Bring authority & visibility to your site’s search results

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators — anyone with a website.

If your nonprofit team creates content on the Web, then your biggest challenge is to have people find you in search. And, let’s get super obvious here: That means you want them to literally click your link and arrive on your site, right?

Now, the first challenge to overcome is showing up on the first page of Google search results, given that about 97 percent of people never click through to the second page of results. (To dig deeper into search engine optimization for your site, see our articles on SEO.)

But the challenges don’t end there. If you create original content, someone, somewhere, at some point has ripped off your material and republished it as their own. Or perhaps they’re a partner site that has your permission to republish your content. Google, Bing and the other search engines often have a hard time determining who published it first and who’s the rightful owner. In other words, whose link should appear higher in the search results? Let’s call that the authentication challenge.

A third and final barrier for you to overcome is the differentiation challenge. Why should a user click on your link vs. the one right above or below it?

Claiming authorship to increase exposure & authority

The smarties at Google have come up with some solutions that you should be employing on your own website or blog, if you haven’t done so already. They’ve laid out a fairly simple process that you can follow to basically claim ownership of your own digital stuff. It begins with Google Authorship, also called Authorship Markup. Let me explain.

Google Authorship sounds daunting, but it’s simply a way for you to verify with Google that the content across the Web that you created is yours. Google will then show your content — and your authorship — in its “author rich snippet search results.” See the image at top for how this looks. Claiming your content will not only help you in the short run with better click-through rates for your content, but it will also help you to build AuthorRank with Google.

As social marketer Mark Traphagen writes: “All that content begins to contribute to a score that Google maintains for you that is their assessment of your trustworthiness, relevance, and popularity in your key topics. Once AuthorRank kicks in as a ranking factor, it will serve as an additional signal to Google that your highly-trusted content should rank higher in search.”

Now, this process is fairly straightforward when you’re the sole content creator at your site or blog. But what if you run a multi-author site or blog, like Socialbrite?

4 steps to tie Google Authorship to your Google Plus account

Google has outlined how this process works in only the sketchiest terms — and in a somewhat misleading way. (For instance, you don’t need a byline.)

Here are the four simple steps we took to claim Google Authorship on our multi-user blog:

1The first step involved gathering up all the Google Plus profile page urls of all my partners. It turned out everyone was already on G+. Here, for example, is my Google Plus profile page. It’s not a friendly url — you’re a number, not a name — so just copy and paste the whole thing. If you don’t have a G+ profile, go to http://profiles.google.com and click “Create my profile.”

2On your website or blog, you have to map each of your authors to their individual G+ profile page. For us, the simplest way to do that was to go into each writer’s user page in the WordPress dashboard and add this link to the Author tagline field:

Follow her on Google Plus

A few things to note:

• Author tagline is not the same across all WordPress themes, so there may be a different field that works instead, like Biographical bio, for instance. Test it out and see what works for you. (You can see how the author tagline displays at the bottom of this article.)

• Once you’ve gotten this working, you’re done — it’s a one-time task rather than something you have to insert with each post.

• Don’t forget to add ?rel=author to the end of the url (some people say that ?rel=me also works).

• The name you use on your site or blog (in the fields on your User page) should exactly match the name you use in your G+ profile.

3Instruct your contributors to go to their G+ profile page. Click on the blue Edit profile button, then scroll down until you see Contributor to. It’s easy to miss: Look for it between Other profiles and Links (see image at right). Click the Contributor to area, then Add custom link, and type in the name of the site and the url of the overall site, not your profile page on the site. For us, it was simply: Socialbrite and http://socialbrite.org/. Click Save, and you’re done. However, Mark Traphagen recommends that you add a + sign to the blog name and link specifically to the author bio page on your site. Our pointing to our home page may have worked because of the WordPress theme we use.

Optional plug-in step (if you need it): While our Twenty Eleven theme (and similar themes) is already configured for AuthorSure, making the use of an Author plug-in unnecessary, most WordPress themes out there will probably require the use of a plug-in. Options include Google authorship for multiple authors and WP Google Authorship plug-in.

