Attaining top search engine rankings doesn’t always translate into a successful online business as there are multiple factors influencing a visitor’s decision.

Here are 5 reasons why top rankings don’t guarantee success

1. Search engine ranking formulas change

You may enjoy top rankings for a while when suddenly your site disappears. This is because search engines constantly change their ranking formulas.

2. Competing web sites

Your rankings may drop due to other sites competing for the same top position. If your only source of traffic is from the search engines you may suddenly have no sales and be out of business if you lose your top position.

3. Geo targeted search results

If you enter “shoes” in the Google search box local business companies are displayed in the search results in Google maps and the Google ads on the right side of the page. This is because search engines know your location by your IP address and will provide results that are beneficial to you.

The same happens when searching within your Google or Yahoo account. You’ll receive personalized search results based on your preferences. Google is always trying to make searches more targeted so you quickly receive the information you seek. The rankings you see from your desktop may not be the same as what others see.

4. Top rankings don’t mean more traffic

It’s easy to achieve top rankings for keywords no one is searching for. The search engine company you hired may give you a list of all the keyword phrases that received first page rankings. These keywords are useless if they don’t increase the number of visitors to your web site.

5. Top rankings don’t equal sales

If your web site looks unprofessional it will turn away your visitors. Some other factors that influence conversions include:

• poorly written web copy
• slow loading times
• difficulty navigating to other pages
• broken links
• cluttered web page

Instead of constantly checking your rankings evaluate the performance of your web pages to convert visitors into sales.

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We decided to create a space where you can find a lot of Facebook tips and tricks.  Note that not all tips will work for all people

1. Create a Custom Username for your facebook Profile or Page

For example, the custom url of our website’s profile is: http://www.facebook.com/moonviperweb/

You can customize the URLs of your own facebook profile and pages by surfing to: http://www.facebook.com/username/

2. Export your facebook Status Updates via RSS or Text Messages

If you go to facebook.com/notifications you will be able to choose how you would like to syndicate your status updates, as RSS or Text Messages.

3. Import your Tweets as status updates

With the Twitter app for Facebook. This app will import all tweets as status updates, which may alienate your fb friends with useless @replies if they do not have twitter.

4. Schedule your Status Updates on facebook and Twitter

Sendible.com is a site that allows you to import your contacts from a variety of address books, and schedule status updates to multiple networks.

Status updates supported by Sendible include: your Facebook Wall, Facebook Page, and other Social Media sites like Twitter and Linkedin.

5. Sync Photos of facebook Friends with Microsoft Outlook Contacts

OutSync is a free Windows application that syncs photos of your Facebook friends with matching contacts in Microsoft Outlook.

This application allows you to select which contacts are updated.

With this app you can update all contacts at once or just a few at a time.

6. Customize your facebook Page

With the Static FBML app by faceboook.

Using this app you can create a custom “welcome” tab for your facebook page, customize the sidebar of your wall, and more!

7. Export your facebook Events to your Google Calendar

Add your facebook events to currently logged in Google Calendar.

8. Download your facebook Albums from Friends, Events, and Groups

FacePAD is a plugin for Firefox. better known as the Facebook Photo Album Downloader will allow you to download your friends’ entire Facebook albums with a click of a button.

9. Flickr to Facebook

An unofficial Flickr to Facebook uploader (bookmarklet).

This app allows you to easily upload photos to Facebook from Flickr.

10. Upload photos to your facebook account with Picasa

The Google owned Picasa comes complete with an uploader app for Facebook.

This app also gives you the option of uploading the Picasa captions and resizing your photos before uploading them to facebook.

Add a simple button to Picasa that lets you upload your photos straight to Facebook! You can put photos in an existing album or create a new one.

11. Export the emails of your facebook friends as a .csv list.

Facebook turns emails into images so until recently there was no easy way to download the emails of your friends without manually copying them all out. Luckily before I did this I discovered the video below.

The video above shows how Yahoo offers a service that will automatically pull all of your facebook emails into a coma separated list.

12. How to: Remove facebook Advertisements

This Greasemonkey Plugin script – Facebook: Cleaner removes many of the annoying ads and updates that otherwise will appear on your Facebook pages.

