Facebook Timeline

Its the biggest change to facebook since its release back in 2006. A complete design overhaul that makes a visual history of everything you’ve ever done, all the way to when you were born.

The new profiles also include a map feature that lets you see where you’ve been, thanks to Facebook Places. It maps out your travel. You can even mark your place of birth. But perhaps the most striking feature is the cover photo, which displays a giant image at the top of the new profile page.

So the timeline is due to release to the public any day now ( Meanwhile If you just cant wait – You can enable it through the developer page. It’s pretty easy, took me about 5 mins. But no one else will be able to see your ‘new look’ page unless they also have downloaded the app at this stage.)
If you would like to do this  (Click here for instructions)

I had to give it a try,  and the result is below – At first glance I could not help thinking that this layout reminded me of an old social media site I used to use – My space. And it showed so much information so differently, It will take a bit of getting use to. The photos are displayed larger and ‘places’ showed where I had been on a map recently. I also noticed options to share very personal events from the past, mmm.. I don’t think anyone really cares, nor do I to share that I broke my little toe once.

F8 Conference – Mark Zuckerburg explains the Timeline

New Status Box Adds Life Events

Below Timeline’s top section, you will see a new status box, where you can share photos, updates, and links just as you do on your current Facebook page. There are also five new icons that let you add specific life events to your profile. The icons represent: Work and education; family and relationships; living (buying a home, vehicle, etc); health and wellness; and milestones and experiences (awards, driver’s licenses, etc). The list of things you can add to your profile is pretty exhaustive: It includes jobs, schooling, engagement and marriages, new children and pets, deaths of loved ones, buying a new house or car, getting a new roommate, breaking a bone, undergoing surgery, overcoming illness, learning a language, getting your driver’s license, receiving an award, or traveling to a new destination. Um….. Well If you like to over share your complete life in detail then you might like this feature

Changes to the “Like” Button

In the new facebook updates, you don’t have to just Like something — now you can [verb] any [noun]

The social network has launched its ‘Gestures’ which means that Facebook’s partners and developers can turn any verb into a button. Soon you will be seeing “Watched,” “Listened” and “Read” buttons. Even the long awaited “dislike” button will be available for us to use. It means that we are not just endorsing pages or products, but sharing our personal actions. In turn, as many observers have pointed out, this is likely to lead to an explosion of over sharing — and far more information on your friends’ activities showing up in your news feed than you probably cared to know.

Social Aps

All “lightweight” information is going to the Ticker

Status updates, photos from a wedding or a vacation, changes in relationship status: these are the kinds of things you want to see from your friends when you look at your news feed. Who killed whom in Mafia Wars? Who planted what in FarmVille? Not so much. So that kind of trivial detail has been banished to the Ticker, a real-time list of things your friends are posting now that scrolls down the side of your screen.

Facebook Video Calling

We can put you in touch with the smart cookies that specialise in just getting traffic to your site. They can create campaigns, and packages to suit your requirements.

If you have a bit of spare time up your sleeve,  you can start listing them on online directories. Free directories can provide cost-effective results in your link building strategy

ONLINE DIRECTORIES

Registering your site with a directory can be a great way to let people find you. Each directory is different.

Quality inbound links are important to any website’s rankings for searches done on Google. In an effort to reduce spamming, Google now carefully rates the ‘quality’ of any website posting a link to your site. Unless Google approves of the quality of the website, or considers it to be relevant to the content on your website, it will often fail to record a link.

We have put together a group of great FREE directory websites to sign up to to with your website details. If you have an Australian based site, then of course it makes sense to submit to geo-specific directories.  Most of these are free, often with upgrade options. But some require payment.

First, this is a good website to start at – Google Local Business Center

Here you can details about your business, a map, opening times, images etc…

Submitting your website to Australian directories (.com.au or .net.au) will bring more value than .com directories if you aim at ranking in the local pages of search engines.

Having links from Australian directories, your website will ’send’ clear signals that it has relevant content and that it has a certain credibility in the Australian market. As a result search engines will be more likely to list your website in the local pages.

Australian Directories

HotFrog is a business directory with free listings. Good quality directory this one.

Gumtree Post free ads (run for 90 days). A bit time consuming to register for your free ad, however you do get a solid link back to your site.

Aussieweb A good Aussie website which makes it easy to add your URL.

OzEngine Basic free listing is free.

AussieDirectory Free listing with reciprocal linking, otherwise you’ll be required to pay.  Worth the time it takes to sign up.

