Stop Facebook Pestering Your Contacts!

Do you know if your contacts are receiving emails from Facebook, ostensibly on your behalf, saying that you want to be their friend on Facebook?

Not only is this an embarrassment for you, it is irritating for your contacts - especially those that have no desire to be on Facebook.

Following extensive searching, we have found where Facebook has hidden the page that enables you to take control and stop pestering your contacts. Sign in to your account and go to https://www.facebook.com/invite_history.php.

I have just used the 'Select All' and 'Delete Selected' options so, hopefully, this will stop! However, I don't trust Facebook to leave it there so I'll re-visit this page periodically and go through the process again, as necessary.

Good Luck!

Bee Primrose.

Optimisation & Website Images

Not only do our services include creating websites that you can update yourself, if that is your preference, but we also help you to understand SEO, should you wish to do that for yourself too.

Recently, we've been helping a client to optimise the page content of his website, with particular attention to images, as they are a powerful aid to product sales.

Here are the basics:

1. Research/decide the best search terms for your overall website and for each of the main pages. Ideally, incorporate these keywords into the website/page url BUT don’t rush to change existing urls because there may be links to them indexed within search engines that you won’t want to lose! If you change any urls, ensure that 301-redirects (or similar) are set up by your web team.
    
2. Ensure that the identified keywords are used in the meta-title of each page, the meta descriptions, the H1/H2 tags (there should be only one H1 tag per page) and the first 100 words of body copy.
    
3. Images should have unique descriptive alt-tags and image titles It is also good practice to give image files descriptive file names (e.g. springflowers.jpg not image04.jpg). Images should be optimised for compact file size without losing clarity and they have associated height/width dimensions for faster loading.

We have no direct influence over organic search results, including Google images. Google indexes the images by selecting keywords from the surrounding text on the page.

As ever, should you require our services, let us know: bee@thebpc.org.uk

How to Set your Default Browser in Windows 7

I like using Google Chrome as my browser but it uses up too much memory if I have more than a dozen tabs open (and I frequently have 3 or 4 times that!) which slows everything down, so I switched back to Firefox.

Having done that, I later clicked on a link in an email and it opened up Chrome. I'd forgotten to re-set the default browser. If you decide to change your default browser, this is what to do:

First, ensure that you have downloaded the browser of your choice:

Chrome download choose the download for your computer (windows, mac, linux)
Firefox download then scroll down to English (British) and choose the download for your computer (windows, mac, linux)

Next, set the default browser. These are the instructions for Windows 7:
 - click on the start menu and type "default programs" in the search box
 - this will display a screen with the option 'Set your default programs'
 - click this option, Firefox and/or Chrome should be found in a list on the left.
 - choose one then click 'Set this program as default'.

Bee Primrose.

Social Media: No time (or inclination)?

I noticed this tweet today: "Do you run a small business and don't have time to 'do' Social Media?"

A concise message, to the point. Can learn from this? (not too proud to learn from our competitors!) One click took me from Twitter to FaceBook where there was another link... which went to a page that said, in capital letters (paraphrased below to 'protect' the originator and also avoid duplicate content):

YOUR COMPETITORS ARE USING SOCIAL MEDIA BUT YOU DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO LEARN WHAT IT IS OR HOW TO USE IT - WE WILL TAKE THE STRESS BY MANAGING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA FOR YOU WHILE YOU FOCUS ON RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS. (Click to find out how)

Another click? Finally, we get to read the crucial 4th message... and it was good. It just took too long to get to it.

So, if you would like The BPc to manage your social media while you focus on running your business, email or call us. Thanks!

Blogging and Sharing on FaceBook and Twitter

You have a plan to write two Blogger posts a month (1 hour), two FaceBook Page posts a week (15 minutes) and a couple of tweets every other day (two minutes). 

The most productive way of doing this is as follows:

Once a month, write both blogs and set them to post when you want them to with Blogger's Schedule facility.

You can set up a third party feed that will automatically post the blog link to FaceBook but, unless the posts need to be published at the same time on both media, you have more flexibility when you add posts manually.

We suggest that twice a month, sometime after each blog post is published, you go to your FaceBook Business Page and schedule the next four posts using the Activity Log - one can include a link to the most recent blog post, perhaps another may link to a page on your website.

While you are on your Page, it's a good opportunity to interact with followers, 'Like' some pages and post some information on relevant 'Liked' pages.

If you log in to both FaceBook and Twitter at the same time, you can set up FB posts to automatically tweet by entering www.facebook.com/twitter and linking the two accounts. That takes care of a few of your monthly tweets.

If you are an avid Linked-In user, you can set it up to feed through to Twitter. If not, you need to become a regular Twitter user - for best results, always keep a tab open with your Twitter account and follow these 10 Twitter tips.

Of course, if you need help, that's what we're here for.

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p.s. Links:
You can Like The BPc business page on Facebook and Follow Bee Primrose on Twitter.

Emergency - our website is down!

An SEO client's website suddenly disappeared without warning.

Investigation showed that, although a hosting invoice was issued and paid to September 2013, the hosting company decided to drop the service in December 2012. The client received no warning before and no messages afterwards.

While they are resolving the issue with that hosting company, we have, overnight, transferred the domain and hosting to another company and managed to upload all the pages with most of the content. Unfortunately, it's taking a while for the client to re-source some photographs from the original website developer but, in the meantime, potential customers can visit A White Rolls Royce, even if they can't view their luxury wedding cars for the next couple of days - the company is still going strong!

Season of Goodwill

If you wish to practice blogging or social media skills and have any questions over the Christmas - New Year period and you want some help, please feel free to ask questions here (as comments) or via www.twitter.com/BPcUK and I'll attempt to assist.

Enjoy! See you next year.