LookupPage Blog | Professional Web Presence and Visibility

Managing Your Social Media Profiles

Have one too many social media profiles and other site accounts? While social media is vital to your self marketing efforts, this can often be distracting, as you struggle to organise your contact and communication channels. Here are some tips to help you manage them:

1. Many social networks allow you to import contacts from other platforms. This is a handy tool for increasing audiences and an exercise which should be performed regularly to keep your social media contact list growing. 
2. In order to make yourself more visible, credible and approachable, use the same username and image or logo across each of your profiles.
   
3. Try to keep your different social media profiles updated as regularly as possible with the same or similar information. If you have news to release, make sure you do so on all your syndication channels.
   
4. If you’re concerned about security, try to change your passwords regularly or use a unique password for each network to minimise access by impostors.
   
5. Make sure you manage to stay up to date with the popular and newly launched social media sites. Perhaps align yourself next to a competitor and make sure to be present wherever they are.
6. Alternatively, read industry blogs and sign up for RSS feeds about social media websites – this way, you’ll know exactly when another popular online hot spot develops, so you can join up before your competitors beat you to it.

Increase Your Social Media Transparency

So you have a Facebook account, LinkedIn profile and blog or microblog (e.g. Twitter), but are not yet being heard? You may need to improve your credibility, popularity and transparency in order to make a bigger impact on your online presence.

Email Signatures

Make sure to include links to your different websites, blogs and social media profiles in your email signature. This allows people you contact out-of-the-blue to view your social media presence, which may improve your credibility. Find out how to add a LookupPage button to your email signature.

Private Profiles

You’ll notice that on some social media websites (such as Facebook) it’s common practice for people to keep their profiles private, meaning you can only view it and interact with them if you’re a friend – while platforms such as Twitter are generally more open.

A ‘public profile’ will increase your social media transparency, and you’re likely to find that more people are willing to befriend or follow you if they know more about you from the start.

Be Alert

Make sure that you’re listening to your audience and are ready to respond to any questions or comments they might have which are relevant to you or your industry.

Don’t Be A Robot

Personality breeds transparency and if you behave like a robot online - or worse, employ the services of an automated ‘bot’ to send out message or respond to requests  - you’re likely to leave your audience as cold as your messages.

Give your online activities some flair, and never be afraid of showing that you’re a real person – this could be mean signing off by first name in an email, acknowledging a spelling mistake in a prior tweet or releasing the occasional video.

Weekly Tips to Establish Your Online Presence: LinkedIn

As the Internet is such a fluid medium, establishing a strong online presence is an ongoing process – but there are certain social networking sites that are crucial to your success. LinkedIn is one of those, so here’s some more info on how to get ahead. Remember that in combination with a LookupPage profile, this could do wonders for your personal branding efforts.

Profile and Networking

Not only can users find out more about you through your biography, professional history, experience and so on, but like minded professionals can also connect with you on the LinkedIn platform or contact you directly via email or other means.

  

It’s important to get a few things correct if you want to make the right LinkedIn impact:

• Be sure to complete the “interested in” section of your profile which allows the public to know what professional opportunities you are open to (e.g. consultant work vs. permanent employment).
• The contact section even allows you to advise the public on the best manner in which to make contact with you.
• Your colleagues and contemporaries can also recommend you for positions – these can be requested from your friends, making this function especially useful with a growing list of contacts.

Links

Links are a great way for bringing in search engine spiders and human traffic, and can have a direct effect on your search engine ranking. Without enough entry points into your site, your website, social media profile or blog could be left in online isolation, cut off from the rest of the web.

• Be sure to include the links to your many different online destinations, with your most important at the top.
• Link back, and between these sites (look out for the LinkedIn button which can be embedded in your site and take visitors to your LinkedIn profile).

Overall Online Presence

As we’ve already mentioned, search engine visibility is imperative to your online presence and in combination with a LookupPage profile you can easily build your own your Google CV by signing up.

Being listed online is not enough if you want to get ahead and establish an impenetrable online reputation.

• Communicate with your connections, as well as their contacts who are in the same industry.
• Browse the LinkedIn groups directory to find relevant groups to join and communicate with like minded professionals.

Weekly Tips to Establish Your Online Presence: Flickr

Great for hosting images, Flickr can be used as a great multimedia tool to develop your online presence as well as help build your Google Image CV.

Saying much more than a thousand words ever could, a Flickr account allows you to portray your professional or personal character in a manner most fitting with your identity.

