A friend of mine at Circle View Photos introduced to me another way to beef up your Google + page which is especially beneficial for retail establishments.  Its an HD virtual tour of the space where you can walk around the space and it looks totally 3d and 360 degree views.  Really amazing technology that Google delivers.  Hosted on your Google + page.

Here is an example (which Circle View Photos created):

Google HD Virtual tour

You can embed the code into your pages too which is really cool:

Finnegans Google Virtual Tour

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I must say overall the upgrade process was painless.  Simply search Google for “windows 8 upgrade” and the first listing is for the official Microsoft upgrade to Windows 8 page (or click on the Windows 8 logo below).  On this page you will download a small file that will then handle all the rest.  This file also acts like an advisor program as it scans your current programs and tells you about any known incompatibilities.  In my case, there weren’t any problems detected and all was a go for Windows 8.

The next step was buying a Windows 8 license for just $39.99.  The upgrade software takes you through a few pages where you can pay by credit card or my personal favorite pay pal.  After going through the shopping cart and purchasing the upgrade, the system begins to install.

The machine I happened to be working on had a solid state drive, so it installed VERY fast, I’d say the whole thing installed in less than 30 minutes.  After the install was done I would recommend a few 3rd party programs to get the desktop more familiar.  That is probably my only gripe with Windows 8, they got rid of the start menu!

Be sure to install the following programs after a fresh Windows 8 install for the best user experience:

• Object Dock (makes ur programs look like little icons on the bottom, like a Mac)
• Classic Shell (replaces a generic start menu where the windows one used to be)
• Google Chrome (because I hate the Internet Explorer browser in Windows 8)

All in all, after the Windows 8 install, the machine is blazing fast!  Incredible value for $39.99 without a doubt, nice work Microsoft!

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Although the registry is a vast improvement over its predecessor, there are still technical difficulties with the registry that continue to cause major problems with computer performance. Many people become frustrated and instead purchase a new computer when all they need is to locate and repair the problem. Our company can do this for you!

What is the Registry?

The registry in a Windows operating system is a database that stores all of the options and configurations on the computer. The registry keeps track of all the applications that are installed, the device drivers, the kernel, the user interface and all of the user profiles. The registry database is more easily read by the operating system than the previous format (.INI files) and allows the computer to have multiple users, each with a unique configuration. It can also be updated much easier than the earlier Windows system.

The fact that the registry database is a centralized system is both good and bad. It is good not only because of the advantages listed above, but also because it is an easily organized, hierarchical system. It is bad because, as a centralized database, it is a prime potential target of hackers who author malicious malware. Because of this, your computer may need its registry fixed.

Problems with the Registry

1. Shutting down your computer incorrectly causes many errors in the registry. Closing down the computer properly allows the shut down process to properly process the registry entries, but turning the computer off without allowing this to occur will cause the registry to malfunction.
2. A malware infection will often target the registry and cause the computer to work for the hacker, not for you. This will cause your computer to react strangely, slowly or not at all.
3. If you install and/or uninstall programs, the registry will have ‘orphan entries’ that must be cleaned out. Too many of these orphan entries or orphan keys cause the computer to be slow.
4. If you delete software that was only partially installed, the registry will have keys that take up processing time, but go nowhere. This will cause your computer to slow down or freeze.
5. Unused and undeleted drivers are unnecessary files that the registry must still account for during the startup and shutdown process. One of the major reasons reboot takes a long time is because the registry goes through each key before the computer fully boots up. If you have keys that do not need to be there and can be deleted, it will cause your computer to work much more smoothly.

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Social Media Marketing is Great for Lead Generation

Social media marketing serves many purposes and not all of them are directly related to SEO performance. One of the great perks of marketing through social media is that it will help you produce many high quality leads. Sure, not all your Facebook fans will be buyers and your conversion rate may be lower with social networks. However, it is essentially free leads and with the right marketing it will be very easy to target users of certain demographics and interests. For instance, a fan page on custom auto parts would have fans with a particular interest for that and they would be easy to market to for products in that niche.

