SEO, SEM, PPC, SMM Consultant

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Mon Oct 31

Archive.org’s Wayback Machine - 5 Great Use of it in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Recently, I’ve blogged about 5 Great Reasons Why Archive.org’s Wayback Machine is a Great SEO Tool in Blueliner Marketing blog.

5 Great Reasons Why Archive.org

Here are the higlights of the article:

You can use Archive.org’s Wayback Machine for SEO Diagnosis with WinMerge. The Wayback Machine gives you the historial site codes and WinMerge allows to to see the changes in codes.
Old links are good for SEO. If you want to age your current links, then the best place to find them is in the Wayback Machine.
If you want to troubleshoot all time links that are broken, you can use the Wayback Machine and Xenu’s Link Sleuth software to find them and then take measures for improving Usability as well as SEO.
Unique contents are the new King now. But, have you thought that you have created unique content earlier, and it is now residing in the Wayback Machine repository? Use them freely for inbound link building for your site. Use them as soon as possible, before the scrappers do.
For claiming copyright for your contents, you need a good evidence and the pages indexed in the Wayback Machine can ensure you exactly that.

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Wed Oct 19

301 Permanent Redirects for Old and Broken Links - SEO Strategy that Most Forget

Sites evolve a lot after it has been created. Even if the contents and themes are same for the site, they throw away the old bottle and take on a new bottle. But, with the old bottle, sometime the webmasters don’t know that they are throwing away precious old wine of the link juice. Even, many SEO experts and webmasters forget what they are throwing away and go for short-term solutions.

Not all sites goes for CMS at first. The common evolution pattern is from Plain HTML site to Animated Flash site and then to Content Management System (CMS) site. For some sites, the evolution pattern can be quite complex. Each time while changing, most site owners and webmasters rarely bother about redirecting old links to the right and very relevant link or page. While doing that, they are harming the visitors, hence their business potential, and also the search engines.

SEO Perspective on 301 Permanent Redirects for Old Broken Links

301 Permanent Redirects and SEO Value Transfer

301 Permanent Redirects transfers almost all the SEO value of a site including: PageRank, Authority, Anchor Text and Relevance, etc. Since, Google rolled out the advice to use 301 redirects, there was a debate whether 301 permanent redirectlso transfer the relevance score in SEO. Matt Cutts in the following video has confirmed that Anchor Text does flow-through when you use 301 Permanent Redirects. Which does indicate that content or keyword relevance also passes through.

So, if a site has high PR inbound link to a page that is not on site or lands on 404 page, then the link juice and authority will be spilled and spoiled. Because, the Anchor Text and Relevance of the inbound Link page aka keyword stream flowing the link juice may not land on page that has that relevant keyword. And since the Google Bomb Update, incoming anchor texts coming to a page that does not have the keyword, has very little or no probability to rank well in Google.

301 permanent redirect does transfer SEO values to the landing page from the moved page. However, over time, Google also confirmed that 301 Permanent Redirect does not flow 100% link juice to your site. in March 2010, Matt Cutts of Google confirmed that Google does not transfer 100% of the SEO value. More story here: Google Confirms: 301 Redirects Result in PageRank Loss!

However, in my experience, we have not seen much harm in the redirect of links within same site to redirect old and broken links. So within a site, the relevance will flow perfectly. Moreover, it’s not just about SEO. Sometimes, many people bookmark you page and would want to come back to your site. So, in terms of usability, you loose potential future visitor who already has attained information about you.

But, does 301 Redirects Transfer Age?

The question whether 301 Permanent Redirects transfer age of the domain or page is a debated issue. But, there is absolutely no harm in 301 redirecting your old links to the relevant new links (with the same keyword). If your old link on the site is broken, then you are bleeding the precious link juice out of your site :-o

It is evident that to permanent redirect of old links using 301 Permanent Redirects to the relevant page in your existing site and new domain is one of the best practices in SEO. Because, many inbound links may be out there that are linking to your specific page using specific anchor text that is passing relevance to your site, not just Page Rank. So to feed both the visitors and search engines with exactly relevant information (not a 404 page), 301 permanent redirect is the best thing you can do.

WHAT TO DO THEN?

Now that you know redirecting the old links and broken links to relevant page is very important in terms of SEO. What should you do now?

Find Old Links and Anchor Texts

First you have to find the old links withing your site to transfer the relevance graph to the new site structure. If you were the site owner, you may know that after a hard guessing. But, if it is the site of your client, then any guess work will not work. The best way to find the old links on your site is Archive.org.

From Archive.org, you have to collect links from all available chronological versions of the site. You can use HTTack Website Copier to locally cache and create a list of URLs on the old version of the site. You also need to store the Anchor Texts used for the link, so that you can find relevant current page to redirect to.

Find Inbound Links to Your Site

If you don’t care about what others have bookmarked, and only want to concentrate on SEO value. Then you need to collect all the inbound link statistics along with the anchor texts. But, sometimes anchor texts does not say relevant content on the page that links to you. In that case, you need to collect specific keyword for the respective inbound link, so that you can find the relevant page or URL on the current site.

Identify Broken Links

Once you collect all the old links, you have to verify if the link is broken. Xenu’s Link Sleuth can help you in automatically identify broken links from a link list in txt file. However, while working 404 pages, you will get wrong results. Because, when you have active 404 page, Xenu will show 200 OK Status. So, it would be wise to turn off the 404 pages for the time being. However, there are many software that can help you identify broken links.

Identify the Relevant Current Page

Once you have the list of old and broken links, Google the keyword in the braces: [“Anchor Text of the Broken Link” site:mysite.com]. The first result you see other than the homepage in Google search, is the most relevant current page in the eye of Google. Create the link graph using excel sheet or any file format you prefer. Once you get the relevant current page, then you are ready to redirect.

301 Permanent Redirect Using .htaccess

For 301 permanent redirects, you need to manipulate the .htaccess file in your root folder of your site. Tony Spencer over SEOBook.com provides a good article on how you can do it, once you have the list of old links and the corresponding new links.

Prepare for the Future

So the next time you plan to upgrade your site, it is wise to have a back up of your current link structure along with the old ones. So, when your site takes on new links, you can easily create 301 permanent redirect for the current links to the relevant future site.

