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SiteProNews

Posted: 15 Aug 2011 07:56 AM PDT

Facebook has been out for a few years now but marketers still are not quite sure the best way to market with Facebook. You can build a tremendous following using Facebook but there are things that you should and should not do while using Facebook to market your online business. I’ll go through a few of them in this article.
1. Content on Your Page
It is best to post regular content on your page. Your articles should reflect your personality because your messages are designed to keep you involved with your business clients.
One thing that you do not want to do is to continually send sales messages to your clients and you don’t want to spam them. You should build a rapport with your clients. Facebook is not the medium to sell directly to people.
2. Which Type of Page is Right for Your Business?
It is important for you to pick the correct page for the type of business that you have. In Facebook, you will find personal profiles and fan, group and community pages. There is a description about each page, so study the descriptions and pick the page that best suits your business. Each of these pages contain different features and restrictions thus you need to make the right decision early on.
If you have a personal Facebook account, don’t use this for your company. A personal account will limit the number of friends you have and in case you happen to violate the terms of service on your personal page, you may actually have your account terminated.
3. Determine Your Budget
Because Facebook has a great number of users, you should start small. Instead of spending a great deal of money on advertising, you can create viral campaigns and if you use your pages the right way, your clients could do the majority of the work for you.
Be mindful when using PPC on Facebook. You could spend thousands of dollars inside an hour. Set your spending limit small, like $10.00 or $15.00 daily. You should always test a small campaign to see whether it will make you money.
4. Have Your Photo on Your Pages
Having a professional photo taken of yourself for Facebook is a must. You need to look good and that’s what a professional can do for you.
What you do not want to do is to put a photo on your page that is casual or suggestive. That’s a definite no-no.
5. Be Personal With Your Information
Always respond personally to any comments and messages that you get. This is the way you connect with people on Facebook. Answering inquiries personally is what Facebook is all about.
Don’t be impersonal. If you want to be considered a powerful brand, you should connect with people on a personal level.
6. Furnish as Many Details on Yourself as Possible
Fill out everything you can on your bio pages along with your information pages. Make it easy for people to contact you and to also see who you really are.
Don’t let your information get stale. Keep all of your information up to date. People will notice that you are changing your information to keep it current and they’ll appreciate that. You should update your information at the very least once a month.
These are just some of the most common things that you should do to market your business properly on Facebook. It will take time for you to develop your client base, but when you do it right, your clients will appreciate that and they’ll spread the word about you and your business.

Do you want to learn more about using Facebook to develop customer loyalty for your business? If so, download my free Facebook Guide at: http://workonlinesuccess.com/Free-Reports/Facebooksqueezepage.html. Visit my website at http://workonlinesuccess.com
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Best Way to Market With Facebook

Using Subscription Software for a Membership Website

Posted: 15 Aug 2011 07:50 AM PDT

A membership web site can easily be created with the correct choice of subscription software. In fact, unless you are conversant with coding and using content management system (CMS) software, it is unlikely that you could generate anything but the most rudimentary form of membership site by yourself.
There is subscription software available online that can make creating a membership web site as simple as clicking a few buttons. However, creating a subscription site is just the beginning, because once you have the site what are you going to use it for? The vast majority of people that use software to create a membership website fail to make any money with it for a number of reasons, but the most common is failing to plan.
Formulating a Plan
You must have a plan before you start up your first membership web site – in fact before you even decide on the subscription software you intend to use. There are a number of questions you must ask yourself.
• What are you going to use the site for?
• How will you attract members?
• How will you keep your members more than the first month?
• How will you make money from your members?
• What will you give them in return?
Some of these questions are discussed briefly below:
Using the Site: The answer is to make money! Keep that in your mind all the time – you are not benevolent, but will give fair return for your members’ payments. However, you have to make money! There is one exception to this, and that is a charity website, in which case you are here to give information. However, you can still make money for your charity!
Attracting Members: You can attract members to your site by means of common internet marketing techniques such as article marketing, PPC, participating in forums, Facebook Ads, submitting on website directories, using social networking and social bookmarking to promote your site, participating on Scribd.com and so on. Once you have them on your page, you must keep them there – see below.
Inducements: Inducements to join your membership web site can keep visitors on your site for more than a month- free gifts if you have any to give. Free reports on your niche and so on. Simple product reviews are no good because these are available free online for any product you can imagine. You can easily make up a short report using FAQs you can make up. Think of common problems and then answer them.
Financial Plans: How much to charge? That is up to you, but can be from $7 to $97/month depending on the value of your site to your membership. You should be able to accept PayPal or straight credit or debit card payments.
What Niche: You can run more than one membership web site, so your niches are unlimited. Start with a niche you know well and then branch out to others when you have more confidence. If you add forum software to your membership web site (not difficult) your members can answer their own questions, and you need not be an expert on your niche. Ask a knowledgeable member to act as administrator – many people love doing this job without payment. It lets them show off their knowledge, and you can learn from them.
The other questions can be answered as they come up, but you get the idea. Make sure you have a plan and are not starting off blind, or you will fail. Subscription software is very good, but it can’t plan for you.