EnterpriseSearch New business directory for Australian businesses. NB: This site requires a link prior to accepting a listing from your website. Easy if you have CMS set up.Ausdict.org

Australian Business Directory A new business directory for Australian businesses, this site also requires a reciprocal link.

Bigroo Australian business directory with a basic free listing service that’s approved by humans.

True Local

Yellow Pages

Aussie Web

Start Local

Aussie Local

Local

Australian Business Online

YALWA

Live Pages

Australian Specific Directories

Mums + Children Related Directories

Kids spot – All things Kids Related Directory

Business Mums is an Australian directory with a membership of mum’s with a small business. Free and paid listings.

Mumzone is another Australian Directory for Pregnancy, Baby, Toddler and Parenting related products and services.

Bub Hub directory for all things mums and bubs

Bridal & Wedding Related Directories

ido

Easy Weddings

Wedding Pages

Popular Online Directories

DMOZ is probaby the best free directory you can join. Find the right category, suggest your URL and wait and see. Entries in DMOZ are replicated through to the Google Directory and many other directories. If you decide you like DMOZ, you can apply to become a volunteer editor yourself. Be warned, DMOZ links are hard to come by.

Yahoo Directory (or Australian Yahoo Directory) is probably the first directory you should pay for, if you are going to pay for a directory listing. $300 US for a year.

Search Site Popular directory that Google seems to like

ExactSEEK Athough you do have to register as a member, however it is FREE

DIGG Google loves Digg and is a fast way to start getting the site indexed. GREAT for BLOG posts and Articles submission!

Ten link building strategies

Great content: The best way to encourage links back to your website is to write great content that other websites are eager to link to. This is called “link bait” and it is an important link building strategy. By constantly updating your website with interesting, unique and original content, you will soon build up a loyal following of websites linking back to you.

Directories: Upgrade your White Pages or Yellow Pages listing to include a link to your website – this not only provides some solid links but it will also drive some qualified traffic back to your website. In addition, list your website in credible directories or web portals that are trustworthy websites and relevant to your industry.

Search Engine business directories: List your business on Search Engine business directories such as Google Places (free), Bing Local (free) and Yahoo Local (free and premium listings). These listings can be optimised to improve your Search Engine ranking and you can also add additional details like your contact details, store hours and product and services.

Blogging and forums: Find relevant and trustworthy websites in your industry where you can become a trusted member of the community. Sign up for sites where it is possible to add a link to your website from your signature block; comment sensibly about your speciality and you will quickly see links starting to appear to your site, on theme and very relevant.

Guest posts: Writing guest blogs on a website related to your industry can also be a great way to generate links back to your website. In turn by positioning yourself as an expert, you will also increase your company’s profile in the industry and obtain an opportunity to promote your website. Look for websites that again are relevant and high quality.

Community groups and suppliers: Ask your suppliers, customers, clients, business networking groups, industry associations and local community groups if they will put a link to your website on their pages. Your suppliers’ websites are relevant, trustworthy and will more than likely be happy to phrase the link text exactly the way you want.

Syndication: Write articles or media releases based on the informative content on your website and post these articles on article or media release distribution websites. Ask whether you can either embed a link (with your keywords in the anchor text) if they allow this or if not, then most allow a link from the ‘Author’ or ‘Resource box’.

Social networking websites: Social media networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are an excellent part of a link building strategy and a good touch point for clients, suppliers and customers to keep them abreast of your activities. You can promote new products and services, blog articles or news about your company via social media.

Video hosting websites: You can create your own channel on online video communities like YouTube with a summary of your business and website URL. You can also supplement your video link building strategy by creating additional links when leaving comments with a link to your company website on other video channels that are important and relevant to your industry.

Internal links: Links from your own pages, whilst possibly of lesser value, are still counted as links. Apart from your standard navigation links, add a link or two from the body of your pages to a couple of your key pages and embed the link in a keyword phrase. Search Engines spiders also use these internal links to crawl through your website and index pages for your site.

All of the above link building strategies will help you nudge your inbound link volume and quality. However to build a natural link profile, links need to be added gradually and the keywords used in the anchor text must be varied. You may arouse suspicion with Search Engines if their spiders crawl a website which has obtained 500 links in one day. You may even be penalised or your Search Engine ranking may drop.

Step 1: Register with Google

First, if you don’t have a Google login ID you would need to create one. To do this, go to https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount. If you already have an account move on to the next step.

