But (and it’s a big but) there’s over 360 million people using LinkedIn and plenty of those are only looking for jobs, recruiting or flogging something dodgy – and there’ll be a few in the mix that have no idea why they’ve got a profile.

So how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Well the chaps and chapettes have very handily introduced LinkedIn Sponsored Updates which allow you to promote your content so it exclusively appears ‘natively’ in the feed of your target audience.

In a nutshell, you get your message out to the right people across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices, and because it’s so targeted you also ensure that your budget is well managed and only creates high-quality leads.

Sounds good doesn’t it! Well it is and we’ve put together six tips to consider when using sponsoring your LinkedIn updates.

1. Decide what success looks like and set a goal

Decide what metrics you are going to use to measure success and set targets against them. This could be anything from gaining new followers, increasing your presence through impressions or creating a certain number of leads.

2. Know and target your audience

When using the LinkedIn Sponsored Updates you can narrow your audience and who will see the update by job title, industry, location, seniority, field of study, degree of study, and specific skills.

If you’re not 100% sure who your audience or think you’re being too narrow the Audience Expansion feature helps you get your updates in front of people who share similar attributes with your core targets.

3. Content is vital

Once you get in front of your desired audience you have to engage them with the right content that is relevant to them and represents your best work. Spend a plenty of time thinking about what your audience will want to see, how they will want to see it presented and what would make them click on your content.

4. Images are super vital

This one’s simple and doesn’t need explaining – include an appropriate, high quality image. Always.

5. Budget against Goals

LinkedIn allows you to spend your budget in two ways – you can spend by cost per click (CPC – you’re charged every time someone clicks on your post) or cost per impression (CPM – you’re charged for the number of people who see your update). Which one you choose depends on your goals, if you want to boost brand awareness then CPM is likely the way to go but if you want high quality leads then stick with CPC.

When using LinkedIn Sponsored Updates you can also set a total campaign budget, daily maximum spend, and campaign running time.

6. Measure performance and tweak

Once you’ve got your LinkedIn Sponsored Updates up and running use the platform’s analytics tool to make sure you’re reaching the right audience and your money’s being well spent. You can track the performance of your sponsored posts in real time with impression and engagement metrics.

If it’s not quite right, then change it until you’ve fine-tuned your strategy.

With the Sponsored Update tool at your disposal, it’s clear that LinkedIn is a powerful digital marketing platform worthy of consideration and investment. Give it a bash and if you get stuck give us a shout and we’ll sort you out with an Efecktive campaign that really delivers.

The post Six tips for Efecktive LinkedIn Sponsored Updates appeared first on efecktive.com.

So – I typically find a rights free image – one of my own photos or buy a nice high quality image to go on the site background. (You can see one I did here for my local irish football team –  Arctic Spas or on Costa Gaels)

To do this its REALLY simple.

Under the opening body tag in wordpress header.php – just add this little line of script:

<img src=”” alt=”Hot Tubs by Arctic Spas” class=”bg”>

<img class=”bg” src=”<?php echo get_bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’);?>/images/imagename.jpg” />

Change imagename.jpg to your actual imagename and extension in the line above.

Then add this snippet of CSS to your style.css file:

img.bg {
min-height: 100%;
min-width: 1024px;
width: 100%;
height: auto;
position: fixed;
top: 0;
left: 0;
z-index: -100;
}

I originally got this from the brilliant CSS-tricks.com website and you can see a full explanation of this technique and a few other variations here.

All good right? Nice! Then I got an email from a friend who got me thinking that maybe I could change the image to an animation… but they didn’t say animation – they said VIDEO. (it’s coming up to Christmas and they suggested falling snow or something similar) and that got me to thinking!

A few searches later and I cam across this code. Again, just add this in the header.php of your wordpress site after the opening body tag:

Now just change the words “youtubeid” to the id on the youtube video you want to add in.

*Note – I have no working example of this right now as I’m still refining the code and figuring some things out, but read on!

So, for example, if I wanted to add this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuqVnqNPyC0

Now simply change youtubeid to RuqVnqNPyC0 and it works quite nicely.

Just an explanation of some parameters in the script:

autoplay=1&loop=1&controls=0&showinfo=0&autohide=1

This tells the video to autoplay (set to 1 for show) that the video controls, play/pause and the loading bar, should be hidden (set to 0 for hidden) show the video info is hidden (set to 0 for hidden) and autohide is set to disappear (set to 1 so they disappear after the video begins playing – which is automatic so it’s almost immediately)

The problem that you will encounter is of course that the videos have to be quite long and if they have audio then that will play as well so this isn’t ideal unless you produce the perfect video yourself.

