Sebbie on the Webbie

Posts Tagged ‘Technology/Internet’

As bloggers, we’re constantly being told that we should be keeping a keen eye on our Google Page rank as well as Alexa ranking. While it is very fulfilling to see your site ranks go up, there’s more to the story than that. As you know, both of these ranks compare your site to Every Single Website On The Web. It is hard to even comprehend how many websites that is. Even if you knew the exact number of different websites on the planet, it would still be hard to understand. It’s like knowing that Australia is a bloody big country, but you don’t really get HOW BIG until you fly over it and realise that just because you just passed Darwin doesn’t mean you’ll be home in Hobart any time soon.

It would be a lot better if there was a way to compare your site’s popularity In Your Niche, but there isn’t, at the moment anyway. That is to say that your site’s influence where it counts has little to do with your page ranks. I must give my husband’s blog as an example. He writes a blog for people who use exergaming in professional health and fitness purposes. Professional exergamers, that is. (I bet you didn’t even know there were such thing as a professional exergamer!) His blog, Exergaming Australia has a modest page rank of 2 (oh, he’s gone up!) and his Alexa ranking is around 4,600,000. Not too impressive if you just look at the numbers. However, everyone who is anyone in the field of exergaming knows who he is and what he does and his influence in the field is world wide and instant. When you google “exergaming” his blog comes up as the second result, right after Wikipedia and Nintendo Wii doesn’t even make the first page! This is because his niche is so small, that even though EVERYONE of any importance knows him, the vast majority of the web is quite unaware of what a brilliant blog he runs.

On the other hand, I run a Barbie community site, as you know, with a page rank of 4 and Alexa ranking of about 476,000, which is pretty impressive for any site, BUT, I make no money (or very little) and the English speaking world is pretty much unaware that my site exists. Put “Barbie” on Google and you won’t see my site anywhere near the top of the results, I quit searching after page 6. And that is because there are a gazillion Barbie sites out there, collectors, articles written about the doll and so forth and so forth, and not even refining the search to “Barbie community” help me much. Yes, I am bad at SEO, but my husband there is even worse.

I checked a few Barbie-sites that I know of and who are very well known amongst collectors, to see how they rank. I kicked their butt so bad, I couldn’t find an unofficial Barbie-site (non-Mattel) that would have had better rankings than I have, not even my biggest direct competitor. How much good does the rankings do for me? Not much, other than I get to pat myself in the back for beating the other sites in the numbers game, but that’s it.

So what to do? Make sure you introduce yourself to all the right people and get the word out. Do the best you can do to produce high quality content and people who do find your site may spread the word where it counts. Focusing on your page ranks is not going to bring your fame and fortune they are there just to report to you how much you’ve improved, not where you should be.

Does that make sense to you?

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I think a lot of us are a bit confused about the differences between a group and a page. Even though I administer both types, I couldn’t answer that off the top of my hat.

Official or casual?

The most obvious difference between the two is that groups are primarily intended for a more casual use while pages are intended for businesses, brands, products, organisations, artists, bands or public figures. Groups can be pretty much about anything, and there is a category “just for fun” which is probably the most used classification for groups, I would imagine. So definitely, if you are promoting a business, or other “serious” entity, page is your first option.

Pages are for authorised personnel only.

This means, that you can’t add a fan page for someone you really admire, even though they were an official public figure unless you are authorised to do that by that person or entity. However, you can start a fan group for that person without restriction. Say you love J.K. Rowling (who doesn’t?), you could start a group titled “J.K. Rowling fans” but you couldn’t do the same with pages.

Pages are easier to relocate

I don’t know about you, but I do think the navigation on Facebook is an absolute nightmare when you have to travel beyond your own profile. I don’t care much if they change the look of the site every 3 weeks, but the fact remains the navigation hasn’t improved – and the latest “simplified” one took away the bookmark-toolbar from the bottom which was the only saviour this far… Anyway, pages are easier to find again (ads and pages, one easy link on top of all the adverts on the right and one on the home page on the left), which is why I kind of prefer them more than groups… The path you’ll have to travel to find your groups again is:

- Go to your profile
- Select the info -tab.
- Scroll down to your groups -list and click the small link “see all”
- Then select from the drop down menu: “Groups you admin”.

(Was it REALLY necessary to make it a 6-step process, Facebook?)

Facebook Page to support your Website or Blog

A popular use for a page is to support / promote your website or your blog. Pretty much everyone who is online at all these days are on Facebook, so it’s a very handy place to remind people that your site is still out there. It works better than an email list for a lot of smaller sites, because it’s easier to fan a page than enter an email to an email list. Basically you’ll still get the same advantages – you can contact all your fans at the same time, but don’t do that too often or they’ll drop you like a hot potato. Use “message all members” -function very sparingly and with a thought!

It is worth while to have a fan box for Facebook Page on your blog or website if you have one… (Mind you I haven’t created one for this blog yet, I’m still considering some things, but I’m definitely adding it asap.)

Promoting a Group is more difficoult than promoting a page

For a reason or another, the most obvious difference between a group and a page is that you can add a fan box or “-badge” of a page to your website by just copying a piece of code. This option isn’t available for groups, and the only half-automated method for promoting a group is paid Facebook ads.

Page has more options

Groups are fairly limited when it comes to adding functionality to them. Pages will theoretically take any application that your profile takes, but I find adding them equally nightmarish as the navigation on Facebook. However, there are a handy set of default apps that you can easily add to the pages such as events and reviews, to name a few. These are not available in Groups.

Special Tip for Mafia Wars- type game group admins

If you are administrating one of these game groups for adding clan or mafia members or similar to games that require big teams, and you have these mass email lists, it is a good idea to sometimes clean up the discussion board a bit. This is because people will lose track on which groups they belong to and they might have stopped playing the game months ago, and still get invitations to join teams. What you want to do is shorten the message threads that list email addresses so that you only leave the first message explaining how it works and the last one, with the latest list of addresses. Also add these instructions; “If  you want to be removed from the list, simply copy the last email list and remove your address off it and repost it. (Reverse the process of adding your email.)” That way, you won’t be the reason for your members having to change their email addresses on their Facebook account for being too popular!

If you can, select a page.

Unless the limitations set by Facebook TOS of creating a page prevent you from creating one, I would recommend selecting a page if you’re half serious about it. If you just want to collect people under the same sentence, do pick a group.

A fan page of a doll

Even though pages are intended for more serious use, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t create a page for an art project or something a bit more humorous. Take a look at Elphie, the world travelling green Barbie doll.

Do they have other differences that I missed? Do share if you can think of something else.

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