How To Change The Name And URL Address Of Your Facebook Page

April 18, 2013 By Lisa Angelettie 5 Comments

I created my first Facebook Page several years ago when I didn’t really know what the heck I was suppose to do with it. Back then my brand was a bit narrower (article marketing), so like the SEO keyword freak I am, I gave my page the url address of www.Facebook.com/Article.Marketing.Income. This url served me well because my page came up pretty high in search engine rankings when someone searched for “article marketing income”. But that was then, and this is now. My brand has evolved and grown and article marketing is only part of what I know and teach. So I was ready to change it and if you are too, here’s what you need to know…

Your Facebook Name & Username (URL Address) Are Two Separate Things

I named my Facebook page with my first and last name because that is what I use to brand my business, but I wanted to use keywords in my url for search engine purposes. There was no need to use the same words in the title of my name and in the url. So in order to bring my Facebook page up to date, the only thing I needed to change was my url–but I’m going to show you how to change both.

Your Facebook Page Username

Your Facebook username is the url address that people will use to visit your page. It’s important because it contains some SEO benefits but more importantly you will use it everywhere. Business cards, website, other social media sites, newsletter integration, your books, etc. It really is a part of your brand. That’s why I thought it was important that I change mine to reflect that. I’ve since changed my FB page url to: http://Facebook.com/Lisa.Angelettie.Biz (Make sure to LIKE my page if you haven’t already.) *Note that you can only change your username once.

Your Facebook Page Name

When you create a Facebook page, you can name it right away, BUT if you are changing your current Facebook Page’s name then you must have UNDER 200 likes to do so. Take note that you can only CHANGE your Facebook page’s name only once just like the username. So make it count.

Directions For Changing Your Username

To add a username to your Page:

From the top of your Page, click Edit Page
Select Update Info
Click Create a username for this page? in the Username section
Enter a new username and click Check Availability
If the username you want is available, click Confirm to save it

(Change your name for the page in same area, right under the username section.)

Why You Should Never Delete Pages From Your Blog

February 21, 2013 By Lisa Angelettie 18 Comments

Learn From The Blunders Of Big Companies Like Nivea®

I have the hands of a great grandmother from years of neglect, so I thought that perhaps this year I’d start taking a little better care of them:) One of the solutions for that was to always be prepared with some sort of hand cream in my purse and at my desk (where I spend much of my time:) So I purchased a travel tin of Nivea hand creme probably about two months ago to keep at my desk. The tin lasts a pretty long time and today I noticed that they were running a promotion which was printed inside of the lid.

The promotion looks like a contest to win tickets to see singer Rihanna. I know that Rihanna is still on tour, so I thought there was a chance that the promotion was still running although I bought the creme over at least eight weeks ago. There’s a page url and a code for entering the contest but when you go to the page there is a dreaded “Error” page. Ugh!!!

This is because they deleted the page on their website, probably when the promotion was over. This is a HUGE mistake primarily because the goal of any business owner should be to keep the visitor on your site and once Google/Bing indexes your page there’s always a chance that it can be found organically through a search much less through any offline promotions that you may be running.

Let’s repeat that. The goal of any business owner with a website is to…

Keep the visitor on your site

Coming to an error page written in German from a company that distributes in Connecticut and which I purchased in Pennsylvania is not good business. Honestly it turned me off. So what could they have done differently? A few things. And they can all easily apply to our own businesses.

Change The Copy

1. If you run a promotion on your site which is time sensitive, when it’s over you should still KEEP the page up but change the copy on the page. Let visitors know that you were running the promotion but that it’s over. Announce the winner on that page. I’m pretty sure there are legalities around just that. Nivea doesn’t tell us anything about the promotion or if it even existed because we are sent to a generic error page.

Create A Special Page

2. If you are an entrepreneur who typically runs promotions, perhaps they are weekly or monthly, then it makes sense to create a CONTEST or PROMOTIONS page on your website and the copy for that page changes as your promotion changes. If you want to create separate pages for each promotion for SEO purposes, then you can set up your contest or promotions page and then send folks to various optimized pages for each specific promotion. Either way you choose to do it — all of those pages need to stay up live on your site.

Forward The Page

3. Forward the url of your page to another page that visitors of that promotion may be interested in. I would have appreciated being sent to a page with a $1.00 off coupon!

Forget About It!

4. I rather had been sent to an out of date Rihanna promotion page. You know the pages on your site that you’ve forgotten about. Where the information is outdated. I rather would have seen an old promotion then an error page. So at the very LEAST – leave the pages on your blog alone. If you don’t have the time or the inclination to make the changes yet to the page, then just leave it there, do NOT delete.

