How to Use Twitter’s New Discover Tab & Twitter Card Features
[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1459404147420{margin-bottom: 40px !important;}”][vc_column offset=”vc_col-lg-9 vc_col-md-9″ css=”.vc_custom_1452702342137{padding-right: 45px !important;}”][stm_post_details][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1471350460469{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”]USING TWITTER CARDS AND DISCOVER TAB
Advanced Twitter Marketing for the Code Lover in You!
Twitter.com introduced the new Discover and Connect tabs back in May, it essentially “socialized” the platform more efficiently by advanced options. The Discover tab allows users to view tweets and stories from their connections in one centralized area while the connect tab shows interactions and mentions of your twitter user name.
Then, in an official blog post published on September 28, Twitter announced it had reworked the Discover tab yet again. According to the post, “When you visit the Discover tab on Twitter.com, you’ll see a continuous stream of tweets, which automatically expand to show you the most relevant stories and most engaging photos.” This gets into the second part of today’s post which deals with Twitter Cards and how to get rich media content into your tweets using HTML code on your website.
The Discover tab is essentially “What’s happening now, tailored for you.” and if you get a handle on Twitter Cards you could be serving up photos, videos and relevant tweets to followers who are generally interested in your posts. This is a major leap forward in Advanced Twitter Marketing so lets dive right in to Twitter Cards:
TWITTER CARDS
How to Post Twitter Cards From Your Website:
If you create a little extra HTML code on your website, Twitter can post your tweets with a media rich content including Titles, Description, Pictures and yes even Video. Even if you are viewing them with a Tablet or a Mobile device the Twitter developers have given us the code to Tweet out amazing content full of pics and vids!
To display Twitter Cards with Media Rich Content in your Tweets add this HTML code to the webpage your tweeting about…
Specify the type of card for your content by adding the following HTML to the HEAD section of your page:
Example
meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1471351926607{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”]These are the different Card Properties you can use in your HTML code, utilizing the Meta name Tag:
Card Property Description
twitter:card The card type, which will be one of “summary”, “photo”, or “player”.
twitter:url Canonical URL of the card content.
twitter:title The title of your content as it should appear in the card.
twitter:description A description of the content in a maximum of 200 characters.
twitter:image A URL to the image representing the content.
Card and Content Attribution (Not Required-Additional)
twitter:site @username for the website used in the card footer.
twitter:site:id Same as twitter:site, but the website’s Twitter user ID instead. Note that user ids never change, while @usernames can be changed by the user
twitter:creator @username for the content creator / author.
twitter:creator:id Same as twitter:creator, but the Twitter user’s ID
Values Accepted for meta name “twitter:card”
summary: The default card, which includes a title, description, thumbnail image, and Twitter account attribution.
photo: A Tweet sized photo card.
player: A Tweet sized video/audio/media player card.
Example of Twitter Card “Summary” Code on Website:
meta name="twitter:card" content="summary" meta name="twitter:site" content="@nytimes" meta name="twitter:creator" content="@SarahMaslinNir" meta name="twitter:url" content="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/arts/music/amid-police-presence-fans-congregate-for-whitney-houstons-funeral-in-newark.html" meta name="twitter:title" content="Parade of Fans for Houston’s Funeral" meta name="twitter:description" content="NEWARK - The guest list and parade of limousines with celebrities emerging from them seemed more suited to a red carpet event in Hollywood or New York than than a gritty stretch of Sussex Avenue near the former site of the James M. Baxter Terrace public housing project here." meta name="twitter:image" content="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/02/19/us/19whitney-span/19whitney-span-articleLarge.jpg"[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1471352339200{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”]If you are using the Twitter Card “Photo” attribute you can have your Photo centered in the middle of the tweet as the focus.
