencers that exist within the social web for your marketplace. Document the publishers, the URLs, and the specific Facebook pages or groups that have high levels of interactivity, and three occasions for the search terms they were targeting.

Next it’s time to look at your content. What content do you have on your domain that is of high value? What content do you have that will help answer questions or comments within prospects’ minds in your market? Document these pieces of content as these are the two types that you will be seeding in Facebook and Twitter.

If you don’t have content that is of high value, then you need to create it. Your SEO success will not proceed without your site being a leader in targeted copy that is geared for your prospects.

Conducting a proper keyword research effort, will help you understand what you need to write about. Schedule a marketing campaign and content distribution strategy that touches upon all of these categories and subcategories.

Lastly, after your content has been created, it’s time to engage. An analyst or representative of the organization will need to interact in social communities that are discussing the topical areas you are targeting within your SEO efforts.

You will want to present your content as solutions to questions within the social setting. The key is not being a salesman of any kind, but rather, a trusted individual that helps provide perspectives and insights to solving problems that users have. Don’t optimize anchor text, just present URLs as solutions to user questions.

By interacting in these discussions and communities not only will your brand receive increased exposure for prospects in your market, but Google and other search engines will see your content as a trusted resource as you are helping provide solutions to web users. This is exactly what Google wants you to do and your search engine rankings will benefit.

Best of luck within your SEO efforts!

Image Credit: Matt Hamm

Introduction: What is the Google +1 Button?

Until someone creates a Magento extension for the Google +1 button, like there is for the Facebook Like button, here is a quick and easy way to add it to your Magento store in two steps:

Step #1

Add the JavaScript code to your Magento config: System –> Configuration –> Design –> HTML Head –> Miscellaneous Scripts.

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Step #2

Place this tag in your template phtml files where you want the +1 button to render (example location: /app/design/frontend/XXXXXX/XXXXXX/template/page/html/header.phtml)

<g:plusone></g:plusone>

Please Note: Google has several styles of this button, you can select the proper code when you get the code here.

ShopMania offers free product listings which is a great way to get started on comparison shopping. Aside from the benefit of free listings, they offer an easy to set up Facebook Store. Once you have a ShopMania account, all you need to do is add the application to your Facebook page. Click here to get started.

When Facebook announced they were launching a “Like” button for the whole internet, you knew you had to get in on it. The Facebook Like button is part of Facebook’s new Open Graph Protocol which allows users to easily share content (including yours) from across the web. For the developers amongst us, you can get all the code and info on Facebook’s developer site. For the rest of us, here are 4 Magento Extensions that will easily integrate Facebook’s Like button.

Facebook Like Button Extensions

The first two are simple implementations of the standard Like button. The next two are more complex integrations with many more options and with Open Graph support.

Pick one, buy it, install it.

1. Facebook Like Button by RetailEvolved
2. Facebook Like Button by TSDesigns
3. Facebook Social Plugins by Magento Ireland
4. Facebook Like Button with Open Graph Support by Soleun

Track Like Button Activity With Facebook Insights

Once you have the Facebook Like button installed, you’ll want to set up Facebook Insight for Domains. This will allow you to see what is happening in the world of Facebook in relation to your store.

1. Go to Facebook Insights
2. Click green “Insights for your Domain” button
3. Enter your domain name and select your account from the drop down list.
4. Copy the Meta Tag that Facebook gives you and paste into your Magento Admin -> System -> Configuration -> Design -> HTML Head -> Miscellaneous Scripts
5. Confirm the domain with Facebook

You should now be able to see all kind of cool reports in Facebook Insights.

I found this script on webupd8.org that will help you jump-start your Twitter campaigns. You can run it on any PHP server as a standalone file. What it does is search for anyone who mentions a relevant term. Just copy and paste the code below and change the following:

• enter_your_twitter_username_here // Example: eCommerceCircle
• enter_your_twitter_password_here // Example: imnottellingyou
• enter_the_search_term_to_follow_here // Example: iPod Touch

You can upload to your server and just load the page from time to time or set up a cron job to do it automatically. Keep in mind that Twitter has follower/following ratios in place and that at most you cannot follow more than 1.5 times the amount of people following you as well as a 1,000 follower a day limit.