The 301 Twist

Some SEOs believe that old links are stronger in getting ranks than newer links, if the content freshness is periodically maintained. So, you can switch the previous method and use the old link as the current link and permanently (301) redirect the current link to the old link.

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Wed Sep 7

LinkedIn Wishlist - Part I: User Generated Search Tags to Create Narrow Searching, Keyword Channels for Profiles, & Virtual Directory of Interest Groups

This post is actually posted in February 04, 2008. Reposting the article here as a reference for my new upcoming article: LinkedIn Wishlist - Part II: LinkedIn Profile and Page Features.

Dear LinkedIn,

Being an open networker, I always try to help my connection by forwarding relevant news, articles, resources, etc. in my network. To do so, I forward mails to the appropriate members in my network by searching them and adding them one by one.

But, I think Other Filtering Option should be used to make the forwarding mails more useful by sending them to appropriate people. Currently, you can only filter by location and industry. But, there are many custom searches we can make in our contacts and group them as per our need.

Therefore, I would like to suggest User Generated Search Tags. Search Tag is similar to Blog Tags and Interest Group Tags in Blogger Profile. However this can be used to tag people with appropriate keywords. XING is already using this type of tags. You can actually use this tag for various purposes:

Search Tags for Narrow Searching

Use the tags for creating narrow search of LinkedIn connection. You can provide the tag option as narrow search for forwarding any mail. To create the tags, the users will do a people search and tick/check the appropriate people and write a tag for them. e.g. If someone searches for “SAP Developers” in people search, he will be able to choose by clicking on the check box on the basis of his judgment on the summary and then grossly mark the checked profiles with a generic tag, like “SAP Developers”. And when s/he wants to send mails to people within this search tag, s/he will be able to send it by choosing the tags defined by the user. Again, if anyone joins the network with similar People Search Attribute, then s/he will be automatically tagged.

Profile Tags for Keyword Channeling

You can use this User Generated Search Tags like XING, i.e. show it in their public profile. This will also automatically create Keyword Channels for the Profiles. This will enhance the Search Engine Rankings for each profile, since Google & other Search Engines like Keyword Channels (or simply Anchor Texts). You can also use Tag Cloud Option to show most popular tags in bold and least popular tags in plain text. I believe that Tags from people will actually represent what people are saying about you. And this will also allow members to top the Rank in People Search and establish them to stay ahead of the industry or Keyword Channel. If anyone is ranked 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd for the Profile Keyword Tag, then he can be rewarded with a badge. I believe that this will encourage people to promote their profile instead of their personal sites.

Tags for Virtual Directory of Interest Groups

If the tags are clickable tags, then you can virtually have Directories of Professionals channeled with Keyword Tags. Besides groups in LinkedIn, this will also create Virtual Interest Groups within LinkedIn, rather than an actual group. These tags can be further utilized for User Profile-based PPC Campaign like Facebook.

Update: This tags are more like the Google Plus Friend Circles that allows you to send updates to a specific types of people. When some one sends a Job notification for SEO Manager, it is pretty hard to find the right people and forward them the notification. If tags could be created through search, then people could have sent relevant message to the right people.

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Fri Aug 12

Should SEO and PPC Marry Each Other, Date or Just Stay Single?

SEO or Organic Search Marketing and PPC or Paid Search Marketing/Advertisement, both have same goal to get your site found through keyword search in varios search engines. So, is the goal so common that they should get married? Or should SEO and PPC date, or just stay single?

Should SEO and PPC Marry Each Other, Date or Just Stay Single?

What if SEO and PPC Get Married?

Let’s define marriage first:

Marriage is about mutual understanding and about the economy of utilizing the limited combined resources in an efficient way for better life, if not, better future.

Well, that’s not a perfect one, but in Economics, it should sound like that. If I translate that for corporate language than it would be this:

Mutual Understanding between SEO & PPC

If SEO and PPC are operating differently, then they are learning in different ways. This can mean doing the same homework over and over again. Not doing the homework separately is very healthy for the economy. That’s why we see the giant companies acquiring (or marrying) the small companies. So that, the homework is not done again in the same economy. Even though, the giants have the setup to do it all over again. But, that’s bad for the industry. You are increasing the competition without adding any value to the economy.

So, whoever the husband between SEO or PPC is, both of their understanding can help each other greatly. PPC can use the learning from SEO and vice versa to reduce marketing cost and increase ROI. Isn’t that what the companies and advertisers are looking for? With mutual understanding, they can mutually reduce their homework and add value to the economy.

Utilizing Combined Resources

Before marriage, you probably have been using a small blender for milk shake that served your single user need. But, after marriage you can afford a better blender, which costs less than 2 blenders alone. i.e. you can also cut the capital investment and cost if you have SEO and PPC together. Moreover, they also can interchange their duties to perform other important tasks for the growth of your business.

Utilizing Limited Resources

You definitely have a budget for your marketing, from which you can’t go beyond. So, you should economize on getting more sales with less money. Since you are in fixed budget for SEO, you can cutout the variable budget for PPC, when you have competitive advantage in organic results for a specific keyword. So, for PPC you can only explore the markets, where you don’t have competitive advantage on. That’s should make the great use of your limited budget. So, managing these in separate units would mean extra cost for you, since there wouldn’t be any synchronization between these two units.

Utilizing Resources in an Efficient Way

When you have total understanding of your Search Marketing, you can have the flexibility to implement your strategy and set the players in the field. Thereby, you can play a good and strategic game utilizing every resource efficiently. Moreover, you can also reduce waste or spillover, which is a major factor in reducing cost and maximizing profit.

Enjoying a Better Life

Companies can gain greater ROI from the marriage and the management can also get all the information for their strategy from one source. So, that’ll make life easier and comfortable. It is obvious that combined SEO and PPC saves money for you. In return, you get greater ROI.

For a Better Future

In harsh situations, when comfortable life can’t be ensured, marriages are made in the intention to have better future. Investments are also like marriages craving for better future. Getting the reward right away isn’t possible. Combined investment in SEO and PPC can mean quicker break even. Moreover, as resources are utilized efficiently, the chance of having better life is quicker than having them separated.

What are alternatives if they can’t marry each other?

Date Each Other?

Now, if it happens that SEO and PPC can’t marry, then they can go out on dates from time to time to share things together. Even if they are separate, they should share each other’s learning from time to time by synchronizing each other and go toward a mutual understanding.