13. Import Selective Tweets as facebook status updates

After you link the Selective Tweets App with your Twitter account, any tweets you select will be sent to Facebook.

Select tweets for facebook by using the hashtag #FB in your tweet and it will appear also as a Facebook status update.

14. Access facebook chat on your desktop

CHit chat for facebook is a desktop messaging program for Windows.

This msn style chat program delivers a better experience than the browser based version of facebook chat, since it is not stuck to the bottom of a browser.

Chit chat offers tabs for managing multiple conversations at once.

If you are a Mac user you should check out the widely popular program Adium since it integrates facebook chat, and msn messenger!

15. Use facebook Chat Emoticons

Here is an image showing all of the available Facebook Chat Smileys and Symbols.

16. Manage facebook Chat with Lists

Friend lists on facebook make it so you can appear online to some friend lists while appearing offline to other lists of friends.

If you only wanted to talk to your best friends, for example, then simply create a list called best friends and leave in online, and set all other lists to offline.

In the image shown to the left you will see that I have only three of my lists online.

Due to lists in the image in the left I have only 114 of my fiends online at the time I took this screenshot.

Any friends who are within my offline lists will appear offline to me, even if they are online.

17. Update Facebook via SMS Text Messages

If you already have facebook synced with your phone you can send a status update by sending a text message to 32665.  Syncing your phone with facebook is a simple seven step process.

1. Login to facebook.
2. Click on Account, and account settings.
3. Click the Mobile tab.
4. you will see a link for “Register for Facebook Mobile Texts”. Click this link and fill out the information requested, including your cell phone number.
5. A text message with a confirmation code will then be sent to your phone.
6. Add in this confirmation code at the website listed in the text. At this point you are registered to update your Facebook message with texts.
7. Now you can update your status by sending a text message to 32665.

18. Get Facebook summary updates via email

A great way to stay connected with facebook via a free service called nutshellmail.  Nutshell mail delivers well designed facebook updates, and offers a similar service for both Twitter and Linkedin.

19. Update your Facebook Status from Firefox

Firestatus is A status update utility for multiple social networks, including Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, delicious and more.

20. Download the Facebook app for your phone

Simply browse to m.facebook.com from your mobile phone, and you will be able to access the mobile version of fb.

21. Get detailed statistics of your facebook friends with Socialistics

Socialistics is a comprehensive social insight tool.

This facebook app provides an integrated analysis of your friends and networks.

All graphs are a reflection of stats relating to your friends.

But more interestingly Socialistics creates detailed tag clouds that are a reflection of you and your relationships with people in your networks.

This isn’t Top Friends. It’s much more. It’s an attempt to start understanding who you are within the network you operate within.

22. Automatically Poke Friends that poke you

Yes it’s possible, all thanks to a little Greasemonkey script called Facebook Autopoke.

I am hesitant towards this app.  What if someone you don’t want to poke pokes you?  Do you really want to automatically poke them back?

If you maximize your poking potential and are comfortable poking anyone this app is for you!

23. Upload photos and video to Facebook via email

Go to facebook.com/mobile and note a special “upload” email address that has been assigned to you by facebook.

Any photograph (or video clip) that is sent to this address via email will instantly get posted to your facebook page.

24. The Konami Code

By entering the konami code you will see a cool lens flare effect that will impress and your friends.

By entering these keys:

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Enter.

You will activate the famous Konami code, which unlocks secret areas of many well known websites.

Entering the Konami code in Facebook causes the Website to Enter Lens Flare Mode:

Try typing or pressing Enter for special effects.  This is a cool trick, but gets annoying soon.  Just re-enter the code to deactivate the effect.

25. Pirate English

Yarrr matey!

Change the language of Facebook to English (Pirate) BETA.

Make yaaar status updates walk the plank.

26. Update Facebook from Google

This app allows you to view your Facebook news feed and update your status from iGoogle. According to the comments this app works great in Firefox, but not Google Chrome.

27. Find all of your Facebook friends on Twitter

With fb140.

fb140 is a smart and simple app that makes it easy to connect with your facebook friends on Twitter.

Doing this takes four simple steps and less than five minutes.

