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Does anyone have any tips or experience on how they increased their Facebook fan base? I work in the oil/fuel industry and getting people to like your Facebook page is quite difficult because our customers are mostly middle-aged men, who if statistics are to be believed aren't the most active on social media anyway.

I've been doing regular posts for the past couple of weeks, liking other pages and joining conversations but don't seem to be getting any increase in followers.

Does anyone have any advice, ideas or examples of what you did that worked?

Thanks

I just wanted to see what your opinions were on this. Does being active on social media help with your SEO efforts. I'm not talking about having a link to your website on your Facebook page, but in general commenting on news stories and having conversations. Would Google prefer you over a competitor if you were more active on social media?

We want to set up a blog to discuss our industry. Is it better to set-up the blog on a domain that we buy and then link to it from our website or set-up a blog on a posterous account or something with a link?

I had previously been told that submitting to directories was the best way to improve your PR. I find all the other ways of creating backlinks rare - due to the industry and when I do find something of interest, the majority of the time it has a low PR so not really worth putting a link in. Also, we're in a position where we can't really create any new content on our website regularly - there isn't much else to say other than what's on our website.

I just wanted to see what the general opinion was on paying for directory entries. How high should the PR be to justify paying for it? Or how much is justifiable for entry into a directory with a lower PR?

I have recently submitted my site to Yahoo Directory but I have only seen my rankings increase in the Yahoo search engine. Are there any directories that Google like?

If the traffic has been good - then keep doing what you're doing. The only thing here is to be cautious not to link to the same URL over and over - Google will pick up on it sooner or later and may penalise you for it. Try and add a variety of links when you can - easier said than done I know because you don't know what's going to be in the news tomorrow.

By all means keep adding to free directories - the more quality backlinks you can get the better. Plus Google can't really argue with the relevance of a directory backlink because they're relevant to every industry. But as I mentioned before don't add your site to too many directories at once, as Google could see it as spam. My advice would be to create a list of directoties you would like to submit to and make a plan as when you are going to add them. However, it should also be noted that some directories take days, even weeks to process a directory submission. So if you submit a link to a directory today, it might not appear until October.

When you say PR's do you mean press releases? I think you should only write press releases when you actually have some news to get out there. Apparently Google likes press releases for that fact and they have the chance to be linked to many times. So only write them when necessary, otherwise it could look spammy.

Well the thing I look for first the PR (page rank). If the site has a PR of less than 3 it is not worth getting a link from - Google can penalise you for having low quality links. However, the most important thing is relevance. Have a look for blogs, news stories and directories where it would be relevant for you to leave a link. You need to think like a reader, and your link has to be of value to the reader. Ask yourself would the reader really get more information on the topic if they clicked on your link.

When I start with a new site I begin by submitting it to directories, SEOmoz have a list of web directories with high PR. Some of them you have to pay for but they are useful. For example, you need to pay for inclusion for Yahoo Directory but it has a PR of 7 so the quality of that link should have a good effect on you. My rankings in Yahoo shot up when I listed in Yahoo Directory.

It is also useful to build social media page with a link to your website as these sites have high PR already.

Other advice would be to set-up Google Alerts for your target keywords and see what news stories are coming in and if you can add a reply. Try and anchor text where possible.

OSE is good for checking your competitors links. However, it will show all their links - good and bad! So you need to be careful not to link on a site that is of low quality. If a competitor that 1000s of backlinks and a low PR, then that says something about the quality of their links.

It also important to note that you shouldn't rush backlinking. If Google sees a rapid increase in your backlinks they could penalise you for spam. As a rule of thumb create a new backlink per unique visitor to your site per month. For example, if your site gets on average 30 unique visitors per month, then create 1 backlink per day.

So basically look at what's being said about your industry online, see if you can add relevant content. Check for the PR, if it's above 3 then ok, below stay away. Add your site to directories. Create social media pages.

More than likely they're using an SEO company to build links fast. It's common practice among SEO companies to build loads of extra websites to backlink to their clients websites. My company has used an SEO company who operated like this and got us loads of low quality links fast. For example, they set up a blog about book reviews and anchor texted one of our keywords in a review - where it wasn't even relevant, This is the kind of activity the new Google Penguin update is trying to penalise. Don't be surprised if your competitor suddenly drops down the rankings within the coming weeks/months. Focus on getting high quality links, even if it takes longer, it will be worth it in the long run.

Ok since no one is recommending the link wheel strategy, what would you suggest? My company has bought about 10 domain names related to our business that we plan as using as blogs for backlisting to our other websites. I thought the link wheel would work well across these extra domains, and in fact I have been encouraged to do so.

I'm interested in starting a link wheel strategy. However, when it comes to setting up the web 2.0 sites I'm unsure as to whether to set them up in my own name or in my business name. My initial thoughts were that it would appear more natural in my own name but if I have many sites linking to the same page, isn't that bad for SEO?

Does anyone have any advice?