This is the Resulting Twitter Card:
Example of the Twitter Card “Photo” Code on Webstie:
meta name="twitter:card" content="photo" meta name="twitter:site" content="@examplephotosite" meta name="twitter:creator" content="@sippey" meta name="twitter:url" content="http://example.com/photo/a/" meta name="twitter:title" content="Good Morning, San Francisco" meta name="twitter:description" content="Great view this morning" meta name="twitter:image" content="http://example.com/photo/a/image.jpg" meta name="twitter:image:width" content="610" meta name="twitter:image:height" content="610"
This is the Resulting Twitter Card:
Twitter Card (Type:Photo)[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1530883672813{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”]If you are using the Twitter Card “Video” attribute you can have Video embedded right into your tweets…
There are a few more tags that utilized using this Twitter Card option and they are as follows…
twitter:player HTTPS URL to iframe player. This must be a HTTPS URL which does not generate mixed content warnings in a web browser.
twitter:player:width Width of IFRAME specified in twitter:player in pixels
twitter:player:height Height of IFRAME specified in twitter:player in pixels
twitter:image Image to be displayed in place of the player on platforms that don’t support iframes or inline players. You should make this image the same dimensions as your player
(For Mobile & Tablets)
twitter:player:stream URL to raw stream that will be rendered in Twitter’s mobile applications directly. If provided, the stream must be delivered in the MPEG-4 container format (the .mp4 extension). The container can store a mix of audio and video with the following codecs:
Video: H.264, Baseline Profile (BP), Level 3.0, up to 640 x 480 at 30 fps.
Audio: AAC, Low Complexity Profile (LC)
twitter:player:stream:content_type The MIME type/subtype combination that describes the content contained in twitter:player:stream. Takes the form specified in RFC 6381. Currently supported content_type values are those defined in RFC 4337 (MIME Type Registration for MP4).
Example of a simple “Video” Twitter Card, here is the Code for Website:
meta name="twitter:card" content="player" meta name="twitter:site" content="@examplevideosite" meta name="twitter:url" content="http://example.com/watch/a" meta name="twitter:title" content="Example Video" meta name="twitter:description" content="This is a sample video from example.com" meta name="twitter:image" content="http://example.com/keyframe/a.jpg" meta name="twitter:player" content="https://example.com/embed/a" meta name="twitter:player:width" content="435" meta name="twitter:player:height" content="251"
This is the Resulting Twitter Card:
Twitter Card (Type:Video)
Example of a “Video” Twitter Card also providing a URL to a raw stream to be rendered in Twitter’s mobile and tablet applications
meta name="twitter:card" content="player" meta name="twitter:site" content="@foobar" meta name="twitter:url" content="http://example.com/watch/a" meta name="twitter:title" content="Example Video" meta name="twitter:description" content="This is a sample video from example.com" meta name="twitter:image" content="http://example.com/keyframe/a.jpg" meta name="twitter:player" content="https://example.com/embed/a" meta name="twitter:player:width" content="435" meta name="twitter:player:height" content="251" meta name="twitter:player:stream" content="https://example.com/raw-stream/a.mp4" meta name="twitter:player:stream:content_type" content="video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E1, mpa.40.2""
This is the Resulting Twitter Card:
Final Notes & Further Reading:
Was this information helpful to your internet marketing efforts?