That way, some cost for advertising and marketing can be reduced by removing ad spending away from PPC, when SEO has organically reached its goal for a specific keyword. However, it can be more time consuming if you are to synchronize learning within these units.

Be Neighbors?

If they don’t synchronize, then the best way to learn from each other is by staying in the same premises and experiencing social and corporate activities together. That also can expand their learning. This can also mean hiring same internet marketing agency with separate units running campaigns with separate PMs.

What happens if SEO and PPC are Single?

SEO and PPC in the isolated island may mean loss in terms of the many benefits I mentioned above. But, not always their marriage is necessary. Their marriage can encourage cost reduction. But sometimes for the sake of online branding and converting visitors into sales takes more than just strict control of organic search marketing and paid search advertisement.

In the sales funnel, from visitors to sales, the communication and information feeding should be made several times before the purchase. So, limiting your doorways for the visitors to your business can harm you, if you are planning to sale big.

In case of online sales funnel, remember that:

Not all search engine visitors are your customers,
All those that find you when searching may not be your customer,
All the people that return to your site, doesn’t mean that they will make an inquiry,
All the people that makes an inquiry about your product or services, doesn’t mean that they will purchase your product.

So, in all stages of the sales funnel, there should be multiple ways for the visitor to get information about your company or product. If you have done SEO and simultaneously running PPC for content network (AdWords for AdSense), the chances are, when the visitor is reading something related, s/he might come back to your site.

Otherwise, after going a long way, the visitor might buy from the last good outlet s/he could remember, even though you were in top of the search (SEO efficient) when s/he found you earlier.

This happens to us always, when we go to a special product mall. Everyone visits the front stalls, but you happen to buy from a stall inside the mall. There is almost no extra competitive advantage for being the front stall (SEO effecient), when you have product that visitors always move around to find a good bargain. Getting these temporarily lost customers back to your site for sale is called retargeting. So, for retargeting, you need to be more liberal on SEO and PPC.

Another fact is, the objectives of SEO and PPC is not same. Most of the time PPC concetrates on Conversion and SEO on Branding & Reputation Building. I said “most of the time”, not “always”. e.g. Most popular keywords may not convert well and will mean unnecessary PPC spending on visitors that are not in action mode to purchase. But, popular keywords are good for Branding and Branding is one of the major targets for SEO. This difference in objectives is a good reason to stay in separate units.

Confused about marriage of SEO & PPC?

Well, if you have a product that visitors doesn’t care much about going for a good burgain (usually for cheaper products), having SEO and minor PPC dating is sufficient. If you are a small company, then having SEO and PPC get married would be a right choice. If you want to sell big, then SEO and PPC should stay single.

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Tue May 24

Is SEO Expenditure an Expense or Asset? Or Does SEO Cost influence Profitability?

Your website is your intellectual real estate. Even though, you bear annual variable cost of maintaining the site, the cost never can be labeled as expense. After finishing your site, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) to market your site, are they expense or adding value to your website? Let’s start with some definition:

Expense in terms of asset: The portion of the asset given away as variable cost for specific utility that has no reusability and to get the same utility, you have to pay again. e.g. advertising cost.

Asset in terms of expenditure: The expenditure invested as fixed cost for specific utility that has reusability. So with the investment, you get the same utility for a certain period of time. Please note that all assets are perishable, except for real estates. e.g. your computer is an asset not expenditure, but if you rent it, then it is expense.

Is SEO Expenditure an Expense or Asset? Or Does SEO Cost influence Profitability?

The accounting formula

Asset = Liability + Equity

i.e. Equity = Asset - Liability

In another analogy, Profitability = Capital – Expense

According to this formula, you can get more profit by decreasing expenditure or increasing capital. So, the more you add value to Capital, the more the profitability, even if you have to spend some expense to increase it. e.g. when you buy an asset, it does not get accounted into expense, rather into Asset or Capital.

Now, in terms of gaining profitability, how should the expenditure on SEO be labeled? As “Capital” or “Expense”? If it is a Capital Investment, then it will increase profitability, otherwise if expense, it will decrease your profitability.

Now, investment in SEO an expense or asset?

In cost type analogy Profit = Fixed Asset - Variable Expense

Remember that cost on capital is fixed in nature, but expense can be variable. In that sense, PPC is an expenditure for your marketing. It is instantly perishable and each time you have to buy advertisement to get customers to your site. PPC is also a variable cost. So, this affects the expense, not the asset.

But, SEO is not like that. Because, it is not intended for short term marketing. SEO has reusability and brings you customers even after the SEO is finished. SEO expenditure has no attribute to be labeled as variable cost. Once you have done SEO on your site, you have added more value to your site, which in turn can have resale value. It’s not just $10 site anymore (the dollar amount you used for purchasing the domain).

So, SEO expense is a capital expenditure which increases your asset and should never be treated as expense that makes your site a marketing machine.

Does SEO Cost influence Profitability?

We have tried to convince some customers that SEO doesn’t affect your profitability. Because, it becomes your asset. And asset is not expenditure that would negatively influence your profitability. The perishable behavior of SEO, may make it seem like expense. But, all assets are perishable. And we own a lot of short timed assets. So, if SEO expenditure is an asset, then you are increasing investment, not giving away money.

Can Advertising Convert into Asset?

Goodwill is something that has economic value. So, it is an asset. And achieving this involves much cost on marketing and advertising. Without marketing and advertising good will never can be achieved. If you consider long term affects, then advertising can also be converted into assets.

So, the next time you spend money on SEO and advertisement (for good will) in an effective way, don’t worry about the profitability of your company, brand or site.

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Wed Mar 9

SEO Click-through Rate (CTR) Influence Ranking in Google, What to do now?

Which CTR Counts in SEO?

Click-through Rate or CTR is a popular term for PPC. But, here we are talking about SEO CTR, not the CTR related to PPC. And yes, SEO CTR now counts and has been confirmed by many experts that it does influence Google Rankings. In SES 2011 @ London many experts has confirmed that it does influence your ranking.

What is Clickthrough Rate (CTR)?

CTR = Number of Clicks / Number of Impression

This usually tells you what percentage of impression that makes an actual click. For PPC, CTR is a great measure for you to understand how well the ad is. For SEO, this also can tell how well the content is in the perspective of the keyword searched in Google.

Is it Possible to Know the CTR for SEO?