Flickr Optimisation Tips

• Here are some tips to help you establish your online presence using Flickr.
  
• Once you have created a bit of a Flickr profile, with relevant links and biography:
• Create your profile: Make yourself visible by keeping your username, profile image and biographies the same, or similar to your other social media sites. List your website, blog and other profiles to generate traffic between them.
• Optimise your photos: If you want to be included in the Google image search results pages, be sure to use the correct keywords when tagging your photos, with your keywords in the title and caption.
• Geo-tag your photos for better relevance: By making reference to your geographical position, you are more likely to rank for local search requests.
• Live photo blogging: Mobile technology allows you to create media-rich content quickly and easily.
• Browse the themes groups: Join groups relevant to you and your images, and interact with others to increase your online presence with Flickr.

Best of the Web: Top Social Media Optimisation Blogs

Social media has changed the face of modern media. Citizens report the news, brands and consumers converse casually and people are connecting more than ever before.

To get ahead in the marketing game – whether personal branding or for a large conglomerate – social media is ultra important to the success of any eMarketing campaign.

Here’s a compilation of noteworthy social media optimisation (SMO) blogs, including some tips to help you get started in your various SMO activities.

Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing Blog: Though not always strictly focussed on social media, Rohit is a great blogger as well as a published author who delivers frequent posts which can be of value to marketing professionals and amateur enthusiasts alike.

“Encourage the mashup - In a world of co-creation, it pays to be more open about letting others use your content (within reason). YouTube's idea of providing code to cut and paste so you can embed videos from their site has fuelled their growth.  Syndicating your content through RSS also makes it easy for others to create mashups that can drive traffic or augment your content.”

Must read post - 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO)

The Social Media Marketing Blog: Head of Ford Motor Company’s social media marketing, Scott Monty and his work are both professional and right in the public’s eye. Head on over to Scott’s blog for more great opinions such as this:

“For me, LinkedIn is my most professional of networks, where I have my work experience and connect with other people on a professional level. On Facebook, it's more of the interaction between meetings, where we're free to share information on a professional and personal level. And on Twitter, it's a free-for-all.”

Must read post - Social Network Shorthand

Sociable Blog: This fantastic collaborative blog features posts on almost any social media and eMarketing topic you can imagine. From software reviews to commentary around emerging social networks as well as extensive tips, tricks and free advice, Sociable Blog is a definite resource for valuable information.

“Stay on top of breaking news: Use social media research to keep up with the important events happening in your niche.”

Must read post - 100 Tips and Tools to Research the Social Web

 

Blogging Bits: Another semi-professional resource, there’s plenty you can learn from this blog as it delivers in-depth industry tips and advice in an easy to digest format. The blog features posts covering a variety of topics in the world of Search, SMO and eMarketing.

“You must have seen, for example, that blogs run by individuals outrank multi-million dollar companies in SERPs, and naturally get more traffic, and can potentially earn more money from the Internet than their rich and influential competitors… there are certain general topics that seem to have a penchant for going viral.”

Must read post - 5 Types Of Linkbaits That Actually Work

Do I need a website to increase my web presence?

What can a website do for your personal branding initiatives? Having a website is a vital step in securing a respectable web presence, but having more than just a website is just as important. A blog and profiles on relevant social media sites are also crucial to your increased web presence. The key to success - using them in conjunction in order to best benefit your web presence goals.

Your Website and Web Presence

Search engines are the agents that refer your website to the relevant parties (i.e. people that are searching for terms relevant to your brand) – so if you do not have a good image in the eye of search engines they won’t display your site on the SERPs or will display them so low down that few searchers will be persistent enough to find your site.

Here are a few tips on improving your website in order for it to have an impact on your web presence:

• Create incoming links on external sites - from your LookupPage profile to your website or blog site and visa versa.
• Keep your keywords as relevant as possible.
• Create new content regularly.

Social Media and Consumer Generated Media

Being active on the relevant social media sites these days is vital to your web presence efforts, as most of the focus is shifted from static websites to dynamic, interactive, consumer-driven ‘hang outs’.

Users looking for information on you or your brand will probably search Facebook or Twitter as well as Google or other search engines. These social media sites aren’t all indexed completely by search engines due to privacy issues, but your profile should be listed in the SERPs. Users looking to make contact might also do so via these social media sites rather than navigating to your website’s contact page to find a traditional email address or telephone number.