4The final step is to test to make sure all of this worked. Go to the Structured Data Testing Tool (also called the Rich Snippets Testing Tool) and enter the url of one of your blog posts or articles. Examine the results to see if your author photo shows up.

Here is how Deltina tested one of her articles on our sister site, Socialmedia.biz:

A few final tips to optimize your content for Google search

Within a couple of days, when Google next indexes your site or blog, you should start seeing your author image appearing in search results on topics you’ve written about. This four-step process solves both challenges I mentioned at the top:

• Authentication: Google now knows, “Oh, you wrote this and it appeared on your blog, so we’ll display this post instead of a different post with the same content.”

• Differentiaion: Multiple studies have shown that users’ eyes are drawn to imagery, so your article will now attract more attention in search results. (See How optimizing my ugly Google+ pic increased free traffic 35%.)

Google Webmaster Tools outlines a series of steps to claim Authorship, as well as G+ author guidelines (thanks for the pointers, Kevin Marks!), but we think our 4-step process above is simpler, especially if you have a multi-user blog.

A few final tips:

• Thumbnail: Make sure you have a good close-up mugshot of yourself as the main image on your Google Plus profile page. This will be the image that Google pulls to insert into search results next to your blog post or article. Make sure it’s a photo, not a drawing, and one that shows your face, not a bucolic landscape or your pet. We read articles suggesting that your G+ profile image should be the same as your author image on your blog or website (if you use one), but that’s not true — at least, not for us.

• Public +1: On your G+ page, Google recommends adjusting your settings to make the +1 page of your profile public. That page displays anything that you have publicly “+1ed” on the Web.

• Results: Google doesn’t guarantee that your author photo will always show in results. Results may vary depending on a wide range of factors.

• Guest posts: Deltina suggests: “If you do a guest post on another blog, it is best to use the rel-author in your link back to your G+ account, and link from your G+ account directly to the article.”

• Other rel tags: You may want to dive deeper and learn how to create “rel=publisher” tags as well on your site. Here’s another pointer on how to add rel-publisher tags.

Make sense? Helpful or confusing? Let us know if you’re started using rel-author tags for your blog.

Cross-posted to Socialmedia.biz.

The post Why you should add author tags to your nonprofit’s blog appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, businesses, brands, social media managers, Web publishers, individuals.

Last week Google released their business profile page, which includes many of the features that Google Plus profiles have. Creating a Google Plus page for your nonprofit or brand can increase the visibility of your organization.

Once you have a page, you will have a URL for it that you can include on all your other marketing collateral and in any communications your organization sends out. If you make the information on your Google Plus business profile available to everyone on the Web, then your page URL will also appear in Google searches, making it more likely that your organization will be discovered.

The video above walks you through the steps of creating a business page for your nonprofit. If you’re already using Google Plus, you can easily build a business page from within your existing profile. On the left-hand side of your profile page, under your avatar, there is a drop-down menu with the option to “manage your pages.” By selecting that option, you will get started in creating a new business page. Much like Facebook Pages, you can switch between two different identities on Google Plus — your personal profile page and the page for your nonprofit.

The video tutorial covers:

• How to choose the right category for your business (the category options are much more robust than they are on Facebook, so this is an important aspect of your profile)
• How to upload and feature multiple profile photos to represent your organization
• How to select the settings for who sees the information on your business page
• How to navigate within the Google Plus dashboard
• How to add visual extras to your business profile

Will you create a Google Plus Page for your nonprofit?

The post How to create a Google Plus business page appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations businesses, brands, bloggers, educators, individuals.

Google’s new social networking platform, Google Plus, is still going strong since it was released at the end of June. Farra Trompeter at Big Duck created an awesome Slideshare presentation that outlined the steps to get your nonprofit started with Google Plus.