For SEO, evaluating CTR was tough. However, Google Webmaster now provides this insight, which can also help you understand how you can improve your SEO. This is an earlier step, before the clicks get stored in your web analytics application.

Take a look at the new feature by Google Webmaster from where you can find the SEO CTR for your site for individual keywords.

What Would be the SEO CTR?

The SEO impression is how many times your site get ranked in Google SERP. Even if no one clicks your site, you will get a impression count, when someone searches for any keyword that you rank for. And based on the clicks and this impression, you can get SEO CTR.

Calculating SEO Click-through Rate (CTR)

e.g. Your site ranks 5th for the keyword SEO PPC SMM. Searchers made about 200 searches in a day for that keyword. So, you will get 200 impressions as the 5th site every time. But, only 20 people among the searchers actually clicked your site. So, your SEO CTR would be 20 clicks out of 200 searches or impression, i.e. 10% is your SEO CTR.

Why SEO CTR is Important?

Searcher or User Vote

Pagerank and inbound links are external vote for your site. But, Google also needs to evaluate the user or searcher vote for a content. So, if you have quality external votes and also get many searcher votes, Google may like you a lot for the keyword.

Google’s Perspective

If Google sees that a site is less clicked from 1st page of search result (SERP), while another good page in 2nd SERP is getting good amount of clicks. Then Google has every reason to believe that the page in 2nd SERP is more meaningful for this search query.

Evaluating Search Intent

Google has been heavily emphacizing on Personalized Search for few years. One of the thing they lacked, was to analyze the search intent of the searchers. The CTR can also be used to analyze the search intent of the user. But, my assumption for using CTR for search intent is not something that is prevailing now, may be in future. CTR has been applied by Google to not only rank the pages, but also to understand the search intent of the searchers.

Why Many People Did not Realize it?

I guess no one realized it since, Google may not be emphacizing heavily on this signal. Moreover, the searchers’ behavior stayed the same for clicking more on top 1-5 and less on top 5-10 search results. So, the external links’ vote is still prominently responsible for getting your site ranked. And very less people go to the 2nd or 3rd page of SERP. But, low quality and irrelevant Page Title can wipe out your site from 1st page of SERP and place you in the back seat.

What to do for Getting High CTR for Your Keyword?

Character Limit

Place the most important message including the keyword on your Page Title in the first 65 characters, anything beyond that will be replaced by 3 dots (…) and the searchers will not be able to see them.

Keyword Prominence

Keyword Prominence (i.e. how close the keyword is on the Page Title) is an important factor for SEO. So, try to complete the whole message in first few words; don’t just push the main keywords back to the end. e.g. title like “A Comprehensive List of Tips and Tricks for SEO” can be “SEO Tips and Tricks - A Comprehensive List”. This way, by reading first few words, people will know what the link is about.

Using ASCII Art

To increase the CTR, you can use ASCII Art (e.g. ::-::-:: Link Title ::-::-::) on Page Title to attract more attraction. However, this is not encouraged, since absurd use can lead to spammy looking titles. If you ask my opinion, ASCII Art does attract my attention, but I’d also evaluate the relevance of a search result aka page. So, be careful in using it.

Category and Brand Keywords

You might have other noises in the Page Title, like category keywords or brand/site name. Try to push them at the end of the Page Title or beyond 65 characters. Don’t bother about the brand keywords, if you have the keyword on your domain name. Moreover, for having multiple pages of the same category, the category page might also get some boost.

Keyword Usage Limit

Previously, I used to suggest people not to target more than 5 keywords for a page. But, to gain high CTR, I’d advise you not to target more than 1 keyword for a specific page. Why? If you want to keep Category Keyword and Brand or Site Name Keyword in the Page Title, then 1 keyword is your maximum limit.

Human-friendly Optimization

You have to frame the Page Title within first 65 characters and choose the best title that can create a spark of attention in the searchers. Apply the Human-friendly Optimization of Page Titles. e.g. many SEO software will tell you not to use any stop words. But, can you really make a good Page Title without using stopwords?

Short Page Titles

Long Page Title does not influence CTR, since Google does not show the keywords that are used further at the end. But, also make sure that you don’t have a short Page Titles.

Link Baiting Strategies for Increasing CTR

All the Page Title developing strategies of Viral Marketing and Link Baiting also apply for choosing the best Page Title, so feel free to Google around for “titling strategy for link bait and viral marketing” for more tips to increase CTR.

Keyword in URL

The Page Title is the most prominent thing that attracts most searchers. But, keyword in URL also is bold in green. So, that also can attract the attention of the searcher and create more relevance value in the relevance analysis in the searcher’s mind.

Keyword in Meta Description and Body Contents

Keyword in Meta Description and Body Contents is also very important in creating more relevance value in the relevance analysis in the searcher’s mind. It creates the text chunk, which is called snippet below the page title in SERP. This part becomes useful to searcher, when they think all the page titles in the SERP are relevant. So, in those cases, this can give you some competitive advantage.

Place the keywords in the body content with more relevant information. That way, when the adjacent relevant information will create more relevance value in the relevance analysis in the searcher’s mind.

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Fri Jan 14

Facebook Optimization (FBO) or Facebook SEO - New Social Media Optimization (SMO) for Your Site

Event: F8 Developer Conference
Date: April 21, 2010
Place: San Francisco, California

The F8 Developer Conference has determined a new fate for Facebook. Previously, all the activities of Facebook were behind the great blue and white walled garden. But, after the introduction of Facebook Connect, activities spread beyond the blue & white garden and after the F8 Summit, the spread became widespread.

Open Graph Protocol was introduced in the event. Facebook has planned to use the properties of the non-profit organization in various ways to make the web more social as well as semantic.

So, a new form of Social Media Optimization (SMO) has evolved which is called Open Graph Optimization (OGO). Well, let’s call it OGO or Website Optimization for Open Graph Protocol. But, this is not the only thing for Facebook Optimization. Facebook Optimization consists of several other technique you can employ for your site to perform well in the social media.

Objective of Facebook Optimization

According to the source of the activity in Facebook, you can classify them into 2 separate categories, viz.

