Social Media Icons and the Google Knowledge Panel

Google My Business and the Google Knowledge Panel represent very effective ways of raising brand awareness and increasing the number of your clients. Why? Because they have a great impact on potential customers.

Firstly, Google My Business is the best tool for companies and organizations to manage their presence across the Google platforms, so it’s important to have accurate and complete information on it.

Secondly, the knowledge panel appears next to the search results in Google when someone performs a specific search and it displays various data, most importantly: brand/company name, logo, description and contact information.

With the help of structured data markup, business owners can customize their company's panel to show their social profiles as well. More information on the Social Profile Links can be found here.

This is exactly what we had in mind when we added a new format to the code snippet of the 'Cylex Social Media Icons' option. This new coding format not only helps in displaying all your social media profiles on your website, but it can also help in making sure your social media icons are displayed in the Google Knowledge Panel, as well as in Google My Business.

What should you do to enjoy these benefits? Integrate the Cylex Social Media Icons to your website. Using this option is a lot easier than it sounds and of course, you can use it for free. Here is our previous post, which is a step-by-step guide to walk you through the process of using this option.

The more exposure your social media profiles get the better are the chances of your business having a lot of new customers. Don't wait for the number of your customers to maybe increase someday … make sure this happens tomorrow!

P.S. If you already have these icons integrated on your website, but they don't appear on the Google Knowledge Panel, it means they're not integrated correctly. Follow the above steps and the road to success is guaranteed.

10+1 Tips for improving your visibility on Cylex

Wouldn’t it be nice to rank #1 on Cylex? Many of our customers turned to us with the same question. Get some answers and insights into our ranking process. Check out the key elements of increasing a company’s visibility on Cylex.

1. Categories (Relevance factor)

Our ranking algorithm is based on categories and keywords. That's why you should add relevant keywords to your Cylex profile and double check your categories.

2. Positive reviews (Review+ factor)

Nothing proves your company's worth more than having happy customers. Why not make sure everybody knows about them? Ask your satisfied clients to write a review about your company. You can do that by email after a successful business transaction or you can use our review widget to encourage them. For even more visibility, share the reviews on your social media profiles.

3. Accurate and new info (Freshness factor)

Update your presentation page regularly. Correct and detailed information is a key factor. Even if there are no significant changes in your contact details, you can keep your page updated by always adding something new to it. Inform your clients about events, share articles and news or simply add a new photo to your gallery.

4. Special offers (Special offers factor)

Clients love discounts and offers. What you might consider a small discount, can be a decisive factor for customers. Though their effect is limited in time, you may add new offers or re-add your older ones. Don't forget to share these offers on the social media platforms as well.

5. Opening times (OH factor)

Since this is one of the most requested details, the profiles that have opening hours will rank higher in our directory. FindOpen, our partner website will also display these opening hours.

6. Answer quote requests (RFQ factor)

Sending offers for the quote requests that you receive from your business category has a positive impact because winning offers can also earn you a higher ranking in our directory, not to mention the new customers that you can gain. A review from a 'Cylex Quote Requests' customer has even more value.

7. Interview (Media factor)

This unique feature allows you to present your business in a detailed manner. Request an interview and share it on social media sites to increase its popularity as well as the awareness of your brand and also your company’s products and services.

8. Social media (Popularity factor)

Sharing your Cylex profile on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google +1s are important!) is another good way to achieve your goal. This way you will have more links towards your profile. More links equal more visitors which results in a high popularity factor.

9. Unique description (Popularity factor)

One of the foremost 'rules' of SEO is having a unique description. Tell visitors why should they choose your company, what differentiates you from your competitors. It’s a fact that profiles with unique descriptions have more internal links on Cylex, thus their popularity factor is also higher.

10. Visual content (Popularity factor)

Add your company's logo, images and upload/embed videos. Your visitors will love and appreciate these.

The +1

Do you wish to remove the ads and the nearby similar companies sections from your Cylex profile? Try our Premium Entry option and convince yourself of its advantages! A premium entry is displayed in the first position of the Cylex search results, thus having 4 times more visitors. 