Social Media Marketing Affects Google SERP for Your Website

The lead generation benefits are a great plus but they are often not the main reason that social media marketing is used. More importantly, it is used for search engine optimization purposes. This is because you can improve your search engine ranking position by creating powerful social signals through your social network. Not only will you be sending direct traffic to your connections, but you will be building yourself up in the search engine for more potential natural traffic.

Social Networking is Needed to Get Ahead of Panda

Google’s recent Panda update has made SEO a completely different game. As a result, SEO experts have had to change the way that they approach ranking a website. To do so, it is essential that all of the currently important values for a website’s ranking results are taken into consideration. This includes the social signals for the website. In return, this makes it increasingly important for you to get involved with social networking so you can still achieve great SEO results even after the Panda updates.

Google is heading towards a more interactive presence. This particular search engine loves communities and networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. This is due to the amount of depth that these websites create and the level of visitor satisfaction that is perceived. Users on Facebook and Twitter may spend hours a day on the website and continue to return. That definitely seems to be a better viewing experience than a page that only gets the occasional view by a returning visitor. With that being said, use the power of social media marketing to your advantage and implement it in your SEO plan so you can get the best ranking results possible.

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Tip #1 – Avoid Any Low Quality Links

You should never link to low quality and spammy websites as well as to sites not related to your niche if you plan to have a successful and highly ranked website. Make sure to check the website before you link to it as it may happen that the site is blacklisted by the search engines or even banned. Linking to such websites can lower your ranking significantly.

Tip #2 – Diversify Anchor Text and Link Ratio

When doing link building, a good technique is to diversify your anchor text and link ratio. For instance, if you are trying to rank for a strong keyword then you are probably using only that keyword in anchor text with the high quality links. With the latest Google updates it’s not advised any longer to majorly focus on a single keyword, but rather have many different keywords in your range of anchor text links. Having links of various anchor texts and ranking values provides a more authentic presence.

Tip #3 – Avoid Reciprocal Linking

Reciprocal links used to be popular in SEO as they were much easier to get and you could exchange links with websites of similar ranking. This would make it easier for a website to go up one or two ranks in Google PageRank and it would build a link base that made the website better for ranking. However, this is no longer the case and reciprocal linking should now be kept to a minimum. While not certain, it may also be viewed as a potential link trade or sale, which is something that Google is trying to cut down on.

Tip #4 – Avoid Paid Links

In relation to the last sentence of tip #3, it is important that you avoid any paid links. Google has made statements that they do not value websites that use paid links. It is not fully understand how they would go about finding these links. However, it is recommended that you at least buying any links in marketplaces where they are sold off to the masses. These are likely detected much easier in Google’s algorithm. If you have a direct contact with a great website that does not generally sell or give away links, then you could negotiate something but this is entirely up to you.

Tip #5 – Diversify Link Types

You will want to have a diversity of link types, such as authority, directory, .EDU/.GOV, article bio, profile, and press release links. Authority links are of utmost importance as they provide great relevance to your niche. For instance, a website on Los Angeles Lawyers would see great results if it were linked in an official database of lawyers in the state of California.

Directory backlinks are often through article directories and this allows for ranking easily on their site with relevant keywords and having relevant anchor text backlinks. You may be able to manually get .EDU or .GOV backlinks but they are often bought, so be careful with those. Article bios are great as they allow you to be an authoritative figure in your niche. Forum profile links are no longer highly valuable, but they are still a good indicator of authoritativeness. Press release links are definitely great though and will have tremendous SEO results if published by the right websites.

Tip #6 – Follow Links

Some beginners make the mistake of thinking that any website will create a live backlink to your site. It may make the link visible, but it does not mean that Google will even notice it. You want to avoid nofollow backlinks as they have no real value for link building purposes. Make sure that any forum or blog does not use the nofollow tag. You can even use search features in Google to make it easier to find any dofollow blogs or forums that are relevant to your niche. Still, most follow links from forums and blog posts are not incredibly powerful so they should not be the primary focus for your website’s link building strategy.