As I was playing with the video above I wanted it to loop continually as well (even though its ten minutes long!) so by adding in &loop=1 to the parameters I “should” keep rolling – but this hasn’t bloody worked for me so I’m still fiddling with it so if you make it happen then let me know ( or I will update this post, whichever comes first!), this means that right now I’m getting the end of video suggestions and whatnot so I hope to figure out how to avoid that also.

A full list of the parameters available for playing around with is in this nice little list here: https://developers.google.com/youtube/player_parameters

The original code came from the site Labno. Thanks!

Using a Vimeo Video

As a further step I decided to see how Vimeo worked with this little exercise. So lets try this one.

http://vimeo.com/32629949

1. Click the share button the top right of the video and wait for the poop up to appear.

2.On the embed line click more options.

3. At the bottom click the loop video and (4.)auto play to add the parameters similar to the ones I described above.

5. You may notice a tiny little link at the bottom of the pop up saying “use old embed code” – but I stuck with the new one (for now!) and got it working using this script below.

6. Copy the embed code and add it to the script below from <iframe to iframe>

And your sorted.  Again – I m playing n with this code at the moment and working on the Vimeo embed parameters (all available in another nice little list right here: http://developer.vimeo.com/player/embedding) top try to achieve things like removing the “widescreen” effect in the video so no black bars appear and getting it to loop etc. But haven’t quite finished that off just yet. Feel free to pipe in if you find a solution for it!

And there ya go, not really anything ground breaking or whatever but it might make for something a little different on your site and better that you know you can do it!

The post Go wild and make your website background an image or video appeared first on efecktive.com.

Is it the proactive person who profits little but aims to change the perception of the industry to the outside world? Or is it the entrepreneur who makes a success of their business venture and lays it solely at the feet of being good at doing SEO and making it work?

Both are champions in their own way of course but neither becomes a champion of the industry without one major factor. Peer Recognition.

The industry we work in is young, by any standards, and with that youth there is obviously an opportunity for people to step forward and fill the role we refer to as “champion”. The champion of the cause (in this case – SEO)  will be someone who represents all the aspects that our industry aims to achieve, adhere to and reflect in the purest form.

It is the face that the industry wishes to be associated with, the voice that speaks for the people who work within its parameters and the sentiment that, in the vast majority,  reflects a consensus among their peers of what we should be and what we strive for.

Does SEO have a champion? I believe it does, it has many, but there are also those that will claim that title with little or no real substance behind the claim and herein lies the danger. Without peer recognition you are never a champion.  Simply saying it does not make it so (no matter how loud you shout about it!)

I can claim to be a champion of SEO, the world, the universe, thought and time itself…. This self substantiated claim probably makes me look like a total idiot to my peers though, and everybody else.  I may as well to be a Champion of Bread Sticks. But some people out there read it once and believe it… wise up.

So please – if you meet someone and they have to tell you that they are the best, greatest, top dog or champion of any particular thing. Use your common sense. Ask around, do some Google searches. Research the claim a little.  You may find out very quickly that are they are is a champion… in their own dreams… and be especially wary if they give you a naff DVD with “Champion of SEO” on the cover.

Champion of any cause are the people who never mention it, because they don’t need to, but the rest of us know your names.

The post SEO Champion of the World appeared first on efecktive.com.

There, its out there. Pretty weird thing to say isnt it? On a site that offers the very same service!

So let me clarify.

I have been a bad SEO because I have been neglecting my own site for about a year now due to commitments to clients – where I have been working on their SEO, which has actually served to make me an even better SEO than I was just one year ago.

No excuse really.

I worked DAMN hard on this site, testing it, changing it and moving it forward for over 3 years before I became engrossed in the work on the Arctic Spas website that’s had me up to my eyeballs in hot tubs (never a bad thing :P) as we redeveloped the site, reorganized infrastructure and other systems, arranged training protocols, implemented new marketing campaigns (online and offline) and basically got on with moving the business and brand forward.

So its time I stopped being such a bad naughty SEO and got back to giving a bit of what I have learned to you guys, who I know have wondering why my site has been off the grid (I get enough of you asking me to get back to blogging).

Also, I seriously intend to give this site another fresh, HTML 5, CSS 3, responsive theme overhaul as well.

