Bossa Nova Interactive

We're a digital marketing, web design, and local SEO company in Hampton Roads, VA. Drop us a line: Bossa Nova Interactive 5007-C Victory Blvd. #173 Yorktown, VA 23693 [phone] http://bossa.co

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Wordpress posts and pages missing; Bluehost is no help

WordPress posts and pages missing; Bluehost is no help

(Or, why my site currently looks so very plain.)

I hope that none of you have ever experienced the sheer horror of waking up to find this message on your site:

404 Error – page not found & No posts to display.

Followed by this message in your WordPress Dashboard:

0 Posts 0 Pages

Zero Posts? Zero Pages? It’s hard not to panic.

Indeed I did panic the first time this happened. Luckily, I pay for the

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Fail: Sephora Mistakenly Drops C-Bomb; Dirty Hashtag Follows

Fail: Sephora Mistakenly Drops C-Bomb; Dirty Hashtag Follows

Typos are a fact of life. We all make them.

Sephora’s recent typo, however, was an lesson in how quick – and unforgiving – social media audiences can be.

Here’s What Happened:

A Sephora employee accidentally left the letter “O” out of the word “count.”

But wait! There’s more.

Sephora Australia created a photo album on Facebook to hype up the opening of a new store in Sydney, Australia.

The name…

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Fail: Dean McDermott shows us how to not handle Twitter trolls

Fail: Dean McDermott shows us how to not handle Twitter trolls

Reality star and quasi-celebrity Dean McDermott decided to fight some Twitter Trolls recently.

He lost.

And by lost, I mean he got trolled hard.

It basically ended with Dean making a statement similar to “I’m taking my toys and going home!”

Dean McDermott looking sad.

Don’t know who Dean McDermott is?

That’s okay.

All you really need to know about him is that he is apparently famous for something…

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What You Are Probably Doing Wrong With Google AdWords

What You Are Probably Doing Wrong With Google AdWords

Does it seem as though you are not seeing the success that you would like with your Google AdWords campaign? If so, there could be several things that you are doing wrong.

Be Specific With Targeted Keywords

One of the biggest mistakes that many people make with AdWords is wasting money on traffic that they do not want. The default settings on AdWords are designed to help you get the most clicks…

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The Rules of Engagement for Bidding on Google AdWords

The Rules of Engagement for Bidding on Google AdWords

Most folks know that AdWords can be a powerful tool for attracting traffic to your site. Just exactly how successful AdWords can be depends upon your understanding of how to implement it and how to do so competitively.

Track Conversions

First, always make sure that conversion tracking is installed. Regardless of whether your goal for that particular campaign is branding, it is still important to…

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The Multi-Faceted Nature of Today's SEO

The Multi-Faceted Nature of Today’s SEO

An excellent article from Search Engine Watch titled “SEO is No One-Trick Pony” does a great job explaining how today’s SEO requires multiple approaches.

The author discusses how at a recent talk, someone asked basically asked him what “one thing” they could do to improve their SEO results. The first thing that comes to mind relates to publishing excellent content, but the author does point out…

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Add a Custom URL Shortener (aka shortlink) to your site

Add a Custom URL Shortener (aka shortlink) to your site

Adding a custom url shortener to with your own branded domain name is a lot easier than you might think.

Why would you need a custom url shortener (aka “shortlink”?)

Twitter and other social media channels have a strict character limit. As a general rule, you don’t want your link to take up half of your status update. Many companies have also used this as an opportunity for branding.

Examples:…

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Google Authorship is dead? Well, only mostly dead.

Google Authorship is dead? Well, only mostly dead.

In late summer of 2014, Google announced that they would no longer show Google Authorship in search results.

This prompted a flurry of articles declaring that Google Authorship is dead.

While it may seem so at first glance, it’s really only mostly dead, but it still has value that you should not ignore.

A refresher on Google Authorship

Earlier this year I wrote about Google Authorshipand why…

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Track Google Adwords Call Extensions with Call Forwarding

Track Google Adwords Call Extensions with Call Forwarding

One of the most overlooked features of Google Adwords are Call Extensions, which either show a phone number in your text ad or display a “Call” button as shown below.

This has tremendous value for local businesses, especially as more people are now searching for your business from their smartphones.

Google states in their documentation that this feature is “free.” This really only means that if…

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The Power of Automatic - Scheduling Posts in Wordpress

The Power of Automatic – Scheduling Posts in WordPress

Scheduling posts in WordPress is a simple, yet often overlooked, feature of the popular blogging platform.

Writing posts in batches

You’re busy. I’m busy. It’s a common theme amongst bloggers – we’re always looking for ways to maximize our time and productivity. Sometimes that involves a short window of time to write a single post, but when you do find a block of time it can be helpful to write a…

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What we can learn from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

What we can learn from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Love it or hate on it, there are lessons to be learned from the viral success of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

Like most of you, I’ve seen the ice bucket videos by celebrities, athletes and business moguls throughout the summer of 2014.

I was a bit surprised the first time I saw a friend post their video on Facebook.

I’m not sure why, but up to that point I thought it was only for famous people.…

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Offline blogging software rocks, but don't make this mistake

Offline blogging software rocks, but don’t make this mistake

Just a quick tip this week, and a chance for you aspiring business bloggers/content marketers out there to laugh at learn from my mistake.

When it comes to WordPress editing apps for my Mac, MarsEdit is my all-time favorite offline blogging software.

It lets me keep working on my posts in situations where there is no internet – like when I am on a plane, for example.

Just don’t make the same…

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Update: Google Plus custom urls without extra characters

Update: Google Plus custom urls without extra characters

In our last article about this subject I discussed the challenges of getting a Google Plus custom url without having to add extra characters for Bossa Nova Interactive’s local/brand page.

After much trial and error we found that the best method was to hunt down and delete duplicate business listings.

I’ve also writtenabout the process of removing duplicate Google+ pages, but that article covered…

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Custom URLs for Google Plus Local Business Pages

Custom URLs for Google Plus Local Business Pages

Ever since Google+ introduced brand pages, many of us have been asking for custom URLs for Google Plus Local business pages.

The good news: Google now offers this to some businesses.

The bad news: For some pages, you have to add extra characters to the end of the name.

So close, Google+, so very close!

When I first got news of my preapproved custom URL, I was grateful for the ability to finally…

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Happy Birthday Google Doodle is a wee bit creepy

Happy Birthday Google Doodle is a wee bit creepy

Like everyone, I recently turned another year older.

On that day, I was a little creeped out to find a Happy Birthday Google Doodle when I went to search for something on Google.com.

But I was not surprised at all. Google knows a lot about me. And about you too.

This is all information we traded for their wonderful “free” services.

Not to mention, what Google knows about me pales in comparison to…

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Can't Merge Duplicate Google Plus Local Pages? Just Delete It

Can’t Merge Duplicate Google Plus Local Pages? Just Delete It

Trying to merge duplicate Google Plus Local pages?

Short answer: you can’t, but deleting it is faster than dealing with Google support.

Before you do that, however, make sure you take the following steps.

1. Claim the duplicate page

You must be an owner or manager of the page to delete it. If you don’t own it, begin the process of claiming it in your Google My Business portal.

(more…)

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The Best Time To Reach Local Customers Isn't At The Movies

The best time to reach locals isn’t when they are about to watch a movie, or while driving, or watching TV.

No, the best time to reach local customers is when they are searching for your business.

A really bad use of a local ad budget

So I went to see a movie the other night at this fancy new theater that just opened up nearby.

My wife and I got there early, so we had to sit through some…

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