Here are nine ways to start off with Google Plus:

1Set up a personal profile. Google Plus does not yet support profiles for nonprofits, organizations or businesses. So decide which individuals at your organization can serve as representatives for your brand. Begin to connect with thought leaders in your field, and connect with people you already know. Note: You can ignore people after you add them to a Circle.

2Manage your privacy. One of the best things about Google Plus is that you can configure the security of each section of your Google Plus profile. This video will show you how to configure Google Plus’s privacy settings.

3Learn the features. Google has created an easy-to-understand guide for Google Plus. There is also an epic Google document with every tip and trick users have discovered, plus this useful website on Google Plus. I’ve also created a few video tutorials.

4Understand how it works. As with any social network, it’s important to understand both the functionality of the tool and community etiquette. As Beth Kanter points out, Google Plus allows for asymmetric sharing: I follow you, but you might not follow me.

5Consider what you want to add to the stream. Ultimately the value that you get from Google Plus is in direct proportion to the value you give. Before you share something, ask yourself: “Will this really be useful to people?” Google Plus can’t give you the mindset to put others before yourself, but it can give you the tools to share selectively.

6Segment what you share. Google Plus allows you to create Circles, which allow you to share more selectively. Watch this video for more on how Google Plus Circles work.

7Hang out with others. One feature nonprofit professionals are talking about is the hangout feature. This allows you to do videoconferencing with up to 10 other Google Plus users. Rob, Marc and I use it for our weekly 501 Mission Place planning calls, and J.D., Shonali, Debra and I use it for our monthly Socialbrite calls.

8Follow their interests.  Sparks is a feature within Google Plus that allows you to easily find useful content based on your friends’ interests. This will help you become someone people want to follow.

9Jump in or wait? There are many reasons why a nonprofit should start investigating Google Plus. And there are just as many reasons why the nonprofit should wait before diving in. Geoff Livingston writes: “Social media is entering a period where certain communities and demographics will migrate to some networks in favor of others. Organizations should choose the ones that make the most sense in relation to their mission.”

Have you started using Google Plus?

The post 9 steps to getting started with Google Plus appeared first on Socialbrite.

In late March, Google announced the arrival of its version of the “Like” button, the +1 button, and the world waited to find out what that would really mean. With the launch of Google Plus, it’s pretty clear that “+1″ and Google Plus, Google’s brand new social network, are Google’s play for  social graph domination. While Google Plus has been all the rage the past two weeks, one overlooked point is how the +1 button will change the way we search, interact with search results and use the Web in the future.

Google holds about 64 percent of the total search market. Though Google lost some market share last year to Bing, this should change with the use of Google’s +1 button. In fact, a recent study of 10,000 of the Web’s largest sites found a 33 percent surge in the number of sites adopting +1 in the last few weeks.

What is the +1 button?

In its simplest form, +1 is a button for individuals to publicly share what content they enjoy on the Web. As explained by Google:

“+1’ing is a public action. Anyone on the web can potentially see that you’ve +1’d content when they’re searching on Google or viewing content you’ve +1’d. For this reason, you should only +1 pages when you’re comfortable sharing your recommendation with the world.

Your +1’s may appear to anyone who sees the pages you’ve +1’d. However, we’ll try to display your +1’s to people (specifically those in your social connections) who would find them most useful. Similarly, the +1’s you see will typically be from people in your social connections.”

Google has moved big time into the social search market

Google’s +1 button works, in theory, similarly to Facebook’s Like button. When you are logged into Google, you will see what others have “plussed” around the Web. If you are logged in and searching for content using Google search, you will see what content your friends on Google have plussed. If a friend has plussed a piece of content on another site, his or her name will will show up next to that specific website in search returns. Within Google’s search returns itself you can +1 any search return by clicking on the +1 button next to or below a certain return (faded until you place the cursor over it). Additionally, the total number of +1s on a website will appear next to Google ads for that site.

Simply put, Google is showing you how your friends are using the Web.