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Content – Quality and Informative

If you have an informative website, then you likely attract organic viewers to some of your articles due to relevant inquiries in the search engine. Someone is usually looking for an answer to a question that they have. What Google is trying to do is eliminate the websites that do not provide an actual answer to those questions or are not fact-based. Google weighs content with resources, long answers, relevant LSI keywords, and social strength. For instance, a news report on a celebrity’s death may not pick up much ranking results without any social signals as it is something that is expected to be very viral. On-page SEO is no longer sufficient effort to rank well in Google.

No more copied or poorly rewritten content. Quality is everything. You want a well written article that is completely comprehensive and grabs the reader’s attention. The amount of time that they stay on the page is important in your SERP. If they see the article and immediately leave, then you definitely have a problem. You can use images, charts, resources, font, color, different sizes, and much more to all make the article more professional, authoritative, and visually appealing to readers. Also make sure that it is relevant and provides the visitor with an actual answer to their question.

Social Signals – Off-site SEO

Previously, most of your efforts were focused on on-page SEO and link building. However, you now have to make more of an effort than that. Increasing your social signals is one example of something that should be done to live up to the standards of SEO for Google in 2012. You want to build a strong social network for your website and try to make it viral. Social networks like Twitter rank very well and have strong social signals. If a bunch of people are talking about an article on your website, then it will definitely help you rank that article well in Google.

Negative SEO – What to Avoid

Negative SEO is a blackhat method that some service providers offer. It consists of doing bad SEO work to your competitor’s to help you rank better than them. It may even happen that you are the victim. It’s generally not good practice, but the negative SEO techniques may be considered as stuff that should be avoided by all means. Changes in webmaster controls with Google indexing have allowed for manual backlink removal, which is one example of a way to eliminate negative SEO effects. It would be a good idea to start tracking your links and grooming your website’s presence according to link value so that it is perceived as authoritative and rank-worthy as possible.

These are just a few examples of SEO methods and approaches that are of utmost importance with the current Google algorithm. It is suggested that you get a better understanding on what Google values the most right now. You should also keep up with any algorithm changes as keeping up with them will make all the difference in your long term ranking results. In closing, Google algorithm in 2012 has made interactivity, quality content, and authoritativeness of extreme importance so your SEO work should be done in accordance to that.

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They found that 80% of the clicks from the Facebook advertising to their website was from users who had javascript disabled.  This in non-technical terms, is like driving down the road at night with no headlights on.  JavaScript is a massive component of today’s web browser and trust me if you disable javascript then try and surf the web, it will be a much less desirable experience.  In fact, only 1-2% of real users on this companies site (historically before the Facebook advertising) had javascript disabled.  So that means AT LEAST 80% of the traffic from the Facebook ads looks to be from a bot or automated computer system that finds links and clicks on them to either drive up marketing dollars or another sinister reason.  This is not good.

I wanted to coo berate this story with one of my client’s sites to see if this is a hoax or if there are these fake accounts and bots rampant on Facebook like I’ve heard.  I took a company we recently launched a website and Facebook page (no Facebook ads mind you, just a Fan page) for and looked at some of the recent “Likes” that seemed odd.  This company is a totally legitimate local Northern VA company, however recently I had noticed they were getting Likes from very strange looking names.

Then the patterns started to show up.  Check out some of the “people” who Liked their Facebook page:

• Maynard Jarvis – 18 friends, all whom are super weird and doesn’t seem legit, also has 4,077 Likes (just like “he” liked my companies fan page) which makes no sense for someone with only 18 friends.  CLEARLY a fake account or bot.
• John Smith – 2 friends and 2,804 likes.  Couldn’t be more clearly a fake account or bot.
• Shradha Srivastava – 200 friends and 4,660 likes.  The content this “person” has been putting on their page is so obviously crappy marketing for SEO reasons for website companies and get rich fast scams.  This is without a doubt a fake account.
• Controll Panell – Very new account, most of its “friends” are webhosting companies and they have also liked the same companies so clearly its a fake account.  Control panel is also a word used heavily in the webhosting arena, so they didn’t even try to make up a persons name here, just totally fake.

