Link Picks is a selection of posts by bloggers to help grow your small business, blog or non-profit organization. Note on choices: I tend to pick recent links from bloggers with whom I’ve interacted, whether on their blog, this Websites for Small Biz blog, on Twitter, on Google+ or elsewhere in social media. I then might include important news, such as on WordPress permalinks. Enjoy, and please give feedback on what you find useful.

Suggested Posts by Knowledgeable, Friendly Bloggers

Unfollow Twitter Users – The Easy Way
Too many followers on Twitter? Not sure who is following you and who isn’t? Want more followers? Jens Berget teaches us about various tools useful for managing followers on your Twitter account. In particular, he talks about a tool called Tweepi, and he demonstrates in a video how to use Tweepi.

4 SEO Tips to Optimize your WordPress Blog
Much has been written on SEO, search engine optimization. The difference on Sherryl Perry‘s blog is she lays out a few basic tips for you to follow and explains carefully as a teacher would (she has a teaching background) how to set up your post for search engine optimization. For example, she shows how you can put important headers (h1, h2, h3, h4) tags in your post.

Social Media and Your Small Business Website
I was pleased when Don Campbell of Expand2web asked me to write a guest post for his blog. The result is a post on ways to integrate social media with your small business website. What sorts of plugins can you use? Where can you place the social media icons – you may decide to place them in multiple locations on your website or blog. How can you track the success of your social media integration?

Links to help your Small Business Grow – WordPress Permalinks

It used to be that if you use /%postname%/ for WordPress permalinks, there was an issue of a performance problem with sites that have large numbers of pages. This Postname Permalinks issue was solved with WordPress 3.3, and Yoast explains in his post How to change your WordPress Permalinks. He has a button on that page to a tool to Generate Redirects – it will produce a line you can put in your .htaccess file. If you use the Redirect tool, you can put the first part of the redirect in Source URL and the second half in Target URL (and click Regular Expression box). I just tried it for this site, and it worked just fine.

The red arrow points to the Source URL and the green arrow points to the Target URL.

The redirection tool set up for this redirection of old URLs with dates to new URLs with postname only looks like this:

Your Turn, Please

Did you find any posts in the past week that were particularly helpful to your small business? Feel free to leave a link in the comments. Also, please let me know which topics reviewed in this post were helpful.

How to Set Up a Twitter Profile was one of the popular posts on Websites for Small Biz this fall. It is important for those running a small business, a non-profit organization or a blog to spend time carefully setting up a Twitter account in order to get valuable interactions on Twitter.

Ease of a Facebook Business Page introduces the mechanics of setting up a page (as opposed to a profile) on Facebook. Ideas on how to engage one’s readers and keep interest is part of this post.

Responsive Web Design is a new trend in web building that is here to stay, because mobile usage is increasing (people are reading or trying to read your blog posts on their mobile phones) and platforms like iPads are becoming more relevant. Is your website ready for mobile?

Error 404 pages can add fun and increase the message of your brand on your website. Learn how various websites use Error 404 pages.

Display Information Without Being Overly Geeky is a post about slideshows, photo galleries, infographics, friendly photos, interviews and videos. How many different ways can you display information, and are you keeping the readers interested?

10 Ideas for SEO of Your Small Biz Website presents keywords, title tags, alt tags, site maps, commenting and more as ways to search engine optimize your small business website.

Strictly speaking, New Jersey on Twitter by Profession is a page, but it is one of the most popular on Websites for Small Biz. If you are doing business in New Jersey, this might be a valuable way to figure out who to follow in New Jersey and make valuable contacts.

2011 was a good year for building websites and for building the blog Websites for Small Biz. I’ve enjoyed all the guest posts and interviews. May the new year of 2012 bring lots of new, innovative ideas on how to expand small businesses with marketing, well-built websites, networking, and lots of good blog post sharing!

Perhaps you have been told that to grow your business, you should use Twitter. How does one approach Twitter? How in the world does anyone grow their business with 140 characters? I suggest the important part is setting up the Twitter profile. Be prepared with a good bio, background, avatar and Twitter name; then move on to use your Twitter account. It will be easier to attract the right sort of followers and engage potential clients if you do your homework first.

In December I will be giving a workshop at the Highland Park Public Library in New Jersey on how to set up a Twitter profile. You can help me plan the workshop.

Before Set Up of Twitter Profile

Before you even sign up for Twitter, you may want to do these two items:

1. Look over other people’s Twitter streams – these could be friends or people in your industry. How are they using Twitter? Are they engaging others? Do they tweet questions? links? Do they reference others in their tweets?
2. Think about how you will present yourself on Twitter: are you trying to make sales of homemade bird cages? promote a political viewpoint? connect with other moms who like to cook? connect with other moms who don’t like to cook?