Choosing the Subscription Software
The subscription software you choose to run your membership web site is very important. You should first set out your plan, and what you need in the software to enable you to carry it out. Free software is fine for a knitting club, but not for a high-powered internet marketing business.
Your subscription software should enable you to generate a membership web site that is totally flexible and that can incorporate any additional software you want to use with it – such as forum software that enables your members to interact with each other. It should come populated with products you can offer your members, and should be easily updated.
The ideal type of subscription software, although you may not understand this right now, will charge a monthly fee, in return for which you receive monthly updates of products and reviews you can offer your members. Otherwise it will not be a turnkey solution and you will have to maintain it yourself every month. Your members will soon get bored if your site is not regularly updated, and this is what a monthly subscription site can do for you.

Repeat Again and Again and . . .
Let’s face it, whatever they charge you, you can get back with just one or two members, and your membership will grow month on month. This is how the big dogs make so much money – they find out something that works and they repeat it again, and again, and again, and. . .
Repetition is the name of the game, and if you repeat your membership web site many times each month with different niches using the same subscription software that can handle multiple membership web sites then you will be more than satisfied.

If you are seeking ways to create a membership web site to make you money online, then check out http://www.MemberDesk.com where you will find the subscription software you need. This offers you total flexibility to designer a membership site to suit your needs.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Using Subscription Software for a Membership Website

Is Social Media Marketing More Powerful Than SEO

Posted: 15 Aug 2011 07:24 AM PDT

When you are aiming to build your business part time, you are required to pick and choose what to think about to get the most targeted visitors to your site. Do you spend your time on Facebook and Twitter or do you spend your time with SEO? Is one of these marketing tools more valuable than the other? Which one of these marketing tools will
get you where you should be the fastest? Will utilizing only one of these tools help you make more money?
Let’s dive into both of these tools to work out what would be best.
SEO – What Should This Marketing Tactic do for Your Business?
SEO or Search Engine Marketing, when done properly, could possibly get you the number one spot on Google, Yahoo and Bing. How important is this to your website and your bottom line? – absolutely huge! A number one ranking, even a page one ranking will bring you a large amount of traffic.
However, how easy is this for you to accomplish? Do you possess the expertise to get your site on the first page of Google? Just how much time will that take? When you are working on your business part time, you may not have enough time and energy to make SEO give you the results you want. If you have the money, you can have an SEO expert do that part for you.
SEO is a long-term strategy for your business. It also takes a lot more effort than social media and you don’t know if it will work. There are so many different keyword phrases to focus on, and so much content to get written.

Social Media – Would This Strategy Work for Your Business?
Social Media/Facebook/Twitter will bring you faster results. It will be much easier for you to manage and it won’t take so very long for you to receive the kind of traffic that you are looking for. Another vote for social media is the fact that it truly is free. You don’t need to pay anyone to create your Facebook page or your group. You can do that yourself and it won’t take that long.
However, even though you could get a lot of traffic faster from social media, it isn’t precisely the same kind of traffic. Social media prominence is not identical to a #1 listing on Google. If you are concentrating on social media, you really are actually building your reputation.
Social media will benefit your business when you can provide something that your fans will want on a consistent basis. If they’re in need of how-to information, you need to provide that on a daily or weekly basis. If you provide video type products, you have to provide videos on a consistent basis. The key to social media is consistently communicating with your audience.
So which is the best route, social media or SEO?
For me personally, you should employ the two tactics together. As you can see from Google results, many of the top results come from Facebook likes and material you post on your Facebook page. The search engines are using SEO along with what is going on in the social media arena.
And when you really examine the two, social media and SEO, you will see how you actually need to do precisely the same things for both. If you want high rankings in the search engines, provide great content on your Facebook page on a consistent basis based on what people are looking for and you will cover both at the same time. So, is social media more powerful than SEO? No, they’re both powerful. Consider using them together and you will have success with both.