28. Keep your friends with you as you surf the web

With the social web browser flock (built from mozilla technology). http://www.flock.com

29. Access Gmail from Facebook With Fmail

Fmail allows you to check your Gmail without leaving Facebook.

Additionally, Fmail attempts to rate your email, so you can quickly differentiate between what’s important and what can wait.

30. Flip your status update text upside down

With fliptext.org

31. Download Facebook Videos

with Downfacebook.com

This site offers two options for downloading videos from facebook, both of which are very easy to use.

32. Get all your facebook notifications right on your desktop

With FBquick.

FBquick is a quick and easy way to get all your facebook notifications right on your desktop.

33. Ping Facebook and all other major social networks at once

With ping.fm.

34. Get quick access to many popular features of facebook

with FBookFriendMenu

Press ALT while pointing to a profile or picture of a use to do common tasks such send poke, message, view album etc.

35. Auto-Colorizer for Facebook

This script adds a custom color scheme to facebook based on profile pictures.

36. Create a collage of Photos of your friends

With the Photo Collage app.

37. Get Facebook and other Instant Messaging in one Program

Digsby is a cool program that integrates email, IM, and Social Networks.

38. The Reviews App for Facebook

With the Reviews App for Facebook, your friends and customers can leave honest opinions about your business.

Reviews lets your prospective fans know what to expect with you and can influence people interacting with your business.

39. Automatically login to Facebook

With Facebook Autologin v2 by installing Greasemonkey for Firefox and this script.

40. Facebook Share Button integration within Google Reader

This Greasemonkey script Places an expandable Facebook Sharer into each Google Reader item so that websites can be shared with Facebook friends and on a Facebook profile from Reader with a couple clicks

41. Advanced facebook Search Features

Not everybody knows how powerful facebook search is.

Facebook search has a lot of advanced options to help you search like a pro.

A complete list of search tips for Facebook can be found in the Help section of facebook.com.

42. Facebook Dashboard Widget for Mac OS X

Dashboard Widget is a widget developed for the Mac OS X dashboard. It is designed to show notifications from the Facebook website.

43. The Superlatives App is Fun

http://www.facebook.com/superlatives

44. Send RSS Feeds to Facebook Pages with RSS Graffitti

RSS Graffiti is an app that periodically checks the RSS feeds that you specify and posts new entries to the Facebook Walls that you specify.

You can get any feed written on any wall. In fact, multiple feeds to multiple walls. You choose the combination.

This app is used by Seth Godin to bring his blog into his facebook page.

45. Manage Facebook Status Updates and Multiple Twitter Accounts at once

With Tweetdeck.

Tweetdeck is the most popular Social Media desktop tool.

They enable multiple account management and facebook status updating.

Make sure to check out my Ultimate TweetDeck Tutorial on garin.tv.

46. Check out: Facebook for Influencers

Facebook for Influencers is a useful resource developed by facebook, about how to build an effective facebook presence.

This facebook page is for anyone who wants to build a presence, engage an audience, and spread a message.

47. Check out: the Facebook App director

There are hundreds of apps recommended by facebook within the facebook app directory.

48. Export albums to facebook from iPhoto [Mac]

Facebook Exporter for iPhoto is a free plugin for iPhoto that enables you to export photos directly to Facebook, with captions and tags of your friends.

The plugin requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and iPhoto 5 or later.

49. Customize your Facebook profile page sidebar

If you are looking for the right icon to link with check out this facebook icon collection.

50. Install a Facebook Like button into your WordPress Self-Hosted Blog

I just implemented this tip on this very page, as you can see below.

To do so I went to Plugins/Add New, and then searched for: “facebook like button.” I installed three different plugins but none worked well with my theme.   I decided to stick with the share button at the top of this post.

I recommend installing code for each button manually. Facebook provides a like button building tool that is quite easy to use, and generates code to copy and paste automatically.

You can get a like button by going to the like button plugin page within the facebook developers portal.

If you have a WordPress blog better way to install this feature into all of your posts and/or pages is with the wordpress plugin: WP FB Like. I installed over five facebook like plugins and this one was the easiest to configure, so I recommend it.