Outsource It

5. Sounds a little too tedious? Hire a virtual assistant to do this for you. That’ll work too:)

How To Market Your Writing Services Online

February 11, 2013 By Lisa Angelettie Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Steve Aedy.

Anyone who has spent time in the business world is familiar with the concept of building brand awareness. As a writer, you have probably never given this idea much thought – but you should.

You – and the writing services you provide – are a brand. And, to be successful, you need to build awareness for what you do.

It may seem strange to market yourself. However, if you think of your writing as a service, it seems less awkward to promote what you do.

As is the case with just about every other task you could imagine, the internet can help. Here are eight ways to market your writing services online and build brand awareness.

1. Create a website.

A lot of times, your website is the first point of contact for prospective clients, agents, magazine editors, publishers and more. They will look at your site before they do anything else.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Just like a retail store needs to have an attractive window display to lure clients, you need to have a space for the world to view the services you offer.

You don’t need to create anything overly flashy or super elaborate. Simply provide a place were people can learn about what you have done, the services you offer, and how to contact you. If you don’t want to worry about the mechanics of the site’s design, hire a website designer. Otherwise, there are plenty of online services that will walk you through the armature web design process.

Before you build your website, choose a memorable domain name. Believe it or not, some people do converse offline. For these people, you’ll want an address that is easy to bring up in conversation. Consider using your name for the URL. Or, create a name that portrays the services you provide.

2. Add a blog.

Once you have your website up and running, add a blog. Most people dread starting a blog because it is so time consuming. While that is true – blog writing does take time – it is a very effective marketing tool. Plus, you are a writer! Writing a blog should be right up your alley! Additionally, it will be pretty hard to sell yourself to industry people if you aren’t actively writing on a regular basis.

Don’t let a blog dominate your life. If you have time, write once a week. If you don’t, write once a month.

3. Optimize.

Trying to explain search engine optimization is like opening Pandora’s Box. This particular article isn’t about explaining the ever-evolving world of SEO. Instead, we will simply advise you to do some research. Familiarize yourself with the general idea. Even an amateur website can be optimized with just a few simple steps.

4. Submit to ezines.

Ezines are so much more than a web-based version of a printed publication. They are a great marketing tool for reaching a target audience.

Submit to sites like EzineArticles.com. Your article could get picked up by an ezine from anywhere in the world. All it takes is for someone to see what you’ve written and express an interest in seeing more.

Additionally, this is a great way to boost your SEO efforts. Link back to your website to increase awareness.

5. Comment on other blogs.

Find top quality blogs in the niche you are interested in. Comment on blog posts. This will draw the attention of other readers who might be interested in hearing more of what you have to say. Including a link in your comment will drive even more traffic to your site.

6. Send InMail messages.

Join LinkedIn at a paid level. When you do, you can send InMail to prospects. This is a great proactive approach; you can go looking for prospects instead of waiting for them to come to you. Recent reports have found that 30% of InMail messages get a reply. That means nearly half of your marketing attempts will be fruitful.

7. Use Twitter to research prospects.

Do a keyword search on Twitter. For example, search for a publication name you’re targeting. Once you have found potential prospects, follow them. Often times, that person will check you out and maybe even follow you.

At the very least, you can use this time to research the prospective lead. Get to know them. Find out what they are about. Then, when you send a direct mail, you’ll have a better idea of how to appeal to their needs.

Also, send out random tweets about what you hope to accomplish. For example, tweet something like, “I’m looking to connect with more business magazine publishers.”

8. Create a Facebook fan page.

Create a Facebook fan page for your blog or yourself as a writer. Use contests, polls, and other methods to engage visitors and increase awareness.

The internet is an ever-changing world. What is popular one day might be obsolete the next. The biggest thing to remember when it comes to online marketing is this: don’t ignore opportunities when they present themselves. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and try something new. Look for creative ways to build brand awareness and generate business leads.

This article was written by Steve Aedy. He is an in-house content writer for FreshEssays.com, a company that provides custom paper writing services and help with editing for college and university students. You can reach Steve at twitter and google+.

What Is The Quality Of Your Blog Traffic? Learn How To Analyze It In Under 5 Minutes

February 4, 2013 By Lisa Angelettie 15 Comments

All Blog Traffic Is Not Created Equal.

People that know me, know that while writing is my first passion, analyzing stats is my second! Seriously, it’s almost as bad as my love for cheddar/sour cream potato chips:) But there’s something to be said for my attention to detail – something that I’d like for you to take a look at as well. The level of quality of your blog traffic. So here’s what we are going to do today. This will take 5 minutes tops and be well worth it.