At this time, it’s not possible to see who, specifically, has plussed content on the Web while on someone’s site. I’m sure a +1 button is already in development that will include the faces and names of friends who have plussed the content. However, for now, it’s just a plain button that shows the number of +1s of each piece of content.

When someone has plussed content, it appears within the “+1″ tab on his or her Google profile.

Google really does know all your friends

Your “social connections” include anyone in your Gmail or Google talk chat list, people in your Google Plus Circles, people in your Google Reader, Google Buzz, and Google Contacts. It’s not hard to see how easily this list can expand to include your YouTube friends (Google owns YouTube), those with whom you’ve shared your Picasa album (yep, Google owns Picasa), your Google voice contacts, anyone in a Google group with you, anyone you’ve shared a Google document with … etc. In other words, Google is poised to be just as big a player in social search returns as Facebook. Possibly even bigger. Google handles 1 billion searches daily.

How will +1 affect website search and rank?

It’s clear that Google will factor the +1 into its algorithm of search results. According to Google’s +1 FAQ:

“+1’s from friends and contacts can be a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, and we’re constantly tweaking and improving our algorithm to improve overall search quality. For +1′s, as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality.”

No doubt Google’s +1 button will affect search ranking.

I also think it’s only a matter of time before Google begins searching Google Plus public comments and returning them as real time search results. For example, when you search “Boston Red Sox,” Google would include what your friends are saying publicly about the Red Sox on Google Plus within the search results. You’d even see which of your friends are talking about the Sox’s fabulous season this year.

This seems ever more likely since Google dropped real time search July 4 when its agreement to show Twitter in real time search expired, just a few days after Google launched Google Plus. “Search by what your friends are saying now” is just a few iterations away.

Taken a step further, what you “plus” on the Web will ultimately affect what you will see within Google search, what all of your connections will see, and how the world may perceive you.

What are you thoughts on the +1 button?

Republished from Community Organizer 2.0.

The post How Google’s +1 button will change search appeared first on Socialbrite.

If you’re reading this and work for a nonprofit, you may not want to hop onto the Google Plus bandwagon – especially if your peanut butter is already spread too thin.

However, if have time and you’re the curious type, go for it! As Andy Huston suggests, “Experiment personally then apply professionally.”

Just know that the vast majority of your constituents will continue to be on Facebook for a long time.

2 ways Google Plus will change how you connect

Though it is early, there are a couple of features that stand out about Google+: Hangouts and Circles.

• Hangouts – Hangouts is a way to conduct group video conferencing with other Google+ users.

I can see Hangouts creating a paradigm shift in how organizations connect with their supporters. Imagine key staff (the ones who can effectively represent the organization) posting “open office hours” where G+ users can pop into a Hangout and chat with them face to face about critical topics.

Here’s what Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation had to say about Google Plus in general:

• Circles – Facebook and Twitter both allow users to put various different people in specific groupings or lists. But how many people use or even know about Facebook friends lists? The same goes for Twitter. Circles, on the other hand, put segmentation up front in their product – and they make it fun!

I could see organizations segmenting their donors, volunteers, partners into a various different circles.

Here’s what Andy Huston had to say:

Social media is about people, not technology

If you’re messing around with Google Plus, or have decided to wait until the early adopters flush out the bugs, a few basic principles stay true:

• People use social media to connect with other people, not technology. When was the last time you felt truly understand and appreciated by your laptop?
• Social media is less important than your story and how well you can tell it. If you don’t have a good story to tell, having a megaphone is useless.
• Fish where the fish are. Right now, mostly the geeks and other uncool kids are using Google+. It remains to be seen whether Google+ will be adopted by the masses, so spend your time on the platforms (Facebook) with the people who love you.
• Also see Frank Barry’s article called Social Media Best Practices: 12 Tips for Making the Best of Any Social Site.

In short, stay interested in where Google+ is going, but don’t spend huge resources on it right now.

How do you see nonprofits using Google Plus?