Step 2: Find your listing…

After registering go to http://maps.google.com and search for your company. When your listing is found click on more info ».

Step 3: Are you the business owner?

After clicking more info » you will be on the Google Places page for your business. On the top right click Business Owner?. It doesn’t look like a link but you can click on it. We are assuming that you are the business owner or employed by the company to administrate the local listing. If not, it’s futile trying to take ownership because Google needs to verify your business by mailing a letter to the physical address (or call you by phone).

Step 4: Edit my business listing…

From the Add, Edit, or Suspend Listing page check Edit my business information. Before clicking Continue note the information about ‘Validating Your Listing’.

We’ll send a letter containing a PIN and activation instructions to the business address associated with your listing. After you validate your listing, you may edit your Google Maps listing at any time.

Although it makes it sound that you can not edit the listing, technically you can. Once the listing has been claimed all the updated information will appear on Google Maps and Places.

Step 5: Basic Information

On this page, the first section will need basic information about your company. In the following screenshot take notice of the many empty fields. Now is the opportunity to use them to make your company more prominent.

Tip 1: Company Name

You will need to enter in the full and official Company/Organization name. (

Tip 2: Address

The Address field is required and would be in the format you would use for a mailing address. (Street Address, City/Town, Postcode.) We recommend against using a post office box number.

Tip 3: Main Phone

The phone number is also required along with the area code . Click Add more phone numbers to add an 1800 number, mobile phone, fax, and TTY/TDD. TTY and TDD are used for those who have hearing or speech difficulties.

This information is not only important for customers to find you through Google Maps and Places; the address and phone number play a big part in the verification of your business listing at the end of the setup process

Tip 4: Email address

In the next box, enter your email address. This leaves customers with an alternate way of contacting you especially if your office is closed.

Tip 5: Website

Don’t forget about this! A website is a must. If you don’t have a website at least get facebook fan page. When your website has been completed you can return to Google Places to update your listing.

Tip 6: Description

The Description field is very important since you can write a little about your business and stand out among other companies who offer similar services.

Tip 7: Category

You will be asked to enter up to five categories that describe the business. Google takes these into account when a customer performs a search, and will make suggestions as you type. It is required to have at least one Google-suggested category, but the rest can be of your own choosing. Make sure it fits the type of business or describes a service offered and you’ll be fine here.

Step 6: Service area and location settings…

Choose if customers have to come to the business or if they can be served at their location. For example, “Yes” would be chosen if you make house calls for fixing computer issues or have a landscaping service.

Step 7: Hours of operation…

Next, choose to list hours of operation. These can be changed through the drop-down menus. One nice feature with Google Places is the ability to split a single day. If your lunch is around noon this can be entered so visitors know you will not be available.

Step 8: Payment options…

If you want to show methods of payments accepted, they can be chosen here.

Step 10: Videos…

If there is a video you want to play for the visitors, upload it to Youtube.com and then copy and paste the URL here. Up to 5 videos can be added to the listing.

Step 11: Additional Details…

Additional Details is a great section to create your very own custom fields. Use these spaces to include information such as awards, certifications, services offered, specialties, products; you name it!

Step 12: Important Note*

Before you click ‘Submit’, take a look at the information on the right side of the screen. This is how your listing will be presented once it is published on Google Maps and Places. Feel free to go back and change anything you feel doesn’t look good or fix errors! Click Submit when you are ready.

Have a look at Google Maps….

Go to http://maps.google.com and search for a business in your area.

Why It Works…

What makes Google Maps great is every time you do a search, you will also see a map that clearly pinpoints the business in relation to others. This can be helpful for finding anything from the closest Gym to seeing how many Restaurants are located nearby. Plus, you get a satellite view from the air along with a ground-level photo shot of your business so potential customers can better locate you when driving there. From Google Maps searchers can click the more info link. This will take them to Google Places.

Have a Look at Google Places….

Each business can claim their free listing from Google Places. The listing options themselves are descriptive and informative, allowing for a logo or picture to be displayed in the listing search along with a description of the business or tagline. Having these can help your listing stand apart from those that don’t. Other big pluses include the ability to add directions to your business, hours and days of operation, services offered; even additional links to other sites where mentions of it appear!