If you don’t want a “like” button you can change the verb to “recommend”, as the image above shows.

If you found and of these 50 tips and tricks useful you should share this post and click the Like button below!

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How do you maximize your site?

By earning some few dollars per click from displaying Adsense ads on it. Many are now realizing that good money is made from this source of revenue. Try the simple mathematical computation of multiplying those clicks for every page on your website and you get a summation of earnings equivalent to a monthly residual income with that little effort you have made.

Google Adsense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant and text-based Google ads on their websites content pages and earn money in the process. The ads displayed are related to what your users are looking for on your site. This is the main reason why you both can monetize and enhance your content pages using Adsense.

How much you will be earning will depend on how much the advertisers are willing to pay. It will depend also on the keywords required. If the keywords the advertiser have chosen are in high demand, you could receive more dollars per click. On the other hand, low demand keywords will earn you just a few cents per click.

How can you start making profits out of your website using Adsense?

1. Sign up for an Adsense account. It will only take a few minutes of your time.

2. When the site is accepted, you will be receiving a clip code to include in your web pages. You can insert this code on as many pages or web sites that you want. The AdWords will start appearing immediately after.

3. You will be earning a few cents or some dollars per click when someone starts clicking on the AdWords displayed on any of your web pages. Trying to earn false revenues by repetitively clicking on your own ads is a no-no. This will result in a penalty or the possibility of your site being eliminated. The money you have already earned may be lost because of this.

4. View your statistics. Adsense earnings can be checked anytime by logging into your web site account.

Once you got your account working, you may still want to pattern them to the many sites that are earning more money than you are. It is important to note that there are factors affecting how your website will perform and the amount of money it will give you.

It is a common practice that when a site earning money, the tendency is for the owner to want to make more out of what they are getting already. It usually takes some time combined with trial and error to attain what you want for your Adsense contents.

Time and some important factors that you can practice and use.

How do you increase your Adsense earnings?

1. Choose one topic per page. It is best to write a content for your page with just a few targeted phrases. The search engine will then serve ads that are more relevant which will then result in higher clickthoughs.

2. Using white space around your ad. This can make your ad stand out from the rest of your page so visitors can spot them easily. There are also other choices of colors you can use, provided by search engines, which can harmonize the color of your ad with the web page color.

3. Test your ad placement. It is recommended to use the vertical format that runs down the side of the web page to get more positive results. You can also try both horizontal and vertical formats for a certain period of time to see which one will give you better results.

4. More content-based pages. Widen the theme of your website by creating pages that focus more on your keyword phrases. This will optimize the pages for the search engines. It can not only attract traffic but also make them more relevant for the AdWords to be displayed.

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Here are three lessons of selling that you can learn from politicians:

1. Successful selling is like a campaign

Just like a politician who’s always shaking hands and kissing babies, you need to get out there as a online marketer. Go public with your website. Spread the word, spread your links, and connect with potential customers. Get involved in online forums and other social networking groups that may be interested your products. Heck, you could even make a bumper sticker!

By getting out into the world with your message, and treating your online site as more than just an online brochure, you’re introducing the world to your brand.  That helps drive traffic to your site, which in turn drives sales and leads, which is what a business is all about.

2. Remember that you’re on 24/7

The internet never closes. It’s open all day, every day, meaning that from the moment that your products hit the marketplace, they can start selling. Like a winning politician, who gains momentum by staying in the public eye, be on top of your marketing—don’t miss out on sales by being invisible. Every time that you publish a new product, take a couple of extra minutes to share on your blog or on Facebook.

Give your customers every opportunity to find you, by keeping your website up to date with your latest promotions, and don’t forget to promote them through every available channel.  Remember that it doesn’t have to cost a fortune either.  The very act of sending a Tweet through Twitter, or updating your Facebook status may drive yet another sale.  We’ve seen lots of clients have success by simply doing these little things consistently, and every time they send out an update, their traffic often jumps by as much as 200%.