Internal Activity (Link): Link sharing instance that happens on Facebook.com
External Activity (Like): Facebook Like button press activity that happens over external sites

Internal Activity - Link

Internal Activity for Facebook Optimization (FBO)

The internal activity refers to the link sharing on Facebook using http://www.facebook.com/share.php or any other widget or tools. Internal link sharing was the oldest reason to have your website optimized for Facebok. Please scroll below to see the old technique for Facebook Optimization.

External Activity - Like

External Activity for Facebook Optimization (FBO)

Previously, Facebook was very much within walls. But, with like button and Open Graph Meta Tags, there are many external activities.

These two activities are also the major objectives for Facebook Optimization for 2010. But, I can prophecise that more things will come in near future. However, it will still be possible to categorize their activity into these 2 major categories.

Open Graph Meta Tag Myth (No Like Button, No OG Meta)

There is a myth that you don’t need Open Graph Meta Tags if you don’t plan to use the Like Button. But, what happens if you share the link through various sharing plugin (e.g. Hootlet), Share Button or the link sharing page in Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/share.php)?

When you share a link in Facebook, the Link Share Interface collects the Page Title, URL, Meta Description, and a random image. But, if you have Open Graph Meta Tags in place, then the Page Title is replaced with og:title, Meta Description with og:description, and the random image with og:image. So, with the Open Graph Meta tag, you have the control to place the right description, title, and image to attract more Clickthrough.

Old Link Sharing Optimization Technique

Before the Like Button and Open Graph Meta, Link Sharing Optimization was the only thing you could do to optimize your site for Facebook. Facebook also had the documentation for that. But, they have recently moved it. You are right, they brought in Open Graph Meta Data. So, the old technique was void.

But here is a glimplse of the old optimization meta data and the description inside the meta tags:

Common Meta Tags

<meta name="title" content="The title you want to appear in Facebook when someone shares your link" />
<meta name="description" content="The same description of SEO Meta Description optimized also for Facebook Sharing" />
<meta name="medium" content="medium_type: audio, image, video, news or blog (any one)" />
<link rel="image_src" href="The URL of the thumbnail image you want to share in Facebook" />

Audio Meta Tags

<link rel="audio_src" href="The audio source URL" />
<meta name="audio_type" content="mp3 (or others)" />
<meta name="audio_title" content="Title of The Song or Audio" />
<meta name="audio_artist" content="Name of the Artists/Speaker/Singer" />
<meta name="audio_album" content="The Name of the Album" />

Video Meta Tag

<link rel="video_src" href="The URL of the video" />
<meta name="video_height" content="200 (or any pixel you like)" />
<meta name="video_width" content="300 (or any pixel you like)" />
<meta name="video_type" content="application/x-shockwave-flash (or others)" />

These old meta tags still work, but it is always good to go with the wind and embrace Open Graph Meta Tags. You can read more about it here.

Facebook Optimization (FBO) Preparation

Open graph and Facebook tags are one of the tags that are not certified by W3C Consortium. So, you might get W3C errors if you use the tags. In some cases you might not be able to get the right utility you want. So, for that you need to add these two lines as attribute to the first <html> section, that should look like this:

<html lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://developers.facebook.com/schema/">

The added attributes are:

xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/"
xmlns:fb="http://developers.facebook.com/schema/"

Open Graph Meta Tags

Open Graph Meta Tags are currently used for making sharing the links and also for the like button. Open Graph has been adopted by Facebook for it’s social graph purposes.

According to the Open Graph Protocol site:

The Open Graph protocol enables any web page to become a rich object in a social graph. For instance, this is used on Facebook to enable any web page to have the same functionality as a Facebook Page.

According to the Open Graph Protocol, several new Meta tags came into being for making your site optimized for the giant social media, Facebook.

Here is a glimpse of the new generation Meta tags:

Basic Open Graph Meta Tags

<meta property="og:title" content="A Good Title that can Attract More Clickthrough (within 100 characters)"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="blog or website (visit Open Graph Protocol site for more names of types)"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="The URL of the Article"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="The URL of the image you want to share in Facebook (usually square images perform well)"/>
<meta property="og:site_name" content="The Name of Your Site. If this is not available, then Like Button press will show someone likes yoursite.com"/>
<meta property="og:description" content=" Clickthrough (CTR) is the key. But, og:title should be most attractive. And you can also put more attracting messages in <150 character description.”/>

Open Graph Meta Tags for Contact Information & Location

<meta property="og:email" content="yourname@yoursite.com"/>
 <meta property="og:phone_number" content="212-904-1240 "/>
 <meta property="og:latitude" content="40.705213143114925"/>
 <meta property="og:longitude" content="-74.01103019714355"/>
 <meta property="og:street-address" content="55 Broad Street"/>
 <meta property="og:locality" content="New York"/>
 <meta property="og:region" content="NY"/>
 <meta property="og:postal-code" content="10004"/>
 <meta property="og:country-name" content="USA"/>

Facebook Meta Tags

Other than Open Graph Meta Tags, there are some special meta tags by Facebook that you need to use for claiming administrative powers, view Facebook Insights, and connect the External Activities with your Facebook Page.

Facebook Admin Meta Tag

<meta property="fb:admins" content="your.fb.id"/>

Please note, this meta tag does not start with fb: instead of og:, because it is a meta tag specific to Facebook, not Open Graph. In this meta tag, you can specify the name of the admins that can have insights of the site activity. Adding multiple admins never hurt.

While mentioning the admins in the meta, you can use the user name that is followed by Facebook.com (e.g. http://www.facebook.com/user.name). However, if your profile looks like this: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1234567890, then you can use 1234567890 as admin value. To find this number, you can use http://apps.facebook.com/whatismyid/ or open any album on your profile and if the URL looks like this: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1234567890, then 1234567890 is your admin ID.

Using this meta tag helps you to get admin access to the page in Facebook and change and update various contents.

Facebook Page ID Meta Tag

<meta property="fb:page_id" content="####### (The number of your page)"/>

When you have both internal and external activity going on for Facebook, it is hard for Facebook to identify which page is connected with the You can also get access to Facebook Insights for the page. Facebook Insights is the Web Analytics for Facebook.

Facebook Insights Preview

Facebook App ID Meta Tag

<meta property="fb:app_id" content="####### (The number of your app)"/>

This allows you to utilize the app engine of Facebook for your site. You can create an app from http://developers.facebook.com/setup/. You can associate your website with your app. In the comma-separated list, you have to mention the app(s) that administers the page.

