Enter The Net

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This workshop will cover the basics of how to effectively use Facebook for your business.  This hands-on session covers numerous techniques so participants can actively try out the skills learned in this class.  This workshop can take place in various locations for diverse groups.  Recently, Rob taught this workshop at the North Clackamas Chamber of Commerce.

Incoming links are one of the most important factors in improving organic search engine results.

An incoming link, which is simply any link from another site TO your site, does two things to make the search engines happy:

1. It provides a pathway by which the search engines can find your site. Incoming links are critically important to a new website becaise they will determine whether or not the search engines are even aware the new site exists.
2. Search engines use incoming links as a measure of your site’s popularity. The logic here is that a webmaster must think highly of your site in order to put a link on his or her site – so you must be loved! Search engines count the quantity and quality of your incoming links.

The best thing you can do is anything you can to get more incoming links.

One way you can do this is to participate in a LINK EXCHANGE. This is a proven way to get quality incoming links and it highlights the cooperative nature of the Web. However, it requires that all participants be able to update their link exchange pages frequently. This is not always possible because many people lack the access or skills to update their sites.

A great way that ANYONE can get incoming links is to leave comments on other blogs. If the blog’s comment form has a field for the website, it will almost certainly include a link to your site in the comment.

Here is how to do this, step-by-step:

• Find blogs where you might be interested in leaving comments. I just recommend doing Google searches. Many times, if you simply include the word “blog” in a search for a topic that interests you – or is related to your business – you will get some great possibilities. For example, if I am a cosmetic dentist in Portland, I may want to try a search for “teeth whitening blog.” Sounds fun, huh? I should also do a search for “Portland Oregon blog,” too because that is WHERE I do business. I hope you get the idea.

• Look to see if the blog accepts comments and if it has a Website Field in the comment form. Click on any of the articles (or posts) in the blog and scroll to the bottom. If it accepts comments, you will see a form similar to the one in the figure below. Be sure it has a Website Field, like the one in the figure below.

• Read an article on the blog, come up with a thoughtful response, then fill out the form with your comment. Be sure you write a logical comment that “brings something to the table.” In almost every case, the author of the blog will have the power to approve your comment or not. Most bloggers are happy to have a conversation take place on on their blogs, but they are very sensitive to people who are clearing just writing something to get the link. This is, in fact, what loads and loads of spammers do.

After your comment goes into moderation, it will wait until the author approves it or not. Typically, you do not get a notification when this happens, so you may need to bookmark the article and check back.

When your comment is approved, whatever you filled out in the Name field, typically becomes the anchor text of the link. In the figure below, the word “Rob” forms the link to the website.

You are welcome to leave comments on THIS VERY ARTICLE as a way of practice. Here are some other links:

[Link to the article used in the screen shots above.]

[Link to another article on this site that has some good comments, with clever use of the anchor text.]

Thanks!

How to invite someone to join Facebook (and be your friend.)

Go to Profile.

One of the links under your picture on the left side will be “Friends.” Click it.

This will bring up  list of all of your friends. In the upper right there is a button that says “Edit Friends.” Click it.

The left side will have your friends lists. Beneath that, there is a link that says “Invite Friends.” Click it.

On the next screen, fill out the email address(es) and the message you want to include and then click the “Invite” button.