<?php
// Twitter Auto-follow Script by Dave Stevens - http://davestevens.co.uk
$user = "enter_your_twitter_username_here";
$pass = "enter_your_twitter_password_here";
$term = "enter_the_search_term_to_follow_here";
$userApiUrl = "http://twitter.com/statuses/friends.json";
$ch = curl_init($userApiUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $user.":".$pass);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$apiresponse = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$followed = array();
if ($apiresponse) {
 $json = json_decode($apiresponse);
 if ($json != null) {
  foreach ($json as $u) {
   $followed[] = $u->name;
  }
 }
}
$userApiUrl = "http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=" . $term . "&rpp=100";
$ch = curl_init($userApiUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $user.":".$pass);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$apiresponse = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
if ($apiresponse) {
 $results = json_decode($apiresponse);
 $count = 20;
 if ($results != null) {
  $resultsArr = $results->results;
  if (is_array($resultsArr)) {
   foreach ($resultsArr as $result) {
    $from_user = $result->from_user;
    if (!in_array($from_user,$followed)) {
     $ch = curl_init("http://twitter.com/friendships/create/" . $from_user . ".json");
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $user.":".$pass);
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,"follow=true");
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
     $apiresponse = curl_exec($ch);
     if ($apiresponse) {
      $response = json_decode($apiresponse);
      if ($response != null) {
       if (property_exists($response,"following")) {
        if ($response->following === true) {
         echo "Now following " . $response->screen_name . "\n";
        } else {
         echo "Couldn't follow " . $response->screen_name . "\n";
        }
       } else {
        echo "Follow limit exceeded, skipped " . $from_user . "\n";
       }
      }
     }
     curl_close($ch);
    } else {
     echo "Already following " . $from_user . "\n";
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
?>

Twitter Tools

You are only as good as the Twitter tools you have. Here is a brief rundown of the best Twitter tools for keeping track of your brand and interacting with your customers.

Brizzly

Brizzly allows you to control multiple Twitter accounts from the same interface without having to constantly log in and out. Some of the great features it offers that are helpful with managing an eCommerce site’s Twitter account are Groups and Saved Searches. Although Twitter.com offers the ability to save searches, it is much easier to skim through the results and answer them inline on Brizzly. The Groups feature can help you segment your follow list by category so that you can more clearly see what’s happening in your Twitter world.

Brizzly is in private beta, and can be accessed by invitation only. I have a few invites to give away, please leave your email in the comments for a free invite.

Screenshot: @Remiel

CoTweet

CoTweet is the Twitter tool of choice for many large corporations such as Pepsi, Starbucks, Microsoft and many more. CoTweet has some unique features that cater to companies with multiple people posting from a single Twitter account. Their core features are multiple Twitter accounts, multiple users managing a Twitter account, CoTags, saved searches, and scheduled Tweets.

From within CoTweet you can give access to multiple users to manage your Twitter account, the best part is that you can set up CoTags which CoTweet will append the initials of the person Tweeting to the Tweet. They generally add CoTags in this format “^MK”. This helps avoid confusion and helps your followers identify who said what.

CoTweet also allows you to schedule Tweets for a specific time, this is ideal for when you are unable to post manually but would like to keep your followers updated.

Screenshot: vincentgallegos

HootSuite

HootSuite has pretty much the same major features as the others, however it sports a more desktop like client interface with multiple tabs and columns for follower updates, saved searches etc…

A unique feature that HootSuite offers is the ability to auto post Tweets from an RSS feed. This is great if you have a company blog that you would like to automatically post the updates to Twitter.

Screenshot: cambodia4kidsorg

TweetDeck

All the above Twitter tools are web-based, TweetDeck is a desktop application that works on the Adobe AIR platform. Like HootSuite, it has a multiple column interface for easy following. The good thing about TweetDeck being a desktop application is that it has notifications built into it. It can pop up a message when your company is mentioned on Twitter.

Screenshot: merilyn_j

What To Post

Having a great tool is only half the battle. How you use it, can impact your results in a major way. The best use of Twitter is to update with a mix of Marketing/Promotional tips, helpful tips, and interact with other Twitterers.

Marketing

Post Tweets with special coupons, promotional content and deals exclusively for your Twitter followers. Give people a reason to follow you. Try not to post only promotional content and links to your site, make sure to include a healthy mix of other content as well.

Transparency

Let your customer base see the human side of your company. Post small updates that may make someone smile. Talk about your brand and what it stands for. Post helpful tips relevant to your industry.

Customer Service

Interact with your followers and potential customers. Say good morning and help fellow Tweeple with their problems. Providing help to someone who is not a customer, may turn them into one. Become an authority in your industry.

Usage Examples

Here are examples of companies using Twitter. Learn what you can should and shouldn’t do from them.

Woot

Woot posts links to their ‘daily sale’ every and blog posts on their company blog. They currently have over 1.4 million followers and they use this channel as a natural extension to reach their already loyal following.

Comcast

Comcast says they care, and it seems that they really do try to help anyone who voices their frustrations with the cable provider on Twitter. They scan Twitter for anyone who mentions ‘Comcast’ and will reply and help you out pretty much instantaneously. There are the naysayers (that may be correct) who say that you shouldn’t have to go to Twitter to get customer service.

Zappos

No post about Twitter and eCommerce would be complete without Zappos. When Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh breathes on Twitter 1.45 million people hear him. Aside from that, it is ingrained in the Zappos corporate culture to Twitter, they even host a mashup site where you can see all Tweets from Zappos employees.

Bottom Line

A dollar spent keeping an existing customer happy is the best dollar spent on marketing your brand. Use Twitter to interact with customers to provide a satisfying shopping experience as well as to promote your latest deals.