Related

• How to get started with Google Plus and Circles (Socialbrite)

The post How Google Plus can help nonprofits connect with supporters appeared first on Socialbrite.

Google Plus is the new social platform expected to give Facebook a good fight, and make Flickr, Quora and Twitter a bit nervous.

The video above covers the basics of using Circles, Sparks, Google Profile and sharing updates with friends.To get the most out of this video, share it with your friends (ask them what they think) and read Chris Brogan’s list of 50 ideas / possibilities about Google Plus.

Here’s what you’ll find in the video:

• 00:45 – Filtering streams
• 01:25 – Sparks
• 01:40 – Sharing articles with Circles
• 02:20 – Sharing with Extended Circles
• 02:45 – Viewing photos
• 03:33 – Using Circles
• 05:45 – Editing content and visibility of your Profile
• 06:20 – How to share updates, photos, videos and links with your Circles

How to use Google Circles

Google+ has a feature called Circles”that allows users to put various different people into specific groupings or lists.

This feature is intended to:

• Share relevant content with the right people
• Follow content posted by people you find interesting

No one in a circle can see who else is in the circle. They also don’t know what you’ve named the circle, or how many other people are in it.

This makes sense when you think about the real life “private circles” we all have in our minds:

• People we look up to
• Our closest friends
• Potential project partners
• Crushes

The people in these circles usually don’t know they’re in the circle. Some might eventually know (potential project partner becomes project partner), or they may never know (crushes).

Circles are not Groups

Jeremiah Owyang wrote an informative post on Google Plus, but I have to disagree with his comment about Circles being a newer version of Google Groups. I can’t image Google not eventually adding Groups into the Plus mix.

Groups are very different from Circles in three important ways:

1. All Group members know the name of the group
2. All Group members know the purpose of the group
3. All members know who’s in the Group

A more accurate comparison to Circles would be Facebook friends lists, or private Twitter lists. People you add to Circles have no idea what you’ve named the Circle/List. See how Ross Mayfield visually explains Circles in a series of slides.

How to see who a post was shared with

If a post was shared only with specific people or circles, you’ll see “Limited” in top right of the post. When you click on that, you can see the total number of people who received the post. This doesn’t tell you what Circles people are in because posts can be shared with multiple Circles, and even combinations of Circles and individual people.

How to add other users who commented on a post

To add users mentioned in a post, all you have to do is over over their avatar. You’ll see their name, a short blurb (usually where they work), which of your circles they belong to (if any). Additionally, you’ll see “Add to.”

How to change the order of your Circles

This tip from David Svet: To rearrage the order of your Circles, use your space bar: 1 space for some, 2 for others, 3 for some.

What do you think of Google Plus so far?

The post How to get started with Google Plus and Circles appeared first on Socialbrite.

Guest post by Amy Sample Ward
Membership Director, NTEN

Google+, the latest iteration on social networking from Google, is here.

As always, when it’s just the first trickling of people joining up, the way the tool is used, the depth of some functionality, and the technical issues are all a bit out of proportion. With all of that as a grain of salt, I want to share a few reflections focused on security and control – the items touted ahead of launch as the elements separating Google+ from Facebook.

Privacy: Changing your settings is a breeze

It may seem strange to users who are new to Google tools, but the Google+ privacy settings are tied in to all of your Google account privacy settings. (Check your settings now if you want!) In some ways, this could be confusing to people who’ve become accustomed to Facebook’s approach which has layers of settings and changes those layers, options, and controls all of the time. Now, your sharing and connecting settings apply to much more of the Web than just your social networking profile.

When joining, the presence of ad recommending data was very clear. Check out the invite screen shot:

But for all the talk about “owning our data” that Facebook has helped ignite, Google’s response is “data liberation.” Making the options for backing up and downloading your content and data explicit.

Privacy within the platform can be on a content by content basis. When you post a message, upload a photo or video, or share, you are given the option to select which members of your “circles” are able to view it. Circles are how you organize your contacts. You can share with all of your circles, any specific one/s, or with the world, every time you post.