I found this goes on and on, fake accounts galore, across ALL my client’s Facebook pages.  You may ask what do these accounts have to gain from fake accounts and fake clicks.  Well, if a fake account can build up a big friend base, even if 10% of them are real, then they have an audience and stand to gain.  This however is TERRIBLE for the ecology and life of Facebook.  Google Ad Words is notoriously very strict about fake clicks and bots, Facebook, on the other hand, started as a fun social network and now is trying to monetize that network with Ads and quite frankly, clearly has NO IDEA what they are doing in this department.

My neighbor is an extremely successful website entrepreneur who has built multiple successful social media and community sites and he has been harping on me that Facebook is a fad and a scam and will go down hard soon.  I’ve been telling him he’s too brash and the network of “people” is so large, that they can’t fail at this point.

However, with data, information and news stories like this, I think I’m starting to agree with him…Be very cautious of spending large amounts of ad dollars on Facebook ads because as we are finding out there is little quality checks done on these Likes and clicks and you could easily be paying for bots and fake accounts to waste your TIME and MONEY.

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Core functionality improvements and advancements in vital server roles are numerous, from extensive intelligent hardware support, new-age application support, and continued innovations for virtual environments across multiple complex computing platforms. It is now easier than ever before to access your computer and data from anywhere. With increased data security, backup and recovery solutions, and remote system access, Windows Server is the ideal solution for your small, medium or corporate-sized business.

Have any questions about how a Windows Server could help your business be more efficient?

Have a Windows Server that may not be running to its fully efficiency?

Contact us today for a free consultation.

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Step 1 – Clean up your PC’s unneeded files and programs

This step is important to reduce the size of your current drive before you move over to the solid state drive.  We look to clean up and remove unnecessary programs, old unused download folders, and other windows data files that aren’t needed anymore and take up a lot of space.  This will reduce the amount of data on your old drive by quite a bit.

Step 2 – Remove old drive and install new solid state drive

After cleaning up your old drive, we can turn the machine off, physically remove the old drive, and install the new solid state drive.  After the solid state drive is installed in the computer replacing the old hard drive, we can close the machine up again.

Step 3 – Attach old drive with an external enclosure and clone the drives

We take the old drive and plug it into a USB external drive, which plugs into the computer.  Then we boot up the machine with special drive cloning software and begin the copying from the old drive directly to the new drive inside your computer.  This generally takes 30-60 minutes to copy all of the data onto the new solid state drive so after its done both drives look identical to the computer, but the speed is vastly improved.

Step 4 – Boot up the machine and enjoy the increased speed

Your computer will function exactly the same software and programs wise, but run much faster on the solid state drive.  You will notice an immediate difference and wonder why you didnt do this sooner!

Contact us for any questions or comments you have about this process!

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But, is it?

Chances are we will be able to recover most, if not all of your data, especially if your hard drive failure is not due to a physical crash.

We highly recommend every computer user has a backup plan and further recommend Carbonite online backup.  Its extremely simple to use and will backup all of your important files online so you restore them if you hard drive is to crash.  Trust us, its happens, fairly often in fact.

A hard drive that has physically crashed has probably suffered a head crash or a motor that no longer works. Often this type of damage to a hard disk will cause damage to the data and damage to the logical filing system. Professionals need to take your hard drive apart and replace the platter into a working drive in order to begin the process of data recovery. Physical crashes will likely not result in full recovery of data.

A hard drive that crashes due to corruption of files manifests in several different ways. Most commonly the crash will corrupt the operating system and in that case, we can either repair or reinstall your operating system. The file system on a hard disk or the disk partition may be corrupted as well. The reasons behind these types of corruptions are varied and the disk will need to be analyzed to see how to repair the damage. Almost always this type of damage is caused by some sort of virus or other malware that rewrites the master boot record or the partition table. After analyzing the cause of this sort of damage, we are able to repair the file system, if necessary, or reconstruct the partition table and master boot record. After we do this for the computer user, we are better able to recover data, files and information the user may value highly.

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