So here goes. I’m not gonna be silly and over commit to churning out content every day or even twice a week – but its time I got this baby rolling again – so to begin with, as I rediscover my rhythm, I will be back at it at least once per week from this point on with the usual range of observations, funny shit, rants, advice and whatever else I believe you may find useful or entertaining.

…maybe then I wont feel like I’m such a bad SEO!

The post Im a bad SEO appeared first on efecktive.com.

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He has a small chip on his shoulder, about some friends of his.

After all, he invented the “friends”. (love that line)

Mark gets to thinking about Facebook and whether Google Plus will do to him what he “did” to MySpace…

Genius.

The post Will Google plus KILL Facebook and will it crash and burn in terrible flames like Myspace and be sold for 50 cents? appeared first on efecktive.com.

The post A little song about Google plus appeared first on efecktive.com.

I was messing with a new WordPress site today and found a link on the WordPress forums to this page about SOPA/PIPA and how it is being pushed through in the USA as a new form of legislation.

I have been watching and reading the news about this strange piece of legislation and was roughly aware of its content and the overall proposal, but until I read this page I haven´t had the inclination to actually pipe up and say anything about it as I honestly believed that such a ridiculous piece of crap would never see the light of day as real law.

But it’s still here and it’s still being considered, so, about time I said my piece.

Simply put, this piece of legislation is a complete load of shite.

Take a few minutes and watch this explanation of what this proposal means.  If it has the same effect on you as it did on me then I am hoping that you will step up and do what needs to be done to make it absolutely clear to your local politicians, business people, family and friends that you will not accept such lopsided “fat cat” favoritism that this proposal entails.

Its detrimental to us all and will only serve a tiny minority of individuals who are adamant about maintaining the status quo, have no clue what the internet can offer them and who are to lazy to go and try or learn something new.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Straight of the wordpress page, heres how our American firends can make themselves heard:

We are not a small group. More than 60 million people use WordPress — it’s said to power about 15% of the web. We can make an impact, and you can be an agent of change. Go to Stop American Censorship for more information and a bunch of ways you can take action quickly, easily, and painlessly. The Senate votes in two weeks, and we need to help at least 41 more senators see reason before then. Please. Make your voice heard.

Lets ge with the program guys and girls. Go make it happen.

The post Drop the SOPA or get screwed appeared first on efecktive.com.

Follow these instructions.

Go to the Google Chrome Shortcut on your desktop or toolbar and right-click on it. Choose Properties. Look for the Target field.

Add this line:

– -pinned-tab-count=x

to the end of this string in Target. C:UsersnameAppDataLocalGoogleChromeApplicationchrome.exe so it looks exactly like this:

C:UsersnameAppDataLocalGoogleChromeApplicationchrome.exe – -pinned-tab-count=x

Now all you have to do is change the X to represent the number of tabs that you want to make permanent on the chrome browser and it will look like this every time you open your browser:

Simple as that!

Thanks to Addictive Tips for that info. Was exactly what I was looking for!

The post Permanent Bookmark Tabs in Google Chrome Browser appeared first on efecktive.com.

It is worth the watching as a basic refresher. It covers 5 things:

1. Words in page
2. Titles
3. Links
4. Words in links
5. Reputation

Numbers 1 through 4 are quite easy to understand and grasp, but number 5 is a little different. Why? Well, its not actually a technical aspect of SEO in that, you cant really code something or develop a solution that makes it “work”. Its the single factor that attempts to account for the human touch in SEO and it incorporates social media and your offline and online networks in order to create something valuable that it applies to the search algorithm.

I would go so far to say that if you worry about reputation more than the other 4 aspects, then they will be forced to fall into line and will work naturally for you regardless of site code and structure.

Believe it or not, that’s what I have experienced in the past. Havent you alwasy wondered how “that site” is at number one when its obviosuly coded to the same level of quality as the site at, say, number 6 on the search results page? That is because its affected by the things you cant see in code, and that’s the “reputation” that’s referred to in the video above. Lots of SEO geeks dont like this as it removes the power they believe they have in making web pages rank well but manipulating code. Go figure.

I’m not saying you should ignore the way your site is built and how it has been coded to meet search engine criteria, but I wouldn’t get hung up on it when it can be over shadowed by forces above and beyond its reach and outside factors pointing into your site. Focus on what’s important people!

The post A reminder of basic SEO from Search Engine Land and Common Craft appeared first on efecktive.com.