Reviews are important…

Google Places includes the ability for visitors to post customer reviews about your company. They can also assign a rating based on their level of satisfaction and leave feedback about their experience. This is a great way to see what your customers think while attracting future customers with good reviews. Plus, Google uses reviews to rank listings within Google’s 7-Pack. ( The top 7 listings in the area)

Based on the amount of data shown within most Search Engine listings, try and stick to the following character counts when writing the information:

• Page Title – 69 Characters
• META Description – 150 Characters
• META Keywords – 5 to 10 Priority Keywords

Title

Title is the meta title on your page. This will be the title that all users will see in their browsers, and this is the title search engine bots use as well. Often bloggers are too focused on the Search Engine bots, that they make their titles full with keywords.

Example of a Bad Title: Wordpress, Seo, rankings, webwise, google

Now one would think that this type of title would have SEO Advantage, but it clearly does not because your title is diluted with keywords. Second, it is not user friendly. While search engines will help you get more traffic, it is the word of mouth advertising and user support that counts in blogging.

Good Title: Webwsie SEO –How to get higher SEO rankings in Google

This title does not dilute itself with keywords. It is essentially the brand name (Webwise) and a tagline. Also if you notice, our title is readable. It is something that users can read and not freak out. Search Engines also like this type of titles.

When you are writing your title, make sure that it is under 60 characters and you think it all the way.

Description

Also known as meta description. It is solely for search engines, and most users will not see this description at all while they are surfing your site. This description should be no longer than 150 characters because most search engines has a maximum limit of 150 characters. Writing a short description is not easy, because you have to make sure that you can add the right keywords in a sentence.

The meta description can be seen below the title in Google. If it was less than 150 characters, then you see a full description. Otherwise you will see a cut off version of the description. You need to be smart about the meta description that you are writing so it fits both search engines and your users. This not something that you will get right on the first time. You will have to keep trying and analyze your ranking results.

Keywords

This is where you will add keywords that you want to target. Separate them by commas. Make sure you do your research on keywords before targetting the keywords. This is something that you will learn overtime. We have changed our keywords numerous times as the year progresses. If a certain niche or sub-niche is getting you more traffic, you change your keywords in that direction. META Keywords – 5 to 10 Priority Keywords

Google Plus Crosses 20 Million Activations.
That makes it the fastest growing social network.

Google has finally unveiled Google+, the company’s top secret social layer that turns all of the search engine into one giant social network.

The social network is a collection of different social products. These features include Stream (a newsfeed), Sparks (a recommendation engine), Hangouts (a video chat service), Huddle (a group texting service), Circles (a friend management service) and Photos.

For most search engines, the maximum length of a title tag to be displayed is between 60-70 characters. If your title tag is over 70 characters, your title will be cut off around 70 characters on the search results page.

Search engine spiders use these title tags as the main source for determining the page topic. Spiders or crawlers examine the title and then translate the topic of the page. This is one reason why it is always best to use your keywords in the page title, and to place them as close to the beginning of the title as possible. Remember, the text included in the title tag is also the text that will appear in the SERPs (search engine results pages) as the linked title on which users will click to access your page. In fact, just fixing the title tags of your pages can often generate quick and significant improvements in your rankings.

For example, let’s say you have an educational site that provides information and guidelines on teacher certification requirements.  You’ve decided that the most important keywords for your site are “teaching certification” and “teaching requirements.” In this case, a page title along the lines of “Teaching Requirements for Teacher Certification” is highly relevant to the topic of the site. Spiders will crawl your site, and because the title is the first factor it sees, the spider will “read” it and then examine the rest of the page finding the keywords used in other places on the page to determine how relevant the title is to the rest of the content. If the content, H tags, and title tag all relate—you’re in business! This is why it’s so important to target the most critical keywords in the title tag.

Follow this same process for all of your pages, and remember to create unique titles that are relevant to each page and do not keyword spam.  This greatly improves the effectiveness of those tags and will increase the search engine rankings for your keywords. Although your home page might show up for 20 or 30 different keyword combinations, only your top two or three keyword phrases should be included in the title

2. Click on ‘Link a Page to Twitter

2. Click on ‘Link to Twitter’

3. Oddly, nothing happens… Or does it? Look carefully and you will notice that the URL in the browser bar has changed. Copy that URL and paste it into a new browser tab / window.

4. Click on ‘Allow’ to allow your Facebook account to post to your twitter account: ‘brwilson71′ in my case.

Congratulations. You are now sharing your Facebook updates on twitter. Don’t forget, updates made to Facebook that get posted to Twitter may be seen by everyone.