This is an introductory part of the Facebook SEO aka Facebook Optimization. I’ll come up with more details in another blog. Also Blueliner has plans for a free webinar on best practices for Facebook Optimization aka Facebook SEO. Please follow the blog to get the updates.

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Thu Dec 30

Expandable Video Ads on YouTube and Vimeo - Innovative Web Advertisement

Google has been experimenting Expandable Ads for a while. But, flash based Expandable ads is not something new. Back in 2005, I have seen many expandable ads in Yahoo homepage. In recent years, the peel off expandable ads at top right corner is currently quite popular. You can find similar expandable ad in Marketing Pilgrim site at the top-right corner.

Google Adwords also introduced Expandible ads back in 2009. Adsense users may have seen such ads. But with Youtube, the Expandable Video Ad is something new and quite innovative.

Have a look at these videos by clicking the images (it might take time if you have slower connection):

Expandables (The Movie) Ad on YouTube

This video is an example of typical Expandable YouTube ad. The name of the movie is co-incidental :-)

A Hunter Shoots a Bear - Tipp-Ex Ad on YouTube

This is more interactive and connected with many other videos. The bear and the hunter also started their page in Facebook, which already gained many fans.

The Desperados Experience

Like the hunter shoots a bear, this video also has many versions, which you can choose at the beginning. You actually can play around with the playbar in the video and make various actions suggested in the video. Moreover, the video is loaded with many social media call-to-actions in their flash interface.

Tostitos Lady - And Then There was Salsa Ad on Vimeo

This is one of the cool and colorful Expandable Video Ad I have seen. But, this is not from Youtube, rather from Vimeo.

Expandable Video Ads are relatively new trend, but there are here to stay for long. In near future, we might also see expandable video ads in adwords.

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Tue Nov 30

Authority Begins at Home – Onsite Link Building is Better than Offsite

Many people ask me what is the best link building strategy. The fact is, there is no time-proof strategy to mention only one, since most people tend to think offsite, than onsite when we pronounce the word “Link Building”.

Authority Begins at Home Onsite Link Building is Better than Offsite

Why Large Sites Perform Well in Google?

Let’s try to get answers to these questions to understand the theme of this article:

Have you wondered why Wikipedia always gets Google love than others?
Have you also seen the same love for ecommerce sites with large inventory?
Have you wondered how Search Engine Cloaking in Balckhat SEO steals the love from Google?

All these questions point to one answer: Relevant contents and large number contents that are interlinked get you all the Google love. Google assigns Authority for a Keyword based on this phenomenon.

Why Page Rank is not an Authority Factor Anymore?

Have you seen that a lower Pagerank site get ranked high on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages)? This makes a point that Pagerank is no longer the major player for ranking your site. Remember, I said “Major” and not totally ruling it out.

Google now gives Priority to Authority and Quality of inbound links, rather than quantity. That’s why you may see many pages with Pagerank 0 appear before any Pagerank 4 page in Google for a specific keyword.

Google’s Keyword Authority Determination Factors

The Authority of a site for a specific keyword (e.g. SEO Consultant) depends on the following things:

How old is the site?
How many inbound links have the keyword “SEO Consultant”?
How many of the inbound links points to your site using ”SEO Consultant” as anchor text?
Do the inbound links with keyword “SEO Consultant”, also rank high for the keyword in Google? (Or are the inbound links also quality links?)
Does the site use spammy techniques, duplicate contents, has suspicious activities or has massive links from bad neighborhoods?
What is quality and quantity of various user data, like: query traffic, CTR, time on site, etc.?
What is the Page Rank of the site? (one of the factor, not the major one)
What is the Authority power of your inbound links? (you have to ask the above questions individually for each inbound links)
How many pages do you have in your site that mentions ”SEO Consultant”?

Disclaimer: This is not a complete list Google Authority factors.

So, according to my 9th question, it is always wise to build more and more contents on your site and massively interlink them to relevant pages.

Leveraging Idea from Blackhat in a Whitehat Way

For Search Engine Cloaking, Blackhat SEOs use this theme for getting high ranks in search engines. Search Engine Cloaking refers to the Backhat Technique to show the search engine bots a different set of pages than the usual users see. And showing massive amount of relevant pages is one of the strong techniques they use.

But you can do the same in natural and Whitehat way; by building more and more contents for your site and have them linked back to important pages on your site. So, the next you think about building or buying links, please also consider building links in your home site.

•

Mon Nov 1

View You and Your Friend’s Activity Page - A New Facebook Feature

Update: This feature has been embedded into the feature of new Facebook Timeline. You can now find the link to your friendship between a person and you below the cover photo of your timeline. Look out for the link that says “See Friendship”. However, the fetures mentioned here remains the same.

A few years back, when you landed on your friend’s profile on Facebook, you could see only the mutual friends you have. Then in recent change, Facebook also introduced the common “Likes” you have with your friend.

But, at the day of Halloween, Facebook brought in a new feature that highlights almost all the mutual activities, events, and interaction with your friend in a nice looking separate Facebook Friendship page. Just visit any friend in Facebook and you will find the link saying View You and Your-Friend’s-Name.

You and Your Friend's Activity Link in Facebook

After you click the “View You and Your Friend” link, you end up in a separate friendship page that includes the recent interaction you had with your friend.

Here is a list of information available in the page:

Duo Profile Image

If you and your friend were tagged in any photo in Facebook, then one of them will end up as the page picture or profile picture of the You-and-Your-Friend-Activity Page or Facebook Friendship Page.

Feed Filters

In the middle of the page you will see many feed updates that involves you and your friend. You will also find links to filter these updates just below the Duo Profile Image for seeing the feeds that are only Wall Posts, Photos, Events or Likes.

Mutual Friends

This is probably the oldest piece of information that was already available for your when you went to your friend’s profile. In the activity page, this eats up most of the space at left.

News Feed Updates

The mid-portion of the page is occupied with news feed updates that involves you and your friend. They are also categorized into Wall Posts, Photos, Events, and Likes.

Browse Friendship

In 3rd column at top-right, you will find links to other friends that are also mutual friends. From there you can see what are your friend’s interaction with other mutual friends.

Custom Friend Activity View

But, this is not all, Facebook is not only allowing you to see activities on You vs. Your Friend. They are also allowing you to see the activity of Your Friend vs. Another Friend. The interface to view the activity of two friends is available just below the Browse Friendship links.