If you want to learn more about using Facebook for your business, download Cathy’s free Facebook Guide at
http://workonlinesuccess.com/Free-Reports/Facebooksqueezepage.html
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Is Social Media Marketing More Powerful Than SEO

Top Seven Things to Avoid When Choosing an SEO Agency – A SPN Exclusive

Posted: 15 Aug 2011 07:17 AM PDT

Running an SEO agency can potentially mean big business. Competition is rife within the industry, and as such some less than ethical methods of producing impressive looking results have unsurprisingly evolved over time.
Agencies that use these ‘effective’ methods may seem appealing, but look a little closer and you’ll soon realise that not only are their results delivered via corrupt means, but often these same results cannot be sustained over time.
So what do you do to solve this dilemma? You want Google to think highly of your website, but you don’t have the time or specialist knowledge to make this happen yourself. However, you also know that some SEO agencies could potentially rip you off. There is a solution. Although it may take a little time, finding a suitable agency for your business is possible. Here are a few top tips to bear in mind while you’re searching for an SEO company that you can trust.
How Much do They Charge?
We all know that the economic climate is less than perfect at present. Thus, whenever we decide to invest into our business, we want to make sure we’re getting the best possible service for our money. Low prices can be tempting; however they do not always guarantee a satisfactory ROI. Rates should be competitive, but if they seem ‘too good to be true’, they probably are. Ethical SEO agencies do a huge amount of research, writing, reviewing, and more in order to encourage Google’s PageRank to rank your site well. If the agencies prices are dirt cheap, then it is best to err on the side of caution.
Similarly if they are offering a ‘pay-per-click’ service, whereby you pay them for every visitor your site receives, then you will more than likely end up paying significantly more than if you pay a set monthly fee. If a ‘pay-per-click’ SEO agency wants to get money quickly, then they will use any method possible to get traffic to your site.
Number of Keywords Targeted
Both quality and quantity are important to Google’s PageRank algorithm. Certainly it is possible for an SEO agency to target multiple keywords; however it could be the case that many of these keywords do not have much competition and are thus easy for the agency to get ranking highly. More competitive keywords may take longer to rank highly with, but they will be significantly more beneficial for you in the long run.
Traffic Relevancy
SEO isn’t just about the amount of people that visit your site increasing; it’s also about the kind of people that are visiting your site. A good SEO agency will be able to target the appropriate demographic for whatever it is your site offers, thus increasing your ROI. However, a less effective agency will purely base their results on the amount of people clicking to your website, rather than who those people are.
Quick Results
Quick results may look good to you initially, but they don’t always bode well with Google. Google is incredibly advanced, and gets suspicious if a site is fast to rise in the ranks. These kinds of results are often impossible to sustain over time, as Google often penalizes those quick to rank sites. This can put your rankings down, or knock your website off Google searches altogether.

Unique and Relevant Content
As already stated, quality and quantity both matter to Google. If the content an agency is writing for you is automated or copied, then you will have less chance of Google looking upon your website favourably. If the agency is offering a huge amount of article and blog submissions for your money, then it’s possible that the content might have been generated rather than written by a human. Original content is important and affects both your PageRank score, and ultimately the relevancy of your site traffic.
Spam Commenting
We all receive spam email, and thus all know how irritating it is when it appears among other, more important, messages in our inboxes. Some SEO agencies spam blogs and forums in order to get people to your website. However, not only does this not bring in the right kind of traffic to your website, it also undermines the owner of the blog. The blog owners spend time and effort on their blog; spam commenters do not think about the people they are affecting.
Look For Honesty
Ethical SEO agencies should always be open and honest about their results and how they are being achieved. They should review their results and always be looking to improve. If they are not willing to put in this kind of effort, or you feel like information is being kept from you, then they are more than likely not to be trusted.
Finding an ethical SEO agency is not an impossible task, it simply takes a little bit of time. Bear these tips in mind and always be prepared to ask difficult questions to any agencies that you approach.