Set Up of Twitter Profile

You are going to need these to set up your Twitter profile:

1. Username – pick a name that is easy to remember and not terribly long. A username that is related to your first name is a good choice, for example. For example, Debra Askanase is @askdebra. I use @leoraw – it has my first name and last name initial, and it is the same as my domain name. Others prefer to use their business name, such as @sweetsoaps.
2. Email address – your email address will not be publicized, but you will need one to set up your account.
3. Biography – people will follow you based on what you put in your biography. So if you want to connect with bird watchers, for example, put “bird watcher” or “birdwatcher” in your biography. But you may not want to put that in if you want to sell insurance – instead, be sure to state your insurance experience. It’s OK to add a little family information, even if you are selling insurance or cars or financial advice. For example, you could end your biography with “mother of three” or “I love my nieces and nephews” if you have no kids of your own. There are no set rules; include information that will give you the ability to connect with others.
4. Link to website or LinkedIn page – if you don’t have a website or blog yet, consider setting up a LinkedIn profile and using that as your link. LinkedIn, unlike Facebook, is known for being “strictly professional.” If you find that idea too daunting right now, skip it. You can always add a link later.
5. Avatar: I highly recommend you use a photo of yourself. People like faces; they like to follow someone they can see. If you really don’t want to use a face, you might want to choose an image related to your business. For example, if you own a dog kennel, a photo of a dog might work. The image you choose should look good at 48 pixels by 48 pixels – this is the small size that will be seen in the Twitter stream. On a user profile viewed by someone who is logged into Twitter, the avatar will appear as 128px by 128px. If viewed by someone who is not logged into Twitter, it will appear as 73px by 73px.

   If you need a photo editor, try Picasa or Pixlr. For more on avatars, read How to Create a Twitter Avatar You Can be Proud Of.

Embellish Your Twitter Profile

Now that you have your Twitter account set up, look it over and see if there are additional details you want to add or embellish.

Add a Background – if you have design skills of your own, you can add a background related to your field. But if not, don’t despair – you can visit Twitbackgrounds and choose one of theirs.

Add One Tweet – finally, your first tweet. What should it be about? Remember when I said earlier in this post, “Think about how you will present yourself on Twitter”? Now is your opportunity to state that in 140 characters or less. Alternatively, you could add a link (be sure to add the title of the article as well) that is related to your profession. When you are adding a link, I also find it helpful to add what is known as a Twitter hashtag.

Pick Three People to Follow

Now don’t make the mistake many early Twitter users do and follow 100 people at all once. Pick three people to follow by clicking follow on their Twitter pages. At first, it’s best to follow a friend – if you are in touch with the friend and the friend is an active Twitter user, chances are good the friend will follow back. Feel free to pick some Twitter users in your profession to follow. If you don’t know the person, you may want to send them an @so-and-so message in your Twitter stream, saying why you chose to follow the person. That will give the person a lot of incentive to follow you back.

After you have a few people following you, pick three more people to follow. Give it a week or two of following a few every day or so, and slowly but steadily build up the connections. Work at talking (with @replies, in your Twitter stream) to your followers, so you get to know them better. Enjoy the new found relationships.

For more on setting up a Twitter profile:

• Twitter Help Center: Twitter Basics
• Larry Brauner: 10 Simple Ideas for Setting Up a New Twitter Business Account
• New Biz Blogger: Plan Your Tweets

For a post on setting up Facebook: Ease of a Facebook Business Page

How can you connect with people in your area via Twitter? And how can you remember all those people?

You may have a business that only is local. People have to come to you in person. Or you may prefer working with people you can easily meet in person. A growing way to connect with others is by using Twitter.

So you start following people on Twitter. And if you learn to connect instead of broadcasting your business, people follow you back. How do you remember all those folks?

One way is to set up a Twitter list. To set up a list, select Lists –> Create a List from your Twitter home page. You can name your list for the geographical area; for example, I have a list called New Jersey.

You can also set up a page on your blog that is specifically for those people on Twitter whom you would like to remember at a glance. And you can get SEO points for doing it this way! Search engines will index your page by the geographical terms in the text, and people in your area will enjoy the easy access to names to follow on Twitter. On this site my New Jersey on Twitter has become one of the most popular pages.

This is the page that I set up for New Jersey on Twitter (click the graphic to see the page):

I organized the people by profession, because that was useful to me. Perhaps you have a different way that would be useful to you?