3. Know what your customer wants

Whether you offer custom designed t-shirts, or offer a basic service, such as carpet cleaning, finding a niche in the world can be your greatest asset. When you know what your potential customers might be looking for, you can feature that aspect of your business. Like voters, your shoppers will have an agenda (especially during the holidays) so make sure to use your blog and social networking sites to promote portions of your business that are seasonally relevant. For instance, you might want to consider promoting a cleaning service (as a carpet cleaner) or a free shipping promotion (for an online store) during the holiday season.

Speaking of calendars, now is the time to start designing a calendar to give away to clients during the holiday season. Calendar searches are about to skyrocket, so you don’t want to be outdated!

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One great tool for reaching more customers and clients is WordPress.  Frequently, entrepreneurs and small business owners overlook WordPress, but there is no doubting its ability to reach many people.

So what is it that makes WordPress so effective?

WordPress has excellent search engine optimization software and this, of course, can translate into more and more people learning about you, your business and what you offer.  The fact that WordPress offers great search engine optimization is something that should really catch your attention.  If you are a small business with a limited budget for things like advertising and SEO services, WordPress will probably be to your liking.

The reason that small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs should take a good, long look at WordPress is that it is a free way to reach vast numbers of people.  A free way to promote your website, company or goods and services is quite attractive.  The time you invest in WordPress is time well spent.

Another reason that WordPress is worth a look is that it has easy to use blog building software.  This, of course, means that you can forgo designing a website or hiring someone to create a website for you.  As a result, many small businesses have turned to WordPress as a way of handling their online presence.

If you are currently without a website for your business, there is something to be said for building a WordPress page to promote your company.  WordPress is invested a great deal of money in its software, and this shows in the SEO results that WordPress pages receive as well as the easy to use blog building software.

Further, there is an ever-growing array of useful plugins for WordPress that can assist you to grow your business. In fact, to date the number of plugins is over 18,000!  These plugins can help you to do everything from track the origins of your visitors to study visitor behavior.

WordPress also does something else rather interesting.  There are millions of people using WordPress and that means you have a potential built-in audience in the form of other users.  In fact, WordPress actually promotes new articles and sites that appear on the platform throughout its network.  That is a nice reward, isn’t it?  Build a page, or write an article, and WordPress will help you get the word out.   This is not too bad for free!

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Unfortunately the answer is not all that simple. First you have to ask yourself a few questions. One, who is your audience and are they on Twitter? Two, what are you trying to do with Twitter? Three, does Twitter fit into your time budget? And Lastly how will you measure Twitter Success? I’m going to be attempting to clarify each question for you throughout the rest of this article.

The first question is a question that everyone should always ask themselves before getting into any endeavors with their business or marketing plan.

Who is your audience? If you don’t know the answer to that question, you had better find a new profession and quickly, this economy is not a forgiving one, and there is certainly no room for businesses that don’t know their market. Is your audience using Twitter? do a little bit of research behind this one. Use Twitter Search and search for some of your market’s main keywords, if there is a lot of conversation about your product, genre, or niche then you might be onto something. If not, don’t waste your time. There are plenty of other great places to spend your time trying to acquire customers.

If you decide that you’re going to set up a Twitter account for your business the next question to ask yourself would be, what are you trying to do with Twitter? Just like anything else you have to have a common goal in mind and a plan to reach that goal. Do you want overall brand awareness? Another place to share your blog links? Or do you want to drive direct traffic and sales through Twitter. Whichever way you decide to go there are a different marketing techniques and best practices in order to get you to that next level.

Does Twitter fit into your time budget? We all know that Twitter is a free service and that Dell claims they made $1 Million in sales on Twitter last year, but are you Dell? The answer to that question for most of us is a definite NO! It is going to take time to build your Twitter following, and in my experience from a direct sales standpoint with Twitter, it takes a longer time to actually get people to want to purchase from you. So figure out if it is worth your time to start the campaign before you do.

The last question you’ll want to ask yourself is how will you judge Twitter success? This should go hand in hand with the reasons you are joining Twitter in the first place, but if you aren’t getting those sales right off the bat, how will you measure success? How are you going to measure the amount of brand awareness Twitter is bringing you? These are generally answered through whatever analytics program you use for your site but make sure you have this in mind as well.