Twitter Card (Type: Video Viewed on Tablet or Mobile)
Remember Twitter bot needs to access these files so you would have to configure your robots.txt file to allow for twitterbot to check your code:
Example of Robots.txt
User-agent: Twitterbot
Allow: *
If you want to restrict certian areas you can use this code (this will only allow twitterbot to crawl the images and archives folder)
User-agent: Twitterbot
Disallow: *
Allow: /images
Allow: /archives
Further Reading:
Twitter Cards Development for Web
Twitter Card Preview Tool[/vc_column_text][stm_post_bottom][stm_post_about_author][stm_post_comments][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][stm_sidebar sidebar=”527″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Top 5 Free Keyword Research Tools
[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1459404147420{margin-bottom: 40px !important;}”][vc_column offset=”vc_col-lg-9 vc_col-md-9″ css=”.vc_custom_1452702342137{padding-right: 45px !important;}”][stm_post_details][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1471349689158{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”]SEO Keyword research is the first task every website owner should undertake, although it can seem painstaking and absorbing valuable time. However, proper keyword selection and spending time researching the most profitable keywords can not only get you better ranking and conversions, but ultimately make the difference in overall success. Make sure you allocate enough time to this valuable task or use a reputable keyword research service provider to do it for you.A collection of Top 5 Free Keyword Tools for Your keyword competition analysis and Market Research
1. Google Adwords Keyword Tool:
The most popular free keyword research tool from Google, which is constantly upgraded and is a good competitor for paid keyword research tools like WorkTracker.
Google Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS
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2. Seogadget Excel plugin and AdWords API tool:
SEOgadget has a great tool for keyword research and which works with MS Excel making your life easier and organized.
https://seogadget.co.uk/google-adwords-plugin-excel[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
3. Google Suggest Keyword Scraper:
Ubersuggest is a keyword suggest or scraper tool. Just give the root keyword, example “best shoes” and select the country to target and it lists out all the keyword suggest ideas for the root keyword, it is like automating your manual keyword collection using Google.
Uber Suggest Keyword Research
http://ubersuggest.org/[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
4. Google Trends- Trending keywords from Google:
Very popular trending keyword tool from Google. You will know the latest trending keywords and if you are a trend blogger, it will help your drive search engine traffic back to your posts.
Google Trends SEO Research
http://www.google.com/trends[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
5. Touchgraph SEO Maping for keywords:
This not so popular keyword tool that I use which acts very much like the now removed, Google Wonderwheel. It serves as a great replacement and maps out both keywords and companies and can show you how they are visually related. I usual use this tool as a good measure of a companies digital footprint as well as keyword research.
SEO Digital Footprint
http://www.touchgraph.com/seo[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
BONUS! Hide My Ass Web Proxy:
If you are doing international keyword research and you need to view SERP’s from different areas you can use a web proxy service like Hide my Ass! to allow you computer’s IP address to seem local to other places like the UK. At the starting screen just enter the search engine you would like to search from… Example for the UK you would type “google.co.uk”
Web Proxy Service
Get into contact with SEO Bank for a Free SEO Consultation any time by contacting us today.[/vc_column_text][stm_post_bottom][stm_post_about_author][stm_post_comments][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][stm_sidebar sidebar=”527″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Increase your Facebook Likes
[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1459404147420{margin-bottom: 40px !important;}”][vc_column offset=”vc_col-lg-9 vc_col-md-9″ css=”.vc_custom_1452702342137{padding-right: 45px !important;}”][stm_post_details][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1471348715430{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”]GET FACEBOOK LIKES FOR YOUR BUSINESS PAGE
How to get More Facebook Likes
With the new Facebook Timeline pages, business have ample landscape to dramatically market any themselves or brand. But what about likes? Everyone loves being popular and these signals tell others that you are a brand to believe in. In the early days you could simply suggest a company page to a couple of hundred friends and they’d all become a fan just out of interest. Now most clients and consumers expect a little something for that like and Facebook has stricter rules on sharing and messaging for brand pages.
I am going to share with you some simple but effective ways to get Facebook likes, some paid and some free strategies that we implement here for our clients. It’s vitally important that you have a plan for what you are going to do, set some goals on acquisition and what you plan to do with your likes and new friends after you receive them. Remember, Facebook its not just a tool to sell products, it is really about “being social” a give and take. I can’t stress that enough. Now lets jump into some tips…
1) Install Both Facebook Like & FB Chicklets to Your WebsiteThis is probably the single most effective thing that you could possibly do. The chances are that your website or blog already gets a decent amount of traffic and if people are on your site and like what they see there is a very good chance that they will indeed like you on Facebook, visit and post to your page. You can use this simple plugin if you are running WordPress to install the like and comments boxes for Facebook.