Two questions for you:

1. How have you connected with others in your geographical area on Twitter?
2. How else can one use a page on your blog to remember people on Twitter? Perhaps you could organize it by your profession, such as insurance on Twitter, designers on Twitter, financiers on Twitter.

SMART

Show others that you know your stuff about a technical topic. You don’t have to write the post yourself; in fact, you can link to a post and give credit to the person who wrote the post, showing that you are both smart and friendly.

Examples:

Warning: don’t just tweet links. Every now and then, add something personal to your tweets, such as a short comment about the link. Or mention a favorite hobby that you do when you are not working.

FRIENDLY

Say hello to others who are online. Surprise! They will probably say hello back to you. If you add a personal note, all the better.

Example:
On Friday morning, I said hello to four Tweeps who I saw were online. Guess what? All four said hello back. Here are two of the responses:

Warning: you don’t want to overstay your welcome. Not everyone has all day to sit around and chat (most don’t). And if someone doesn’t respond, try someone else.

RESPONSIVE

If you see someone tweeting how do you do X or asking a question or talking about a problem, respond. You don’t have to know the answer. If you have some ideas for the person, great, but you can also pass on the question by retweeting it to your followers.

Example:
Here’s an example where webpc responds to Eva_Abreu about a Skype question:

Warning: Using any or all of these Twitter styles could be addictive.

So, how do *you* connect on Twitter?

When one does a search in Google, the most visited posts come up. For example, let’s say we search for “insurance new jersey.” When I search in Google, here’s what I get (under sponsored links and local links):

When I looked this up two days later in Google, I got pretty much the same results. These may not be the most relevant results.

In Twitter, however, you get the most recent. So let’s go back to our example of “insurance new jersey.” Here’s what I get on Friday, April 2, 2010:

And here’s what I get on Sunday, April 4, 2010:

Wednesday, April 7, 2010:

Different, huh? How can this relate to your business? From the research side, if the Google results are just what you need, then you found what you need right away.

But say you want to find others who are conversing about insurance in New Jersey. Twitter may be a better approach. Also, Twitter is showing you what is going on *right now* instead of a cumulative response over time. If there is a sudden flood and you want to find out who is talking about insurance coverage, Twitter would have those results right away. The example Shel Israel gives in his book Twitterville is his own book – when he searches for his name, he gets a popular blog he wrote back in 2004 as the top result. But when he searches on Twitter, he gets most recently discussed tweets, which may be his newest book.

Can you guess the other two ways that Twitter search differs from Google search? I will put the answer in the comments later this week. Also, if you can come up with some good examples of terms (instead of “insurance new jersey” – something relevant to your business or nonprofit) that you might search for in Twitter vs. Google, please put those in the comments.

I have met many people in my geographical area, New Jersey or more specifically Central New Jersey, through Twitter. Some of them I have later met in person; they continue to be valuable business contacts. I have been saving many of the New Jersey in a folder in my email; I decided to organize some of those Twitter contacts (tweeps? tweeple?) on a page called New Jersey on Twitter. I organized the page by professional area, so if you are not from New Jersey, you may still find valuable contacts on that page in fields such as web services, social media or public relations.

Note: on this post, I used “New Jersey” often as the example. You can substitute your city, state, country or other geographical area.

Suggestions on how one can use Twitter to build a network of people in your area:

Find Some People on Twitter in Your Area

• Use TweepSearch to search bios. You can put in “New Jersey” and get results of all sorts of people with New Jersey in their Twitter bio.
• Put keyword “New Jersey” in http://search.twitter.com/ and see who is talking about New Jersey. Chances are, some of them are from New Jersey. Or try “new jersey network.” Follow the ones that interest you.
• Nearby Tweets – I demonstrated this application at a Twitter research workshop I conducted to find people in New Jersey who were in the pharmaceutical business. We used keyword #pharma to narrow our selection to pharmaceutical tweets.
• UberTwitter for Blackberry – if you have a Blackberry, Geri Rosman recommends this app.
• Follow some people from New Jersey (or your chosen location) and then ask them for suggestions of more people from that location.

Find the Power Users in Twitter in Your Area

How do you know someone is a power user of Twitter instead of a casual user? Large numbers of followers might be a clue, but not always. Look to see the content of their tweets. Are they talking about your area? To others? Do they ever mention networking or Tweetups? A Tweetup is a gathering of Twitter users face-to-face – great way to network with others. Do they have a Twitter list of your geographical area? See next section for more on Twitter lists.