You are also given the option to disable comments on something and/or disable the option for others to share/reshare what you post. This last bit of privacy/security flexibility will, I think, help people feel better about participating that were previously worried about sharing on Facebook for fear that people would push it across the network without them knowing.

Google+ links for my account and my notifications appear in any of my Google account windows. But, the notifications are terrific in their streamlined functionality. You can click through to the actions and content without changing the page you are on – just flipping through the popup notification window itself. Though, you’ll see in these images (just like on Facebook), that when you comment or interact with a friend’s post, you can then be interacting with people who aren’t in your circles. (Note: I am connected directly with Debra, but not with Andy.)

My Google+ profile automatically includes a Google Buzz tab to see the stream from that space. Google integration across all of the Google-owned spaces is pretty seamless, naturally. But, the social media landscape has changed over the years and people expect more flexibility, allowing social profiles on the web to interact.

For example, people are talking about viewing their Google+ circles in Tweetdeck or Hootsuite where they can already view Twitter and Facebook. There’s also the integration for multimedia like Google’s YouTube, Flickr, and sites like Twitter and Twitpic.

Google+ and Facebook: Still early days

I was in college when Facebook first appeared. We could only see people at our university. But it allowed for some really organic networking across the platform with functionality that Facebook later dissolved. For example, because it was already limited to your school, the course lists were populated each semester into the platform – this let you select which classes you were in and then see the other students in your class, even if you weren’t friends directly. You could then share messages, notes, talk about class, etc. You were also able to see a more general flow of data on the platform.

In the early days of Twitter, the public stream contributed dramatically to users finding each other and people of interest to follow or just to communicate with. The “incoming” stream on Google+ is its version of this wider stream, allowing users to surf across the platform to people they may not know but that are sharing content or updates publicly. I think that it is an important part of the platform at this early stage, but there will need to be more add-on functionality once we are past Day 1 of the trial period and the numbers of users skyrocket; the content will be too difficult to follow with too much happening. A Google+ equivalent for hashtags or other metadata filtering could make a public timeline something useful even with a huge number of participants.

Personal vs. professional

Because your contacts and the sharing are based on your “circles,” I can see how Google+ could allow for more streamlined integration of a personal and professional profile. You can have everyone connected to you, without trying to say “I only have real friends on this social network” and limit which content goes to which circle. But, at least right now, you can still only have that one profile.

My work email address is managed by Google as we use Google Apps. I tried setting up an account on Google+ with that email but I was given an error message that said they do not support the additional domains yet. I am sure this is something they are building out, though – both for the professional users and so that it expands who can use the platform because it requires a Gmail email address right now.

Options for nonprofits

I haven’t found any organizations using Google+ yet with an organizational profile. And as I said above, the professional vs personal differentiation is yet to be defined by the platform. Without knowing just where Google is planning to go with these kinds of options or profiles, I can see a few options just built into the functionality:

• Using “circles” for volunteers, donors, general supporters, etc. to more directly target content, asks, and engagement efforts.

• Having nonprofit organizations manage a Spark (the interest area aggregators):

• Using the “hangouts” functionality, which allows for up to 10 users to group chat with video, for building trust and relationships with your community members. Imagine having a daily hangout with your organization’s leadership shared publicly through the network so anyone could join in, ask a question, etc. – especially during a campaign or election cycle!

Resources for exploring Google+

Here are a few resource links I’ve found helpful so far in the Google+ exploration process:

• How to import your Facebook friends to Google+
• Facebook friend export extension for Chrome
• Google+ Review on TechCrunch
• Google+ on Android

Have more resource links or blog posts to share? What are your concerns or reflections with Google+? Looking forward to hearing how your experience goes!

Republished from the NTEN blog. Thank you, NTEN, for sharing.

The post First impressions of Google+: Security and control appeared first on Socialbrite.