Private Activity in Facebook with Your Friend

Currently, this new feature shows all the public feeds or the feeds that can be shared in custom settings (e.g. friends of friends or network can see). Facebook is not showing the private communication like messages, chats, or any private sharing with your friend at this moment. However, if this is introduced, then this new Facebook Friendship Page can have full functionality.

Enjoy the new feature and Facebooking!!

•

Tue Oct 19

Generate QR Code with Google Chart API in Bulk from Excel Worksheet

This article is about generating QR Codes automatically in bulk from Google Chart API. But, I think a lot of people want to have more introduction about some terms. So here they go:

What is QR Code?

QR Code is 2-dimensional or 2D barcode (unlike the traditional 1D barcode) that looks like the black pixilated image below:

Came from some innovative Japanese mind, who invented the code to make contents decoded at high speed. This 2D Barcode now readable by QR scanners, smartphones or mobile phones attached with cameras.

For iPhone (Semacode), Android Phones (QuickMark), Blackberry (ScanLife), and Symbian Phones or Nokia (UpCode) there are many competing apps that can read QR Codes from any printed media.

The utility of QR Code is simple, transfer a whole chunk of text or information from any printed media to your mobile phone (through QR reader) or computer (through QR scanner). So, this is the best way for you to make people go directly to your site from the printed QR Code or have people save your business card in their mobile phone in a snap.

What Does QR Codes Have to do with Web Marketing?

QR Codes are fastest way to transfer text and information from print to mobile phones. Therefore, it has good implications on increasing your site traffic from alternative media by referring the URL to your site. e.g. if you sell a specific product; by using mobile phone, the printed QR Code on your product can make the friends or colleagues of the buyer go to the page where he/she can also buy it.

For any type of contact request, a visitor can save your contact information from web, product, brochure, coupons, etc. and might convert later.

QR Code Bilboard Ad by Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein recently made an innovative adult advertisement on billboard with QR codes, without even showing the nude models. The title of the advertisement was “Get It Uncensored”. This triggered many people to go to their website and watch the uncensored video. Please read more about this news here.

Even though QR Code is thought to be a mobile marketing strategy, combined with the web technology, it can be a great strategy for web marketing.

What is Google Chart API?

According to the Google chart API site:

The Google Chart API lets you dynamically generate charts with a URL string. You can embed these charts on your web page, or download the image for local or offline use.

Interesting fact is that Google Chart API is also currently the most reliable and free source for generating 2D QR Codes.

How can you Generate QR Codes with Google Chart API?

If you look at the URL of the above image, you’ll see that there are many information avalable in the URL:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=350x350&chl=MECARD:N:Asif%20Anwar;ORG:Blueliner%20Marketing,%20LLC.;TEL:008801712181761;EMAIL:anwar%40bluelinerbangla.com;ADR:55%20Broad%20Street,%2017th%20Floor,%20New%20York,%20NY%2010004,%20USA.;URL:http://asifanwar.tumblr.com;NOTE:Company%20site:%20http://www.bluelinerny.com;;

So, by just inputting the information in the right place in the right format, you also can generate the desired QR codes.

Interpreting the Google Chart API URL

From the URL, you will find several parameters that can be customized. Here is the list of the parameters and their description:

cht=qr

If you go to the Google Chat API site, then you can see that Google arranges many types of charts. So, by using cht=qr, you are telling Google that the chart type should be QR.

chs=350x350

This is where you mention what would be the chart size.

chl=MECARD

CHL is the Chart Label parameter. This actually states what type of content you have and based on that, your device will create certain action. You can have content as vCard (make an Phonebook Entry), URL (go to the referred site), Text (read the contents of the QR), Phone (call the referred number), SMS (Get info saved on your mobile), etc.

Usually, MECARD is used to tell that, the content is for Mobile vCard. According to ServletSuite.com, the definition of

MECARD is a text format lets you present address information for phonebook registration.

It is then followed by other heads with your custom values, like:

N: Full Name
ORG: Company Name
TEL: The Telephone Number
EMAIL: The Email Address
ADR: The Address
URL: The URL
NOTE: Any note or comment.

Each of the heads should be separated with semicolon. If you are using the Chart API for generating URL only, then the custom URL is the label. You don’t need separate label for that.

More information on Google Chat API Parameters are on: http://code.google.com/apis/chart/docs/gallery/qr_codes.html

How to Generate QR Codes in Bulk from Excel Worksheet?

Well, this is what this article is about. In excel worksheet or any other sort of database, you might have information or record like this:

A2. Name: Asif Anwar
B2. Company: Blueliner Marketing, LLC.
C2. Phone Number: 008801712181761
D2. Email: ɯoɔ˙ןıɐɯb@ʇuɐʇןnsuoɔǝpɐɹʇ (upside-down text)
E2. Address: 55 Broad Street, 17th Floor, New York, NY 10004, USA.
F2. Website: http://asifanwar.tumblr.com
G2. Note: Company site: http://www.bluelinerny.com

[A2 to G2 are cell reference]

In terms of QR Code generation, these information is best for website/URL reference or business card transfer from print to mobile. And with all these information, you get this URL again:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=350x350&chl=MECARD:N:Asif%20Anwar;ORG:Blueliner%20Marketing,%20LLC.;TEL:008801712181761;EMAIL:anwar%40bluelinerbangla.com;ADR:55%20Broad%20Street,%2017th%20Floor,%20New%20York,%20NY%2010004,%20USA.;URL:http://asifanwar.tumblr.com;NOTE:Company%20site:%20http://www.bluelinerny.com;;

Now, if you look at the URL that generates the QR Codes, you will find a pattern. e.g.:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=[THE-CHART-SIZE-YOU-WANT]&chl=MECARD:N:[FIRST-NAME]%20[LAST-NAME];ORG:[COMPANY%20NAME];TEL:[YOUR-TELEPHONE-NUMBER];EMAIL:[YOUR-EMAIL-ADDRESS];ADR:[YOUR-ADDRESS];URL:[YOUR-URL];NOTE:[YOUR-NOTE]; ;
In other analogy with cell reference:http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=[THE-CHART-SIZE-YOU-WANT]&chl=MECARD:N:[A2];ORG:[B2];TEL:[C2];EMAIL:[D2];ADR:[E2];URL:[F2];NOTE:[G2]; ;

So, it is possible the join these information from excel worsheet to generate the URL and finally generate the QR Codes. But, there is one problem, the information you have, has spaces and @ sign that are not allowed in the URL. So, you have to replace them with “%20” and “%40” respectively.