Stop wondering how to gain more visibility on our directory, now you have the way. Just follow these tips and if you require assistance, we are more than happy to help. We can assure you these tips will also help your ranking in other business directories and in Google’s result pages in general.

How to use the new Social Media Icons

Step-by-step

We all recognise the important role social media platforms play in the life of businesses today. This is why we have released our newest feature for business owners who have a presentation page in the Cylex Business Directory. With the help of our 'Social Media Icons', you can make sure that customers and potential customers get the overall image of your company.

Integrating these icons to your website is not as difficult as it seems. Actually, it is pretty easy and straight-forward. We will walk you through the process step by step.

First, you should sign in to your presentation page by doing the following: click on the 'Sign in' button from the upper right corner of the page, select the business directory sign in and complete the necessary fields (Company ID or Email and Password) to access your dashboard.

Once you are in, select 'Widgets' then 'Social Media Icons' from the 'Company Data' drop down menu:

In case you haven't added any of your company's social media profiles to your presentation page yet, the 'Social Media Icons' page will look like this, containing only the Cylex icon for the moment:

Otherwise, if you have already added your social media accounts, you will find an icon for each of the completed profiles on the page:

Next, you have to select a size for your icons. Choose between big, medium and small. You will see that when you select a size, the icons will change in the 'Preview' section:

Now let's go to the next step, which is choosing the text colour of the icons. Click on the 'Font colour' tab and choose the most suitable colour for your website from our colour pallet.

If you already know what colour code you want, just insert it in the box next to the 'Font colour' tab.

After you have selected the appropriate size and colour, click on the 'next' button, from the lower-right part, to customise the icons. You can check the 'Icons only' box to display the icons without the names of the social platforms and you can customize the 'Heading' part, if you want to change the “Find us on:” heading to something else. Remember, everything that you try here will be visible in the 'Preview' section, to give you an idea about how these icons will look like on your website.

Now comes one of the most essential parts. Choose which icons to show or hide by checking or unchecking the check-box next to the specific social media platforms:

Then, if you have other profiles that are not completed yet, simply click on the 'Edit' button, under the check-box and next to the platform's name, fill in the necessary information and click on 'OK'.

When you are done, click on the 'next' button to go to the last phase of your work. What you will see here is a code snippet that needs to be integrated into the HTML code of your website. Don't get alarmed, we know that this might seem a little scary, but using it will be easier than you can imagine. You should simply copy the whole code snippet from the box and then go to your website and paste it into the HTML code.

This is it! After you have integrated the code snippet, the icons will be displayed, linking to each one of your profiles, just like it is shown in the picture below. This way your customers will find every important info about your company's social media presence and activity in one place.

If you have experience in using HTML, you are welcome to change the code the way you like it. You can add nofollow links, change the way in which the icons are displayed etc. It is up to you!

Here's just one more thing everyone should know about. Do you have a unique website design with colours that don't go with the colours of the Cylex icon? No worries! We have the solution. Just sign in to your account, go to the 'Widgets' menu item and ask for a personalised Cylex logo.

Our team will create one for you, that is the perfect fit for the design of your website. Of course, all of this is for FREE! So all you have left to do is to sit back and enjoy the perks of having a Cylex presentation page.

When it comes to Google+, you have one more option, that is pretty useful in boosting your SEO efforts. You can add a link from your Google+ page to your Cylex profile by following some simple steps.

Sign in, if you are not already signed in, then click on the ‘About’ tab.

In case you haven’t added any links to your profile yet, click on the ‘+’ sign from the lower left corner of the page, click on ‘Sites’ and add the Cylex profile to the ‘Other profiles’ field.

If you have already completed the ‘Other profiles’ section, then you only have to click on the grey pencil to edit it and add your Cylex profile to the ‘Other profiles’ field.

Choose how you share this information on your Google+ profile. We suggest you make it ‘Public’ to help your customers find you in Google search results more easily.

Using these icons will create bridges between every profile that your company has, so customers can cross from one platform to the other, reaching the most comprehensive picture of your business. Don't miss out on offering them this chance!