After you have asked yourselves all of these questions I think you’re going to be well on your way to getting started with Twitter. You’ll certainly be well ahead of about 85% of the Twitterverse anyway.

Now that you know the questions you should ask yourself, start answering them already will you!? I mean time is money people! Have a good one.

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Some will tell you it’s a game of averages, that you should get as many people to follow you as possible regardless of whether they are actually interested in you or not, and start trying to sell things to them.

There is no denying that you will see some success with that approach, but by using that approach you will lose some of the added value that your followers can bring you. People who don’t care about you, aren’t going to retweet your posts, aren’t going to say good things about what you’re doing, and aren’t going to be engaged with you on a regular basis. So my suggestion is, that you build a following of people who actually do care about you and your product. While your numbers may not be as big as the next guys, the value of each of your followers, will be much higher.

Step 1:
Build you network of caring followers. Post about things only related to your topic. Follow only people who are interested in your topic, and engage with people who are interested in your topic. The ability to create your own little niche of sorts on twitter is one of it’s greatest features. Using search.twitter.com you can find people who are talking about topics that are related to your field and engage with them.

Step 2:
Engage these followers in some way. Whether that just be general comments, contests, or by posting news updates about your product you need to engage these people and let them know that they are important to you from the start. My favorite thing to do is a contest. They work EVERY time because there is always going to be a small niche of people who are just looking for free stuff.

Step 3:
Determine your Twitter sales approach. Twitter is a great tool for a lot of things. It can be used for customer service, blogging, or sales. If you are looking to make your Twitter account drive more sales for you you have to be sales oriented. Use it to post your sales and deals but also use it to help your customers out with any problems they might be having with your site.

Step 4:
Give people incentive to follow you on Twitter. This should be done whenever you are trying to get more of your customer or user base to engage with you on social media. Give them a discount code just for following you. It’ll make them feel like they are a part of something exclusive and special.

Step 5:
Announce that you are on Twitter. Put a twitter icon on your front page and link it to your twitter page. Blog about your Twitter account. Let people know that they can find you on Twitter and let them know that just for following you you’ll give them an exclusive discount code.

The best way to sell things online is to test new and creative ideas. I challenge all of you to try and push the boundaries of normal practices and put your own spin on them. These are more of guidelines to help you get started selling on Twitter than anything else. Take my ideas and give them your own creative boost. That is when you’ll be able to really take off with Twitter and your other social media campaigns.

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Look if you haven’t noticed lately, everyone seems to think they are a Twitter expert. The fact of the matter is there isn’t a single person out there who is a Twitter expert. NOT ONE!

They are all selling you or feeding you information that you could find out very easily on your own. So put away your credit card, and start focusing on what really matters, and the truth is what matters.

The truth of the matter is that Twitter isn’t even an expert on Twitter. If they were an expert on Twitter, don’t you think they would’ve found a way to monetize it at this point? Every single automated direct message I’ve ever seen come from a “twitter expert” is something that I learned through my own 20 minute Google research. Trust yourself. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t even trust what I say. Seek out the knowledge for yourself. I love to teach everyone whatever I can because it’s what I’m passionate about, but even some of the big dogs that I read screw up from time to time.

I hope all of you are reading daily, not just blogs, or forums, grab this thing called a book, read it, take notes, and formulate your own ideas reflecting upon what you’ve just read. It’s weird how they say everything you need to learn you learn in Kindergarten, well here is another such example.

I’ll be here in the meantime trying to get you the best knowledge to the best of my abilities, as quickly as is humanly possible. I have a great following and I can’t thank all of you enough. You make my day that much more special. Thanks for reading. Now take a tip from your high school principle and hit the books.

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Facebook has become an incredible online community that is a gold mine for anyone interested in advertising or creating brand awarness. Not only does Facebook have over 400 Million active users, but it has many great ways for business owners to reach these users in a legit way. Below we will talk about the core advertising methods you can dabble in on Facebook and how you can make the most of them.

5 Ways to Promote Your Business on Facebook

1. Facebook Profiles

Creating a profile is the most basic thing you can do on Facebook and it is required if you want to do anything else such as create a group or page. Make sure you fully fill out your profile because a full profile looks a lot more interesting then an empty one. You can also add your website URL in several locations and be sure to talk about your business and plug your website URL in the appropriate spots as mentioned.