Using New Jersey as an example, I would suggest Eva Abreu, who has a website devoted to social media in New Jersey or njfamilymag who tweets many New Jersey events. Do you have someone in your area that you would consider to be a power user of Twitter? Look to see who that person is following or who follows that person to find more people in your area. Perhaps they also know about networking events in your area.

Create Twitter Lists

Create your own geographic lists. Visit the lists of others in your area. Follow some of those lists.

Examples of Twitter lists organized by location:
http://twitter.com/leoraw/newjersey – my own list (most are some with whom I have had at least one exchange on Twitter – by no means an exhaustive list of Twitterers in New Jersey)
http://twitter.com/Brightfarm/areastuff – Barbara Lopez lives in Sacramento.
http://twitter.com/eric_andersen/boston-social-media – Eric Anderson’s list of social media in Boston.
http://twitter.com/mominisrael/israeli-bloggers – Hannah Katsman’s list of Israeli bloggers

Some areas are harder for forming social media connections than others. Ron Graham, who used to live in New Jersey but now lives in Akron, Ohio, put together this Social Media Akron Facebook page in the hopes that he could build a local Akron Twitter list. Know any business people in Akron? Tell them to connect with Ron Graham.

Share Your Location Feature

New on Twitter is a Share Your Location feature. This seemed to go live as I wrote this post. Not much information yet.

What have been your experiences connecting with others locally via Twitter? Feel free to share the good, the bad and the I-don’t-get-it.

Photos: upper left – Boston Public Gardens (Wikimedia), bottom left – Sacramento (Wikimedia), upper right – Cape May, lower right – Jerusalem

Whenever I can on Twitter, I try to use the actual URL of the post instead of a shortening service. Two reasons:

1. People can then see the URL directly and know what they are clicking on. It also gives some branding to the domain name.
2. If I search for that domain using Twitter search, I can see what has been tweeted of that domain.

So this is the code that you need to remember:

What’s that 1234? That’s the number of the post. If you go to the Admin section of your WordPress blog, you will see the number of the post when you hover with your mouse over the Edit button of the post. As an example, this is the link to this particular post:

It’s a good idea to memorize that ?p=POST_NUMBER so you can use it in a hurry some day when you want to tweet something with the original URL, and you don’t have much time.

Leora Wenger (@leoraw), a Highland Park-based freelance web designer, met Kacy Campion Renna (@NJInsuranceGirl), owner of CCW Insurance Company, Belmar, on Twitter through another user, Deborah Smith (@jerseybites), a Social Media consultant in Ocean County. After about four months of exchanging informal tweets, Kacy needed emergency help with her website. They connected by phone, and Leora solved the initial problem, which then led to their business relationship.

Amy Boroff (@njdevmgr), development manger for Junior Achievement of NJ in Princeton, discovered one of her new Twitter followers was Kate Specchio (@ecsfoundation), co-founder of Morris County-based The Emily C. Specchio Foundation. Through their tweets, Amy recognized the potential for working together. They continued to communicate on Twitter in real-time, after working hours, to learn more about each respective organization. After several weeks, JANJ submitted a proposal to ECS for funding for an inaugural event: the Women’s Future Leadership Forum. The ECS Foundation accepted the proposal and granted funds to help support aspiring female high school students become future leaders.

Have you experienced a business success story through Twitter? How has Twitter helped you?

•   •   •

Coming next week to Websites for Small Biz blog: highlighting a specific post (or posts) on your home page in WordPress.

Twitter presents many people to you in a stream; you are given one link in your profile to make a presentation. Some professionals develop a unique Twitter Landing Page to introduce themselves to new people. To learn more:

• ProBlogger: Develop a Twitter Landing Page
• Unbounce: What is a Twitter Landing Page?

And here are ten pages that I found noteworthy:

Glenn Hilton

Glenn Hilton's Twitter Landing Page

Meryl K. Evans

Meryl K. Evans Twitter Landing Page

Eric Hall

EH Design Twitter Landing Page

Joanna Young

Confident Writing Twitter Landing Page

Leah Jones

Leah Jones' Twitter Landing Page

Matthew Lyle

I like the black-and-white sophistication (matched with monochrome photo) and clarity of Matthew’s page.

Beth Kanter

Beth Kanter's Twitter Landing Page

Heidi Cool

Heidi Cool's Twitter Landing Page

Laura Fitton

Laura Fitton's Twitter Landing Page

Leora Wenger

Leora Wenger's Twitter Landing Page

Thank you to Debra Askanase and Nedra Weinrich for suggesting some of these pages.

Upcoming Posts – Your Input Wanted

Do you have a page on your website (or on a friend’s) that you feel is noteworthy? Feel free to include the link in the comments.