Some tips for increasing online visibility using social media:

• Interlink between profiles.
• List your website/profile with directories.
• Make sure you have a relevant biography.
• Look for opportunities to join discussion in social media groups.
  

Blogs and Blogging

Blogging is not only a great tool for increasing your web presence, but also a nifty way to create valuable content to attract readers and also be indexed by search engines. Some people use their blog for their personal branding efforts as it is easier, quicker and cheaper than building and maintaining their own websites. Blog posts written using specific keywords will increase your relevancy and therefore improve your position on the SERPs over time.

Do some research into popular search terms and make sure your content always revolves around what your audience is already looking for.

Some tips for better blogging:

• List your blog on the appropriate blog directories.
• Syndicate each individual post.
• Link between posts and out to your website.
• Link to your blog when commenting on other blogs.
  

Boosting Web Presence with Your LookupPage Profile

By registering for a LookupPage profile you can boost the search results for your name. You can add personal information, a biography, contact details, a profile picture and links to your various websites, blogs and social media profiles. By registering for the LookupPage Pro package you’ll be able to do all of that as well as boost SEO efforts on your name or company’s name. The added benefits you receive as a LookupPage Pro member include:

• Comprehensive visitors' information and analysis.   
• Top Google positioning - guaranteed!   
• Get your personalised domain name (www.yourname.com or similar) – which will do wonders when you’re trying to build your Google CV.
• Display your business info, contact details, logo and link.
• List your business on the Business Lookup. This will help you promote your business by allowing you to add a direct link to your website from an independent source. You will also benefit from relevant traffic to your site as well as better SERPs for your company’s name.

Simple, visible and trackable: a LookupPage profile is the perfect place to start improving your web presence. By combining a LookupPage with a website or blog site, success will come that much quicker.

Ultimately, it’s all about consolidating your online efforts. A website normally forms a major component of that, and it is normally indicative of a sense of professionalism and that one has taken a series of proactive steps to communicate with the market.

Best of the Web: Tips From the Pros

There is a lot of great information available online, and plenty advice for online marketing and personal branding enthusiasts. Social media is one of your most valuable channels and here are some tips from professionals on how to improve your social media presence.

Social Media Tips

• “Ask them questions. Give them answers. Find out what makes them tick. Find out what value you can provide to them. And don’t just do this on a superficial level (occasionally replying to one of your thousands of followers), but really dig in and get to know the people you’re connected to.” -  The Five Pillars of Social Media Optimization

Personality goes a long way when interacting with your audience via a social network, but without offering value, your number of followers is likely to drop.

• “It’s different for everybody. The biggest thing to remember is that people hate to be marketed to. The minute you start marketing to them, they will cut you off.” - 2009 Social Media Optimization: Back to Basics?

Don’t just offer self-serving interactions. Try and approach your audience on a social level, rather than just barking out press releases and sales copy. 

• “Cross-pollinate your friends from one social media service to another. If I tell my Twitter followers I’m on StumbleUpon or Facebook, I will get new followers “crossing over” from one social media service to another.” - Remarkablogger

Integrating your communication channels between networks into a single voice can sometimes be more difficult than it sounds, and force you into a communication medium that might not be the best – rather import your contacts between platforms. 

• “…it can be a little exhausting trying to come up with new, world-shattering ideas every day. So sometimes it’s a good strategy to borrow some ideas from your competition by reading their mind.” - How To Read Your Competition’s Mind Using Social Media (and other tricks)

Make sure you never underestimate your competitor and keep ahead of the pack. Your online presence and web strategies should include and supersede those of your competitors.

Weekly Tips to Establish Your Online Presence: LookupPage

When searching for more information on a particular individual, Google or other search engines will typically display a mix of results. As time has gone by, we’ve started to see social media profiles taking up more and more space in the top search results. Facebook, LinkedIn and LookupPage are three sites which are featured prominently in search results.

Why is having a ‘clean record’ so important? Many employers like to check the Google CV of potential employees before they even step into an interview situation - not to mention the social implications regardless of employment opportunities.

Here are some tips to help you establish your online presence with LookupPage:

• Use the same profile picture or logo already in use on other social networks.

• Interlink between your different profiles and websites.

• Upload your Curriculum Vitae.

• Find your LookupPage friends by importing your contacts from other platforms.

• Invite your friends who are not already on LookupPage.

