The Best Of The Web. 23/11/2013

Well there you have it, another week gone by it is Saturday once again. This week has been a productive one again with all of the bizzebee team getting together for a google Hangout on Wednesday night which was fun.

Poor old Mizanur probably didn’t enjoy it as much as us due to it being a 2am start for him over in Chittagong but he stayed until the end and didn’t fall asleep which is some going I can tell you!

For those of you who do not know this week sees the 50^th anniversary of Dr Who, what was once a popular Sci Fi series for both its good story lines and very bad special effects and wobbly returned a few years back and has grown into a very popular show with quality effects for a new generation. And it is for that reason our final fun post of this weeks round up will be Dr Who related, yes, I am a bit of a fan myself.

As usual I have compiled a list of 10 great posts and articles to share with you all this week which have been put forward by the team. We all do a fair amount of reading each week as this is how we keep up with what is new and interesting and these are the ones we think you will learn from and enjoy the most. So with that in mind let’s get started.

Facebook Helps One Man Build a French Fry Empire

The first article is written by Joshua Sophy over at the SmallBizTrends.com site and tells the story about the success one Canadian restaurant company has had using social media for growing its business.

As a small business you probably have heard about how using Facebook and Twitter is a great free way to grow your business and it is something we here at bizzebee talk about a lot and when you read this article you can see why.

Facebook and Twitter used properly can be a very powerful thing indeed and best of all it is free so do yourself a favour, read this article an become inspired!

10 Social Media Blunders Even the Big Brands Make

This article was put forward by John and I can see why it really is an excellent post explain the 10 biggest social media blunders that most people make including the big brand companies like Starbucks.

They cover Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn blunders and some of them are so simple that you can see why they are overlooked. If you use social media to grow and build your business then this is a must read.

Content Marketing With Microsites: Pros, Con, Examples & Best Practices

This post was shared with us by Matt our resident WordPress & website specialist and it is about microsites or as some would call them mini sites.

Written by Nicolette Beard over at the TopRankBlog.com she discusses the best practices and the pros and cons for having and using mini sites. They were very popular in the early 90s and some would say they gave the internet and online businesses a bad name.

Marketers would build loads of mini sites to promote dodgy make money schemes, it got so bad that Google stopped marketers advertising on their network and sending traffic to their thin mini sites but there are many reasons why they can and should be used today. This is a very interesting read indeed.

Not Provided, Frankly Google I Don’t Give A Damn

Written by Matt Williamson who is a specialist in Digital Marketing and SEO this article discusses how to get around the ‘Not Provided’ search result you get in Google Analytics by using Google’s Webmaster Tools.

It seems Google do not want people to know what they are ranking for or what terms are driving people to their site. Why? I hear you ask, I have an idea, Google are a business with share holders so it makes you think that what they are doing isn’t always good for the internet.

Matt works for an SEO company called SEOTrafficLab and he has some helpful insights here. Several of the SEOTrafficLad team are Google qualified and classed as Google partners whatever that means.

I wonder if they agree with me that Google are doing the ‘Not Provided’ results to ‘motivate and persuade’ people to use their AdWords system instead?

Did you know I don’t particularly trust Google? 🙂

The Importance of Content Curation

Content Curation is the art of re using other people’s content as part of your content marketing campaign.

“Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003.” – Eric Schmidt, Google CEO That is a lot of content to sieve through!

Whether you like the colours of this website and believe me when I tell you that it has been discussed within the bizzebee team but you will love the infographs they have shared from Uberflip.com

This infographs is a great breakdown as to why you should curate content and the best sources to go for your content. If you are not sure what content curation is, these weekly roundups could easily be consider as such. 🙂

21 Ridiculous Facts About Starting An Online Store

Has San Khan has compiled 21 great and ridiculous facts about starting an online store. You will be surprised when you read them at how inspiring it is. Starting an online shop sounds scary and costly but when you look at some of the positives like not needing a warehouse or shop premises suddenly things seem a whole lot easier.

An interesting read indeed.

Tips on Using Graphics in Online Business Material

As the saying goes “A picture can paint a thousand words” and we know that using images on social media can have a powerful impact on your traffic especially with the hugely popular Pinterest network.

Pictures on your website are important for several reasons, they break up posts and give your reader something more visual which is good but they can also appear in search results and become part of your SEO campaign.

This article discusses tips on using graphics in your website content and business material. Something all small and big businesses with websites and social media campaigns should really think about.

How to Write a Pitch and Get Noticed

This is a great post by Annabel Candy over at SuccessfulBlogging.com. Annabel is one of my favourite blogging experts and writers. She says it straight and gives serious quality and useful information when she writes.

In this article she gives tips and advice about how to write an email pitch without pitching. If you are trying to get an article as a guest post on someone else’s website or even trying to connect for other reasons there is a way to do things and a way to not.

Many people kill their opportunities by writing really bad emails, only today I received an email about a guest post on one of my websites and it was soon binned because it was just so embarrassingly bad. To make sure your emails do not get binned before they are even read please read this article and take note!

The Three Pillars of SEO

This post was put forward for those who are yet still not sure what SEO is, we talk about it a lot and we intend to bring you all you need to know within the Hive with tutorials by Mizanur but for now we have this short but interesting article to help you.

There are so many tricks and methods to getting your website onto the first page of Google but these all fall under 3 main pillars, on page, off page and under the bonnet. Read this article to understand what each pillar really means.

Got Support? Your Support Desk Plays A Key Role In Your Business Development

We have another post from Kim ‘WordPress Queen’ Castleberry. In this post she discusses installing a support system for your website. All good business based sites need a support desk to help their customers and clients when they have issues.

The idea behind a helpdesk like these is that it looks more professional, it saves you a lot of time messing around answering emails and you can lay out most asked questions upfront to prevent people constantly sending you emails asking you the same old questions.

Here Kim discusses a system she is using and intends to use when developing websites for her clients. If you develop websites for people then this could be a very useful system to know about, this is another tool to have in your tool box that you can charge for installing.

Ok so that is all of the serious stuff out of the way time for the fun stuff, well to be honest as a Sci Fi nut this is really serious stuff, who cares about SEO or Social Media when we have the Doctor to think about… Who? Did you say? Yes that is right… Dr Who! (Did you see what I did there?) 🙂

Daleks infiltrate Buckingham Palace as Doctor Who celebrates 50th anniversary

Ok so WHO used to hide behind the sofa when the Daleks and the Cyber Men would appear in the earlier Dr Who shows? Only recently someone said “if your sofas were not up against the walls then how big were the rooms way back in the 80s?” A valid point, not only have houses, rooms and gardens become smaller these days but Dr Who has returned and is far bigger than anyone expected.

I myself love the new Dr Who’s and this article is about the celebrations at Buckingham Palace for today’s 50th anniversary episode of the show which is going to be shown simultaneously in 84 countries! Wow! Here are the trailers for the 50th anniversary episode of this classic and unique British drama. Enjoy!