2) Modify Your Email Signature to Include Social MediaAlways include all of your social media accounts in your email signature. If your social media icons are there people will click through to your social media accounts almost automatically to make sure that they are connected with your social as well. People enjoy sharing their Facebook and Twitter accounts and will be sure to Friend you online if they see that you are engaged in Social media as well. In fact a company called Gist.com made a complete Social CRM just to keep track of all your business peeps online.
3) Sync up those Social ProfilesTry and Enable sharing between social media accounts when ever possible, to ensure that users from other social media sites know you are on Facebook as well. Sending information back and forth from Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook will not only show your active but it will let people know you are on those other accounts as well. If you have a wee bit of tech knowledge in your back pocket you can try out one of my favorite tools for social triggers called iffft.com
4) Utilize A Social Sharing NetworkWhat about a social sharing site for social media? WHATT!?!! yup, they exist. Websites like keeko.com and socialadr.com are places where people share their own social networks to gain shares, likes and even bookmark webpages. This is a great time for social media account owners. These systems work off points and the more sharing and liking you do the more your page gets shared and liked. Make Sense?
5) Facebook Fan GateSetting up a Facebook fan gate is the best way to ensure new likes. A Fan gate only allows users who have “Liked” the page to view the content and setting up a fan gate as a landing page is a great way to get likes. As stated above this way of receiving likes, should offer something of value in return to the fan in the way of a coupon, a whitepaper, chance to win, ect. I utilize an app called woobox.com to run contests and they have free trials and apps available.
6) Add Other Admins to the PageIf you have any friend with the gift of gab who happens to have a lot of friends on Facebook, you can invite them to be Admin of your business page. I work with a lot of business owners who allow me access to their pages and I have a network of friends that I can utilize online for new clients. These can really help the number of likes when your just getting started. Don’t be afraid to straight up ask others to come by and like your page, everyone starts at the same number.
7) Use of the Invite ButtonOnce you have those Admins on your Facebook Page, have them log in and make use of the Invite button. This will all your admins to invite all of their contact friends list into your fan page. This is really the only way to sync up your personal pages with a branded company fan page. You will see the invite function when you are logged in as an admin at the bottom right hand square under the title “Page Tips” you can scroll through multiple suggestions until you see the invite buttons with your current friends list.
8) Facebook Vanity URLThe Facebook Vanity URL allows Facebook pages to use a user name instead of a long user ID number which is impossible to remember. You can find this setting in Facebook under > Edit Page > Manage Permissions > Resources > Select A Username. Once you have this URL, “www.facebook.com/username” you can easily market your new URL any place your website URL is, even
9) Buy Em
Well Heck your totally stuck and you got tons of money to spend. I jest, but if you just don’t have the time to market yourself and nothing is working you can just flat out buy the likes. I don;t recommend this practice too highly because of two reasons, A) they are not relevant to you and your company B) they appear out of nowhere and eveyone knows it. I don’t really have a source for this but if you Google, “Buy Facebook Likes” I am sure loads of results will come up willing to take cash for likes.
10) Run A Facebook Ad
I think if you are going to spend any money at all, why not buy an ad that goes directly to your fan page for exposure that is not only relevant but supper targeted. Facebook has an amazing platform for PPC and every demographic and category with in their ad placement system. Your ideal client is just one ad away from landing on your Facebook page. I have run both Google adWords and Facebook for my clients and I must say that Facebook is relatively cheap to market with that has extreme targeting capabilities for finding your prospects online. You can get started here with an ad on Facebook or give us a call to consult with us, we have Facebook Marketing Credits available.[/vc_column_text][stm_post_bottom][stm_post_about_author][stm_post_comments][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][stm_sidebar sidebar=”527″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
12 Interior LinkBuilding Factors
[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1459404147420{margin-bottom: 40px !important;}”][vc_column offset=”vc_col-lg-9 vc_col-md-9″ css=”.vc_custom_1452702342137{padding-right: 45px !important;}”][stm_post_details][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1471348355937{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”]UNDERSTANDING INTERIOR LINKING 101
On-page Linking Factors For Crosslinks
Creating a new website and marketing it online can take up serious time. To tackle a large online marketing campaign it is wise to break it down into scheduled tasks and timeline your goals and milestones.