• With a LookupPage Pro account, you can analyse your traffic and see who has their eye on your profile.

• Submit your profile to the Business Lookup for your particular industry.

Think of personal and business branding sites such as LookupPage as business cards or your interactive résumé – with a little time and a bit of tweaking, you can establish a great online presence and increase your credibility and transparency in one swoop.

Weekly Tips to Establish Your Online Presence: Google Profile

A Google profile can help you increase your online visibility. It allows you to share a bit more about yourself with others and claim your identity in Google’s SERPs. Google intends to make Google profiles one of the top results when someone searches for your name. When used in conjunction with your LookupPage profile, a Google profile could do great things for your web presence.

What are the perks?

Having a Google profile allows you to share your web content on one central location - your profile page. It makes sharing links a breeze and makes it easier for friends to view your other content on the web. You can easily add links to your existing blog, online photo galleries and Google Reader shared items. Your Google profile can also link to your LookupPage profile and any other social media sites you work with: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIN etc.

Why a Google profile?

Like with LookupPage, you hold the reigns. You have explicit control over what other people will see. Unless you have added it yourself, your profile won’t display any private information (or any photos of you taken during the early hours of Sunday morning in that questionable outfit).

How do I make myself visible?

• By enabling your profile to be searched by your name, you will allow people to find you more easily. You can do this in one simple step by setting your existing profile to show your full name publicly. This way, people will be able to access your Google profile by searching your name on a Google search page.
• You also have the option to add your contact information, by sharing this information with family and friends, they will always have the most up-to-date information and you’ll be sure to not miss the next family gathering.
• You also have the option to show your location by adding to “my places” - your current location and places you’ve lived/worked in and schools you’ve attended will be displayed on a map on your profile.
• You can also make it easier for others to find your profile by customising your URL. You can access your profile through the My Account page on Gmail as well as this direct link: http://www.google.com/profiles/me. Your profile is also visible when you create content in certain products such as Google Maps, Reader, Book Search and Knol.

A Google profile is a great addition to your LookupPage profile as you will be able to occupy more listings on the first page of Google when you use both services.

Best of the Web: Competitor Analysis Ideas

Looking to your competitors is a great way to gain understanding into areas for improvement when it comes to marketing yourself online. Whether embarking on a new personal branding campaign or simply tweaking your strategy, take a look at what some of the professionals have to say…

Twitter: In this interesting article by SmoothSpan, he gives a great run down of the history and success of social media, and goes on to cover pointers for Twitter towards understanding your competitors.

• “Knowledge from customers about the customer experience associated with a competitive product, both good and bad.
• Knowledge of who the active Twitterers are in that customer base.
• Knowledge of how others are trying to join and leverage the conversation.
• Knowledge of how the competitor is promoting itself to that audience.”
  

Facebook: Becca Wilson, the President of Sperexx.com covered many topics in a recent talk entitled "Basic Facebook for Multifamily Marketers: Getting Up and Running". The slideshow is available online and it includes pertinent information on the ease of social media and how to create your Facebook strategy from your current target market and competitors – and even how to use Facebook to find employees.

This post by Alec Sounders features snippets of many Facebook related posts, and tips to improve your personal branding.

SEO and Keywords: Ann Smarty from Search Engine Journal shares some ways to find out how your competitors go about their search engine optimisation (SEO) as well as a review of some handy competitor analysis tools.

Ann says that the most important places to look for the keywords your competitor is targeting are in:

• The page title
• Meta description
• The <h> tags
• Alt tags
• Anchor text (both internal and external links)
• Bold and italicised text
• Body copy

Your Competitors’ Online Reputation Management (ORM): Knowing your own online reputation is crucial to success, but keeping an eye on your competitors is also really effective in staying above water.

In this post by Jennifer Laycock on Search Engine Guide, she talks about monitoring your competitors with the intention to swoop in when they receive bad publicity – which is especially effective when they are totally unaware of their own bad publicity. “What I'd like to see is more companies stepping up to the plate with creative marketing when their competitors stumble.

Setup alerts on your competitors names. Take the time to read their reviews at sites like Amazon, epinions, Yahoo Local, Yelp and so on. Find out what consumers don't like about them and address that issue with your own products, services and marketing. When appropriate, contact these unhappy customers and find a creative way to introduce them to your own product.”

We hope that you found these links useful. Happy brand building!