Step 1 – Log into your Google Analytics account (or other stats tracking account)

Step 2 – Click on Traffic Sources

Step 3 – Click on All Traffic

Step 4 – Take a look at your top 10 sources of traffic

This is what we’re going to be taking a look at:

1. How Many Pages Your Visitors Look At When They Visit Your Site (The more page views the better)

I’m sure your content is fantastic, but the true measure of whether or not you are engaging your readers is by the number of pages visitors are viewing when they come to your blog. The more they read, the more you can assume that they are getting something from reading it.

Trust me, this is no easy feat. Remember that this is an “average” for your page views. So if you have an average of more than 2 pages viewed per visit on your blog you’re on the right track.

2. The Average Time Visitors Spend On Your Site (The more time spent the better)

I really like this statistic because of how I personally use the web. When I visit some of my favorite sites, I’m probably going to read the latest article there and then keep it open as I apply whatever I’m learning. That’s one way a visitor may spend more time or your site.

Or another way is linked back to the first stat we looked at – page views. Obviously the more pages a person views on your site, the longer they stay on your site, which is our goal as bloggers. The longer a visitor stays, the more they learn from you, the more the begin to trust you and later invest in you.

3. Your Bounce Rate (The lower your number the better)

Your bounce rate tells you the percentage of visitors who enter your blog and “bounce” (leave your site) rather than continue viewing other pages. You want a low number here and this was a stat that I had a lot of trouble with for a good while because when I first started this particular site, my content was not tightly focused enough. If you have a high bounce rate it means that people are visiting your site, not really seeing what they need, and leaving right away.

In fact, I’d say that the number one reason why people may have a high bounce rate is that their content is not meeting the needs of the visitor. There is a mismatch. For instance, if I wrote an article on this blog about cheddar/sour cream potato chips and I get Google traffic that finds me through the phrase “sour cream potato chips” – what do you think will happen? People will visit the article, see that this website is nothing about potato chips or chip coupons and click away – increasing my bounce rate for that article and ultimately for my site. While there is no rule for a good vs bad bounce rate, I like to follow a general guideline. Over 50% is bad. Between 25-50% is average. Under 25% is good.

4. What Should I Do With These Statistics Now That I’ve Seen Them?

Looking at your stats, we’re going to take a look at the bounce rate, number of pages viewed, time spent on those pages and make an educated assessment about the overall quality of the content your site.

Look At The Bounce Rate First
Your bounce rate stats in this section we’re looking at are divided by traffic source (example: Google, Bing, Direct, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.). If all of your bounce rates from these sources are over 50%, I’d say you need to seriously evaluate what you’re writing and who you’re targeting it to.

Look At Time Spent On Your Site Next
This is where things get really interesting. This is where you can evaluate what traffic source is sending you visitors interested in your content. For example, when I take a look at my stats (and you can go even deeper than past the top 10) I notice that Facebook visitors spend way more time on my website hands down. This is an interesting stat because it tells me that the people who click on my links over on Facebook are highly qualified visitors who are very interested in what I have to say. That also means that I need to spend a little more energy over on Facebook. What do your stats tell you?

Now Look At Pages Viewed
Things may overlap with time spent in this area but you also may discover a few new things as well. As I predicted, Facebook had a high number of pages viewed which accounts for time spent on my site, but I noticed that there were some other sites that had a high number of pages viewed as well. All the sites that I guest blogged at for the month, such as my post on Problogger, had a very high number of pages viewed. So did some of my tried and true sites like EzineArticles and Quora. It’s nice to know that some of the old content rich sites still deliver qualified traffic right?

Now that you’ve taken a look into your stats, how are you feeling about the quality of person visiting your site? Tell us a little about your statistics or any new discoveries you’ve made by looking at your stats.

Top Apps For Writers (And Entrepreneurs)

January 22, 2013 By Lisa Angelettie 1 Comment

Did you know that there are over 800,000+ free and paid Apps on the market. How on earth are you suppose to choose the ones that will work for you? Well as a writer and entrepreneur first and foremost, I LOVE productivity Apps. And it really defeats the purpose of “productivity” to spend an entire day researching and selecting the right Apps for writers. That’s why I love this new interactive digital magazine, App User Magazine, which is a publication dedicated to the App user.

Please check out my new interactive, guest article on my selection of the Top 5 Apps For Writing. While they are absolutely not the only Apps to use, this article was totally me taking a look at my personal iPhone and iPad and writing about the Apps that I actually use every day in my business.

You can download this magazine as an App in the iTunes App store.

Feel free to add to the list. If there are Apps that you use regularly that help improve your productivity as a writer or entrepreneur, please add them in the comments below and share this article with your social networks.