Then you should start adding friends to your profile each day. The Current limit is 5,000 friends but this may be lifted in the future. If you add 20 friends a day which would take you maybe 5 minutes in one month you will have 600 friends! From my testing you will have to type in a CAPTCHA or anti spam code for the first 10-15 friend adds, but after that it seemed to go away and it was a lot quicker to add friends. I wouldn’t not recommend adding to many friends each day because it will come off as spammy.

Now that you have your profile created and optimized you can create a Facebook group or even better a Facebook page, both of which we will go over below.

2. Facebook Groups

Groups were available before pages and are more of a place for users to discuss topics such as graphic design or cars. Its almost like a mini forums. The benefits for group owners is they are very viral and you can bulk invite all you friends to join your group. The problem is they are not indexed and not available to view unless you are a member of Facebook.

I recommend creating a Facebook group for your business, but honestly Facebook pages are really where its at and you should focus your efforts on your page instead of your group.

3. Facebook Pages

Facebook pages are all about business and have many of the same features available as groups, but with some extra key features available. The main benefit of pages is the fact that they are indexed by Google and available to view even if you are not a member so promoting the page is easy.

When creating your page make sure you use your most important keyword as the page name so that it shows as the page title, making your page more SEO friendly. Like you did with your profile, fill out your Facebook page with all relevant information about your business, website URLS and so on.

The best way to promote your page is to offer some sort of giveaway if you are not a major brand. This way you give a people a reason to become a fan of page. Once they are a fan you can send updates which is the best part of having a Facebook page for your business.

Groups may work well virally, but so do Facebook pages. Whenever some one becomes a fan of your page it shows up in their profile and looks something like this: Person’s Name, Became a fan of Your Business Name.

So if you give your page a good jump start it could really take off. The number of fans you can have has no limit and some pages have anywhere from several thousand fans to over 500 thousand fans!

So if you wanted to focus on one thing I would highly recommend creating a Facebook page, instead of a group and putting all your advertising efforts towards the Facebook page.

Some Example of Popular Facebook Pages

• Pizza
• Domino’s Pizza
• Pizza Hut
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4. Facebook Applications

The introduction of Facebook Applications is probably the most popular move made by Facebook to date. They released their API so developers and business owners could collaborate to create fun and cool applications that engage users. The applications created so far vary in purpose; some are fun games, some are useful and some are directly related and tied into businesses.

Many popular applications have hundreds of thousands of monthly active users and that information speaks for itself, so if you want to read more about creating applications for Facebook, I highly recommend checking out the Facebook Developers page. Once you have an application created, be sure to add it to your profile and to your Facebook group and page!

5. Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are a great way to really increase your exposure using highly targeted CPC and CPM Advertising. You can target users by age, gender, location, interests, and even attach friend-to-friend interactions about your business to your ads.

The best part is you can either advertise an external website or a Facebook page. So if you created a page earlier for your business and you are looking to build up your facebook fan page you can do so easily by driving the traffic form your advertisements directly to your page.

So join Facebook today and start working on your Facebook promotions, because if your competition is not on Facebook already, they will be soon!

What if you don’t have a Facebook Page?

If you don’t have a Facebook page, we can create one for you for as little as $100. Simply contact us for more information.

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Yes free website promotion is feasible and does work well but it takes time and patience to get traffic to your new website.

Here are some tips to promote your website for free.

1. Get Your Website Listed.

Find the best internet directories and have them list your website. Some will list your site quickly but most will either be slow or even decline your listing request. Make sure your website is well formatted, looks good and not like a work in progress so that you have a higher chance of being listed.

2. Participate Actively in Forums.

Select appropriate forums for your niche and post regularly because forums are a great source of free website promotion if done well. Do not spam forums and only use your signature for promotion.

3. Consider Writing a Press Release.

Write a press release to advertise your new site or latest information about your site. Submit it to press release sites which you can easily find by doing a simple search for “press release”.

4. Check Out Your Competition.

Check out your competition and be friendly to them so that in time they will link to you site because the more link juice webmasters can get the better they rank.