When creating a new project here at SEObank.ca we have departments for each scheduled task and usually break things up into three categories…
- On Page Optimization
- Interior Linkbuilding
- Off Page Backlinking
Creating interior linking will not only help your users find relative data but it will tell Google what your website content is about. SEO experts will create interior crosslinking profiles for link sculpting and proper website architecture. These play and integral part of online marketing, here we will cover some basics of interior linking. Website architecture is beyond what we can discuss here in this short post but you should have a look at this article to learn more about successful site architecture for SEO by SEOmoz.
12 Interior LinkBuilding Factors to Consider
- Link embedded within relevant content that discusses link target
- Title, headers, and content focus on one page topic / keyword
- Relevant text surrounding the link
- Does the page rank for its title?
- The anchor text of the link
- Page linked from other external websites?
- Proximity of the page to the root location
- Location of the link (on the page)
- Page Content (topic, amount, time created, ect)
- Pagerank
- Excessive advertising
- Duplicate content?
Key thoughts regarding interior linking and crosslinking
On page linkbuilding or crosslinking is a vital part to the overall linkbuilding process of any online marketing campaign. As with anything in SEO everything is a process of analyzing and refinement. Choose to create crosslinks on pages that are already ranking well in the Search Engines and pay special attention to relevance and anchor text. On page criteria is a key part of the overall linkbuilding process.
[/vc_column_text][stm_post_bottom][stm_post_about_author][stm_post_comments][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_hidden-sm vc_hidden-xs”][stm_sidebar sidebar=”527″][/vc_column][/vc_row]Google Panda Update
[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1459404147420{margin-bottom: 40px !important;}”][vc_column offset=”vc_col-lg-9 vc_col-md-9″ css=”.vc_custom_1452702342137{padding-right: 45px !important;}”][stm_post_details][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1471427525520{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”]GOOGLE ALGORITHM CHANGES WITH PANDA
And Quick Review of What to Do about it!
A common question we get at SEO Bank, about the recent Google Panda Algorithm is, “Do Keywords Still Matter?” and “Is SEO Dead?” with all of recent updates to Google’s Algorithm (Read More about Panda and Penguin Google Updates) its hard to get a straight answer. Although these sound more like cute animals or Disney’s latest Hollywood Release, they can seriously affect your website rank and sales.
Google Panda Search Engine Changes
So instead of more mis-information here is some advice you can bank on. Is SEO dead? NO! of course not as long as we have search engines like Google and Bing we have search engine results (SERP’s) and therefore SEO.
Do Keywords Still matter? sure, just not inside of a meta tag and have them occurring naturally across your page. We will talk more about on page SEO factors in a second and more importantly keyword relevance, but for now lets look at what the last Google Updates mean.
Matt Cutts (Google Engineer) offers webmaster and business owners alike straight information on what the last Google Panda Changes were about and direct from Google’s Webmaster Blog. The rules are as follows…
Google Panda Changes
keyword stuffing
Proper keyword research (Use Relevancy – Not Industry Jargon)
Site Speed and Load Times
White Hat SEO Only
No Link Schemes
No Unnatural Links
Usability and Layout
Great Natural Flowing Content
Fresh New Content
Google even Offers a great set of rules on Website Quality Guidelines for anyone online. For the most part you do not have to read all of this material just use common sense and stay away from scheme’s, black hat SEO, keyword stuffing and you should have a long profitable life online.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1452700243026{margin-bottom: 39px !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
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