What I Learned About Writing & Sharing Content In 2012 (Part 2)

December 27, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 6 Comments

Let Me Continue To Share What I Learned About Writing And Sharing Content This Year: Off Topic Content, Bounce Rates, Laser Focused Content

I learned a very BIG lesson in 2012 in regards to my beloved Google. Sometimes they make changes that we don’t like at first but are for our own good. For a very long time, I was getting great traffic to a few of my sites, especially this one, but my bounce rate was at an abysmal 80%. (I cringe just typing that number!) I knew that this was going to be a big problem for me in the future because Google had made it very clear that at some point in the future they were going to penalize sites with poor bounce rates.

FIRST – I have known for a very long time what the problem was with my bounce rate, I just didn’t know what to do about it. It wasn’t that I was writing content that was off topic for my readers, although it sort of was. Throughout the years of writing articles on this blog, I have always giggled at how bad of a speller I am. I thought that if I was making some of those errors that other people were too, so I came up with this bright idea to share some of those grammer blunders with my readers.

These were actually articles that I did zero keyword research on, I just wrote them up. What I didn’t count on was just how many people look up these terms everyday. There were a lot! For example, one of the terms that I get a lot of traffic from is bare vs. bear. A lot of people do not know how to use these two terms properly, so a lot of people found my article on it, but this created a big problem for me…

SECOND – Sites that were dedicated to grammar only were referring to my article on their websites. While I was honored that they used me as a resource, I also thought that perhaps I would get a lot of writers from these sites (because I work with a lot of writers) but that was not the case. I basically got a lot of lookie-loos. Could have been kids needing help with a paper or whoever, but they were people who read the definitions and then clicked off my site within a second or two. They got what they needed very quickly and left. This is NOT what I want people to do on my website, and this is not what you want either.

THIRD – While my site is dedicated to helping people create better content and good grammar is part of that, people are not generally going to use my site as a referral for grammar tips. Therefore the high bounce rate. So what happened to fix it? Nothing on my part. What happened was that when Google added their “exact domain match” update, it knocked a lot of my grammar tip pages way down the search results, so I no longer get the huge surge of traffic I use to from these pages. In fact, my traffic decreased by about 10% from this one change which made me very upset – at first.

BUT the result was that NOW my traffic visits my site through articles that are laser focused and related to my website’s mission. People visit for up 15 to 30 minutes now – some longer. I get a lot more page views per visitor. So now my bounce rate is at an all time low of 13%! Can you say yippee!!!

LESSONS LEARNED – The lessons learned are simple. While in the past I have casted a pretty wide net in regards to content I will create for my site, I will no longer do that. While I know a lot about a lot of topics having run my business for many years online, the reality is that I cannot write about everything. Content for my site will be laser focused around my topic. I will include (sort of) off topic articles in my newsletters, in guest posts, or with my private clients. I don’t want to ever throw the balance off of my site again.

Also, your bounce rate matters if you want organic traffic from the search engines. So get familiar with yours by checking your Google Analytics stats and make any adjustments you need to make in regards to the “focus” of your content.

Read Part One Of What I Learned About Writing & Sharing Content in 2012

What I Learned About Writing & Sharing Content In 2012 (Part 1)

December 17, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 7 Comments

I’m going to take some time to share with you what I’ve learned about writing and sharing content this year.

When a year winds down, I like to take a look at what the big takeaway or area of growth was for entrepreneurs and marketers. This year I think it’s pretty clear that small business owners have realized not only the importance but the necessity of using content to market their businesses in a way that engages people and inspires them to share it.

The big kahunas have figured this out and have really stepped up their games this year. For instance, let’s take a look at Coke’s home page. Coke makes several attempts to engage visitors with content. They want you to read their @DocPemberton tweets over on Twitter, watch fun YouTube videos of drinking/sharing Coke, or read some of their updates over on Facebook where they share lots of interesting Coke related photos and fun facts.

What I Learned About Keyword Research In 2012

The first element of making sure that your ideal clients and customers read your content is to make sure that you speak their language using terms that they search for on the web. The only way to make sure that you get this right is to do the research. There’s no way around this. If you don’t do this, you will be shooting in the dark and next thing you know a year has gone nothing has changed in your business.

Before Google Panda and Penguin, it use to be that you could create a piece of content, optimize it for the web, and if you followed a few basic SEO principles Google would rank you highly and send you free traffic. This year some of that changed and it affected many, many sites across the web.

One of the huge things that I learned this year behind this is that it’s much more important to create a website and its content around one central theme versus spending too much time focusing on optimizing each individual piece of content. What I mean by this is that you have to get even more niche focused than before so that search engines as well as potential customers and clients recognize you as the authority in ONE specific topic that you write about. This is going to make it much easier to do your keyword research going forward.