Link Twitter updates to Facebook

There once was a time when our Facebook friends wanted nothing to do with our Twitter updates. Now that Twitter is growing at an astounding rate and rounding the mainstream bend, more of our Facebook friends have developed a fancy for Twitter themselves, and it’s becoming commonplace to highlight our tweets on our Facebook walls.

If you’re new to Twitter, or just haven’t followed the Twitter to Facebook trend in recent months, we’ve found a few quick and easy ways to turn your tweets into status updates. From auto-updating your Facebook status, to more calculated updates, we think these five ways to share Twitter updates with Facebook will satisfy those of us with a predilection for maintaining dual social presences.

1. Auto-Update with a Facebook Application

If you’re looking to automatically post your Twitter updates straight to Facebook, the Twitter application (by Twitter) is your best bet. It’s pretty darn simple to use as well: just install the application and then click to allow Twitter to update your Facebook status. The Tweeterapp is of the same variety and includes a few additional features related to viewing and engaging with tweets while using Facebook, though there are some known issues.

Those of us who are loquacious Twitterers might opt instead for the Selective Twitter Status application, which will only update your wall with tweets that include the #fb hashtag. TweetSync provides a similar function, though it’s keyword based, and also includes an option to sync all your tweets unless a particular keyword is included in a tweet.

Facebook Page admins have a few additional options. One such option is Involver, which is actually a suite of Facebook applications for Pages. The Twitter for Pages app essentially just adds a Twitter tab with a collection of tweets to a Facebook Page. It’s a nice alternative for brands and companies who want to showcase their Twitter presence without over-updating their Page’s wall with an influx of tweets.

2. Use a Twitter Client

We’re starting to see more and more Twitter apps moonlight as Facebook-friendly apps, due in part to the recent launch of Facebook’s Open Stream API.

Two such applications are TweetDeck, a desktop client (rivaling Seesmic Desktop), and PeopleBrowsr, a multi-purpose web-based application. Both applications have integrated Facebook features and simply require selecting an additional checkbox to send tweets to Facebook (or vice versa). There’s also Tweet3 for web-based multiple account support, link tracking, and posting to Facebook.

BlackBerry owners can turn to SocialScope, currently in private beta, for simultaneously updating Twitter and Facebook while on the run. When it comes to the iPhone, users can purchase the pricey Tweetion (which didn’t fare so well in our 29 Twitter Apps for the iPhone Compared post) to turn Facebook status updates on and off per tweet.

3. Via Facebook Connect

Facebook Connect offers site developers and website owners an immediate way to let new users log in to their sites using their Facebook accounts. We’ve seen 10 really great implementations, but Twitterers will love how Tweetpo.st takes advantage of Facebook Connect for a variety of Twitter to Facebook goodness.

Tweetpo.st is a doozy of an application for the obsessive Twitterer with an affinity for more meaningful Facebook updates. Once you connect Tweetpo.st with Facebook, you can do the obvious and post your tweets as status updates, but also selectively update, include rich-media links on your wall, convert Twitter names in @replies to real names, and track link performance using awe.sm. Awesome.

4. Just Speak It

There are times when we’d really like to phone in our Twitter and Facebook updates with little to no effort. Vlingo’s mobile application for Nokia, BlackBerry, and iPhone does speech recognition for a variety of functions, but we love it for status updates.

Once your Facebook and Twitter accounts are configured, you can hit the “press + speak” button and say the “status update” command to start verbalizing your update. Vlingo will then transcribe your audio to text and update your status on Facebook and Twitter. We also really like the fact that you can double check the speech to text translation before you update your social presence.

5. Ping Your Page or Profile

Sometimes you want your status update to hit all of your social profiles, not just Twitter and Facebook. So, for mass distribution of your status updates, you can either turn to HelloTxt or Ping.fm.

You can use Ping.fm and HootSuite together to disseminate your tweets everywhere. Plus, there’s also a convenient way for admins to link their Facebook Pages with Ping.fm to seamlessly post updates. HelloTxt works in a similar fashion to Ping.fm and provides a simple way for a single to many status update, and also supports the ability to auto-update Facebook Pages.

The great thing about these services is that they’re starting to get integrated with more and more Twitter applications and desktop clients, so you can have the option to ping Facebook and the rest during the course of your normal Twittering activities.

ARTICLE BY Jennifer Van Grove from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/05/25/twitter-to-facebook/