How to Mature Your Online Identity When Necessary

Many of us have been online for quite some time now, but in some cases the internet has matured quicker than our online identities. Social media has allowed us to connect to each other and express ourselves easily, but sometimes we need to think things through if we want to be taken seriously online. Here are some ways to consider maturing your online identity without cutting down on your presence.

Stick to Your Brand Identity

Avoid momentary lapses of reason by sticking to the script. Creating an identity for personal branding can really help strengthen your online presence. By formally standardising everything from your default avatar and copy style guide to brand colours and formatted email signatures, your personal identity will grow and be visible naturally.

Pick Your Channels Carefully

While it might sound tempting to create as many social media profiles as possible to increase your online presence, these sites may not always be an appropriate engagement medium for your needs.
Even if you do create loads of profiles, you’ll soon find you won’t have enough time to remain active in all of your online spaces, so it’s best to stick to your primary channels of communication where messages and response can be well managed.

Social Interaction

Although social media is, well social, always keep personal affairs out of your official correspondence. Diluting your messages with cryptic or inappropriate conversations such as Tweets to friends, private jokes in newsletters or submitting to hostility in blog comments can see your contacts opting out.

Strive for Better Visibility and Transparency

A mature online identity should be easy to find, and create a feeling that the brand is one step ahead and striding. This is much easier for an individual to do than a large corporation.
There’s no telling where a user may navigate to when researching your identity, so make sure to leave a good first impression wherever you can.

Consolidate all your websites, blogs and social media profiles by linking between them and regularly updating the information to maintain an established standard across the board. If you use Facebook more than LinkedIn, it’s still important that you cross-reference all other profiles as you’ve most likely done on your Facebook. Include the same basic information such as a biography and additional contact details.

And most importantly - make sure that you’ve got all the relevant information listed on your LookupPage profile.

10 Link Building Ideas to Improve Your Web Presence

Your web presence depends on your online activity and a great way to allude to relevancy as well as creating entry points into your website or blog is to embark on a link building escapade. Here are some ideas of areas to explore:

1). Geo-locating: Not only a great for search engine specificity, but also a great way to build links for both users and spiders, posting your location in the relevant places can greatly help your cause. Read more about geo-locating.

2). Created embeddable links: Depending on your industry and expertise, a great way to generate links is to create text and image links - or even widgets, games and so on – which users would want to add to their website, blog or social media profile.

3). Recycle locations: Online content is often reproduced around the internet; outside parties republishing articles or referencing your blog posts. Performing searches for your content (quoting the exact text in the search request) often yields surprising results – contact these parties for future syndication.

4). Consult your audience: Your followers already know what they find valuable – so think about what they would find interesting to read and create the appropriate link building content for external publication. Keyword research is a great way to find out what consumers in your industry are looking for without having to ask.

5). Blog comments: A great place for discussion and creating link building opportunities. Try engaging in (worthwhile) conversation, offering your opinion and linking back to your website or blog.

If you need to, create a profile on the blogging platform in question for ongoing use. Use your blog address in the URL space provided and, if available, click the box to have any comments made after yours sent directly to your inbox – this will ensure that you are kept abreast of any new developments or questions that have been asked of you.

6). Exchange links: Whether between your own sites or teaming up with others to link between websites and blogs, reciprocal linking can help increase your web presence with users and search engine spiders. Contact others in your network, and enquire about the possibility of reciprocal linking through blog rolls, posts or social media profiles.

7). Email signatures: Branding yourself in your email formatting can help you spread your complete list of addresses around to your network of contacts. Add a LookupPage button to your email signature and create clickable images or contextual links through to your various social media profiles, RSS feeds etc.

8). Document hyperlinking: In any documents which you share, be it a newsletter, Word document, PDF or spreadsheet; remember to add hyperlinks back to your site and/or profiles. While you may not receive ‘link love’ from the search engines initially, the dynamic text can bring you valuable direct traffic and hopefully even an optimised link, if republished somewhere else online in the future.

9). Room for expansion: Always be on the look out for undiscovered online arenas. By creating new and standardised social media profiles, you can spread your net wider – and if you haven’t already created your own blog, star thinking about it as a great way to create additional content and link building opportunities.

10). Guest posts: Invite your industry peers to join you in a guest blog post campaign and trade optimised posts and promote both via your social media circles.

Bonus Tip - Search Engine Groups: A bonus and often overlooked self promotion tool for link building is the many themed search engine groups online. Joining these discussions and offering valuable information could just be enough to get your content out there.