Kingpin SEO are a UK based SEO agency. Unlike many other SEO agencies, they are committed to providing the most ethical SEO work possible and can help your website achieve both impressive and sustainable results, through extensive keyword research, on-page SEO, and ethical, organic, link building techniques.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Top Seven Things to Avoid When Choosing an SEO Agency – A SPN Exclusive

What Does the Google +1 Button Mean for SEO

Posted: 14 Aug 2011 10:00 PM PDT

Google, the internet giant based in California, has had a strangle hold on much of the online market for the past decade. Most would struggle to find a single person in the Western World who is not yet familiar with the Google Search Engine. In fact the search engine is so popular that the phrase ‘Google it’ has been adopted by many Gen-Yers.
In addition to their massive presence in the search marketplace, Google also commands a large percentage of the online advertising industry, generating revenues in the region of US$35 billion per annum.
Facebook, a relatively new comer to the internet, and center of popular film The Social Network, is quickly closing on Google’s market. Currently Facebook ranks as the 2nd most visited website online globally and holds over 750 million member accounts. Facebook is beginning to threaten Google’s market dominance in online advertising due to the huge volume of data that the social network holds about its members. While Google’s advertising model focuses around what people are looking for, specifically using search queries, Facebook’s model allows advertisers to utilize behavioural targeting. A Facebook advertiser can select very precise advertising audiences by focusing on:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Employment Type
- Education Level
- Likes and Dislikes
By selecting a narrow cross section of the global audience by one or all of the above variables, an advertiser can see significant improvement in their ROI when compared with search or conventional marketing.
This is where Google Plus enters the scene. In May Google released a limited Beta of their new social network, to approximately 10 Million users. Google Plus, similar to Facebook, allows users to create profiles, enter personal details, connect with friends and join a global community online. The Google +1 button is the equivalent of Facebook’s Like button – allowing users to show their approval of an idea, concept, website or product and broadcast this to their network.
It’s not a new concept that Google uses a number of user specific factors to influence their search results. These have historically included the user’s location, past search history, bounce rate from certain sites, browser setting and a host of other signals to indicate whether or not a search result is likely to fit the user’s specific requirements or reason for search.
While not officially announced as yet, the Google +1 button will affect the manner in which search results are returned to users. The very nature of a social network suggests that people who are connected will share similar likes, beliefs and ideas, and consequently are likely to be interested in the same websites, resources and search results.
It follows then, that the connections of a user who have historically +1ed any given search result will have these sites promoted up the list of future search results due to perceived validity and relevance of that result.
So, when will this new ranking factor, or as Google now refers to them signal, start influencing search results?
That’s a tough question, and it’s likely only to be once the Google Plus and +1 button programs reach a critical mass. That is where the number of +1s reaches a volume and velocity that indicates considerable adoption by the searching public.
You can already see the impact of +1 within your own search results, i.e. complete a search; navigate to page 3 of the results and +1 a single result Google returned. Now complete the same search again, it’s likely that the result you +1ed will be elevated within the new set of results. This is exactly the same behaviour we expect to see once Google brings +1 and Plus into full swing.
We expect that this will become a ranking factor around the end of the year, likely in time for Christmas shopping season.
What can you do to gain the maximum benefit from +1?
At present the +1 signal is only being used to influence a user’s personal search results, but this is likely to change late this year so it’s time to get started on a strategy to make the most of this opportunity. This way when Google flicks the switch you will receive all the benefits of being +1ed and you will surge ahead of your competitors within specific market segments.
By now your web developer or SEO firm should have already contacted you offering +1 integration; it’s a good idea to get Facebook Like done at the same time. If not, get in touch with the team that manages your website and request them to place the +1 button prominently on your site. The button is pretty funky and modern and is not likely to do any damage to your branding or design. Make sure you are communicating with your clients, visitors and connections to ensure they +1 your site. The earlier you start work the sooner you will see results.

Rich is head of SEO Perth for Zen Net Solutions, who are a leading Online Marketing Strategy agency.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

What Does the Google +1 Button Mean for SEO