FIRST – For example if you write about blogging, you need to get really specific about what aspect of blogging you focus on such as: making money with a blog, building a blog from scratch, WordPress blogging, Blogger blogging, etc. Get really specific and create content around only one of those topics.

SECOND – Build a list of 5 to 10 keywords around that topic only. This will take you literally about fifteen minutes if you use a robust keyword research tool (like my favs Market Samurai or SEMRush) or a bit longer if you do it old school using Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool.

THIRD – Use these keywords and related keywords (you can find related keywords when you do your search using any keyword tool) in your titles, first paragraphs, and sprinkled naturally throughout your articles.

FOURTH – Also use the keywords as anchor text when backlinking to your site BUT be sure not to use exact matches all of the time. Enclose some of your keyword phrases with other words. For example, if your keyword is “blogging basics” be sure to use longer and varied anchor text such as “blogging basics for coaches” or “easy blogging basics”. The search engines frown upon a lot of exact term anchor text, which is why a lot of sites lost many of their rankings when the Panda, Penguin and Exact Domain Match updates hit.

FIFTH – Don’t over think your keyword research. Ultimately you need to focus on creating content that your readers will read and share!

Here are a few additional articles I wrote in 2012 that discuss keyword research:

Five Reasons Why I Won’t Read Your Blog
http://lisaangelettieblog.com/5-reasons-why-i-wont-read-blog/

How My Blog Traffic Increased By 33%
http://lisaangelettieblog.com/how-my-blog-traffic-increased-by-33-percent/

My Keyword Research SEMRush Review & Tutorial
http://lisaangelettieblog.com/keyword-research-semrush-review-tutorial/

Does Your Content Pass The Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test?

November 25, 2012 By Lisa Angelettie 13 Comments

Is Your Writing Simple Enough To Pass The Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test?

Studies prove that the average customer or client responds to information that they can easily understand. Of course the question is: Are you writing content that the average customer and client can easily read and understand? Do you even know? If your prospects are not connecting with your content, one of the reasons could be that you are writing “over their heads” and trust me when I tell you that this happens more often than you think. In an effort to sound superior, intelligent, or as an “expert” in their fields – many entrepreneurs will “overwrite” their content.

What Does Simple Writing Look Like?

Simple writing should include words that are direct, simple, and familiar to the reader. You should eliminate any needless words. Organization and structure of your content should be simple, straightforward and and arranged in a logical way so that the reader understands the point(s) you are trying to make.

How Do You Know If Your Content Is Readable?

This type of “readability” factor for your content can actually be measured using something called the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Tests. There are two tests. One is called the Flesch Reading Ease test and gives your content a score based on readability. The higher the score, the better.

For example, a score of 0 through 30 is easily read by college graduates (such as The Harvard Law Review), a score of 60-70 is easily understood by 13-15 year old students, and a score between 90-100 can easily be understood by the average 11 year old student.

The other test is called the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test and translates the reading ease score into a grade level. Typically educators use this test to measure the readability of text books and other materials. But we are also educators and can use this test to determine if our content can be easily read by customers and clients.

With this test, the lower the grade level, the better. This test measures word count, syllable count, and sentence count to come up with a score. The score is directly related to the grade level, so for example content with a Flesch-Kincaid level of 8.2 can be easily read by the average eighth grade student.

What Score Is Good For Me?

You will find that your content will differ in scores depending on the topic, how tired you were when you wrote the article:), and other various factors. An easy way for you to get an idea of what a good score is for you is to take a sampling of the articles that were the most “shared” or “commented” on or simply your favorites. Estimate your average score out of those articles.

Keep in mind that you should probably try to not score higher than a 65 in the Flesch Reading Ease score or no higher than a 8-9 in the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level one (although this particular article scored a little high).

This has nothing to do with the aptitude of your readers. I target business owners and try to keep my Flesch scores as low as possible and the reason why is “time”. If my readers can consume and understand my content quickly, I know that they will take action faster, and probably come back to read more. If my readers have to think a little too hard about what I’ve written, they may save it for later (and never read it!) or just stop reading altogether.

How To Test Your Content

If you own Microsoft Office, you already have the test feature built into Word and Outlook.

If you are an iWork user there are already tons of requests on the forums for developers to add this feature to Pages and Apple Mail. So hopefully we’ll see it soon, but in the meantime if much of your content is published to your WordPress blog then you can test your content using the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast or use an online calculator.

This article topic was written by reader request. If you have a topic you’d like me to cover on the site, feel free to drop me a note over on Facebook.