In Excel Worksheet, you can use the following formulas to replace the spaces and @ signs and create a new text that can be easily joined:

H2. =SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A1),” “,”%20”)
I2. =SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(B1),” “,”%20”)
J2. =SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(C1),” “,”%20”)
K2. =SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(D1),”@”,”%40”)
L2. =SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(E1),” “,”%20”)
M2. =SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(F1),” “,”%20”)
N2. =SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(G1),” “,”%20”)

[Assuming that you are placing the replaced texts in single row that starts after G column]

Since you have all the spaces and @ replaced, you now can join the texts with =CONCATENATE() formula. e.g.

=CONCATENATE(“http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=350x350&chl=MECARD:N:”,H2,”;ORG:”,I2,”;TEL:”,J2,”;EMAIL:”,K2,”;ADR:”,L2,”;URL:”,M2,”;NOTE:”,N2,”;;”)

The strategy for generating the URLs for QR Codes may vary in case if you are using separate form of database.

Once you have created the URLs, you can easily embed them in the site or print them by visiting the file on browser.

Some of my other articles on QR Codes:

QR Code Marketing and Advertising Ideas and Strategies for Internet Marketing

How to Turn Your Billboard into an Interactive Marketing Campaign and Measure ROI

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Thu Aug 12

Dofollow Link from Facebook on Your Public Profile

Update: This is an old post. Facebook no longer provide Dofollow link :-( Currently, they use “Nofollow me” Rel Attribute for all the links. However, the current public profile of a person gives dofollow link to pages they like. So, the more fans you have, the more the page rank of your page.

Facebook has always remained the toughest walled garden for many years. But, one by one some of the things are opening up to public. And while that happens, many features are being indexed by Google.

Recently, on my public profile, I spotted something new and interesting:

Facebook Public Profile giving Dofollow Backlink

The link on my public profile has this code with XFN Relationship Tag, “Me”:

<a class=”url” href=”http://marketinggossip.blogspot.com” rel=”me”>marketinggossip.blogspot.com</a>

Interestingly, no Nofollow tag in the URL. It is quite odd for sites like Facebook to provide dofollow links. Such dofollow link from such authoritative site can be very useful for you. Because, Facebook alone has the highest amount of indexed pages in Google. Here is the rank of Alexa’s top 10 sites, in terms of total number of indexed pages in Google:

Facebook.com - 1,170,000,000 indexed pages
Youtube.com - 293,000,000 pages
Baidu.com - 210,000,000 pages
Yahoo.com - 184,000,000 pages
wikipedia.org - 136,000,000 pages
Twitter.com - 118,000,000 pages
Google.com - 42,200,000 pages
Live.com + MSN.com + Bing.com - 29,700,000 pages
QQ.com - 13,700,000 pages

However, Google in some period of time, may weigh down the score of links from Facebook.

Now, how was this achieved? I have recently did Facebook Optimization on my blog. But, that was not the reason, when I saw several other profiles are also showing same dofollow behavior that did not yet do any Facebook Optimization.

I, along with several other profiles have mentioned several sites in the “Website” portion of my profile and seems like Facebook is currently giving the credit to the first listed site on your profile with dofollow link.

•

Sun Jul 11

Follow Companies in LinkedIn: How You Can Utilize it to Work for Your Career & Business

Do you know that, you now can follow a company in LinkedIn? You will find a “Follow Company” link on each company page in LinkedIn. e.g. here is ours.

According to recent blog post from LinkedIn:

“Follow Company” helps you be among the first to learn about developments at companies like DreamWorks, find job openings at NASA or stumble upon business development opportunities at Netflix. The new feature lets you tap into key goings-on at nearly a million companies that already have their company profiles on LinkedIn and more that are being created every day.

Most importantly, this feature can deliver insights – you may be surprised at – such as the pace of hiring at your nearest competitor or the start of a whole new industry as you see web technology companies hiring geography teachers (for e.g.). Or better yet, you may find the job of a lifetime to do cause marketing for Major League Baseball.

What happens if you follow

After following, you can see the updates on your followed companies from the Company Menu in LinkedIn. The statuses may contain job opportunity, new recruits, promotions, etc.

Now, the question comes: what can you do with this feature and utilize it for your career or business?

Here are some of my suggestions:

Do you have a dream position?

If you care for a position in a specific company or a range of several companies, then this “Follow Company” feature will give you the insights you need.

Be prepared for the vacant position earlier than others

When you know that someone has left the company, you can be mentally prepared than others before they advertise for the post.

How reliable the company is?

The promotions and employee turnover monitoring over few months, can give you insights on how reliable the company is for you. This insight can be helpful if you want to be an employee there or want to acquire the business.

Research Competition

Following a company will also give you insights about the growth and shrink of a company and also will help you to spy into their activities. Often introduction of new positions and mass recruitment may tell you that, the company is really cooking something.

Predict employee movement from your company

Once you have the insights on the competitive intelligence, you can be on the top of industry trend and make your employees happy. If you fail to do so, then this feature can also tell you which person is likely to to shift to the vacant position of your competitor.

Get attention of the company

When you follow, the company page admin gets a email notification and your profile is also listed as followers of the company.

Be informed about your counterpart if the company is your client

If you are already dealing with the the company as a supplier, you may know that the ex-employee that you dealt with, has left. But, you might also like to know about the new person they are going to hire for the position. So, this will give you some insights. You can also use this for lost clients and try to freshly convince the new employee.

B2B Outsourcing Opportunity

Sometimes for many companies, a vacant position can be tough to fill in and can be time consuming. So, for the time being to meet client demands, the company may need to outsource the work. If you are into outsourcing business for businesses, then the feature can help you keep your eyes open.

Some articles, you might also be intersted in:

6 People Who Should Use LinkedIn’s New Follow Company Feature

4 Ways to Use LinkedIn’s Follow Company Feature

11 Ways to Use LinkedIn’s New Company Follow Feature

How to use LinkedIn’s new Follow feature for business intelligence

So, get going and find your favorite company from LinkedIn and Follow Companies.