5. Write Great Articles.

Write articles with tips and information about your niche and submit them to article directories. Other webmasters are always looking for content for their sites and there is a good chance that well written articles will get published by them. Advertise your website in the article resource box so people can click through to your site for more information.

6. Email Signatures.

Insert your website, its URL and features in your daily emails and let them spread the word about your site. Do not forget to add your website and its URL to the bottom of your auto-responder emails so your subscribers can click through for more information about your niche.

7. Banner Ads.

Banner ads are not as effectively as they once were but if your can create a great banner for your site why not ask other webmasters to swap banners with you. If nothing else they will create links back to your site and give you a better SEO ranking.

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We’ve all been there had a situation where we needed some new contacts and fast.  Have you considered purchasing an email list? Well DON’T!

Often times companies selling contact lists will promise a whole lot of new customers to look forward to but the truth is it’s not that easy.  Just because you get a juicy list of new contacts does not mean these are the right customers for you.

Where Do They Find These People?

Much of the contacts that can be found in sold lists are scrounged up from the internet.  Which leaves in question the quality of these contacts.  Many of the contacts will have outdated information and even fewer may be interested in what your selling.  Not to mention, these contacts are not expecting to hear from you.

When you put it that way it seems simpler to simply ask for people’s contact information.

In Case You Were Still Curious…

Sending emails to a bad email list can be a major nuisance  You could end up with reports of spamming and a high rate of bounce backs which can lead to suspicion resulting in getting blacklisted or worse with suspended service.  Although you may still be thinking that purchasing a bulk email list may still be easier than traditional marketing efforts it’s simply not worth the risk.  Companies today rely on their ability to email their clientele with special offers and information at their discretion.  What happens when you are unable to utilize that service any longer?  It can lead to a great deal of start up energy to transition your campaigns to a new service.

A Better Way To Get Emails

Great content can quickly help you build your list.  Focus on generating great content on your blog, site and social media because all of these outlets can help you promote your message.  Individuals may subscribe to your RSS feed, follow you on Facebook & Twitter or even sign up for your newsletter.  Either way you have to get them closer to this choice but the more energy you spend on building a strong contact list the less energy you’ll spend bringing in new customers.

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A good web page should appeal to your visitors as well as the search engines. I mentioned visitors first because they are the most important component for establishing relationships, generating sales and/or obtaining subscribers.

Optimizing your web page for the search engines attracts lots of free traffic. Most people will arrive at your site through searching for a specific keyword or keyword phrase.

What are the essential characteristics of a great web page?

Design

Create a beautiful design

First impressions make a big difference. If your site looks old or unprofessional a visitor will quickly leave and check out your competitors who may have a more professional design. For example, I am more attracted to a new shopping center with sharp looking stores than one with old stores with faded signs.

Make sure your web design includes lots of white space between elements, a clear, easy to use navigation and colors that harmonize well together. Use a consistent design across all pages so visitors don’t become confused where they are on your website.

Optimize your web page

If you want to generate free traffic from the search engines you need to optimize all your web pages. This means including your most important keywords in the meta title tag, and writing an attractive one sentence summary of your content for the meta description tag. The keywords placed in your meta tags should also be included in your web copy.

Other locations to include your keywords are in the header tags (h1, h2, h3), image descriptions, file names and navigation. Don’t try to trick the search engines by stuffing as many keywords as possible into your web pages. This may get your site penalized and result in lowered rankings.

Create a fast loading web page

Your website should load within a few seconds otherwise your visitor will leave immediately and probably never return.

To achieve fast loading pages:

• Reduce the size and quantity of the total images on one page. Only use images if it enhances the content. The same applies to the use of flash.
• Don’t use too many tables. Instead use cascading style sheets (CSS) to control the design of your web pages. Place the CSS in an external file instead of embedding all the code on the page. Do the same for javascript.
• Create clean html. HTML errors often cause web pages to display incorrectly across major browsers. This drives visitors away. Check for html errors by running your web page through an html validator.

Content

Offer valuable content

Some websites contain content that is timeless e.g. home page, about us or how-to articles however if you want to continually attract new visitors new content should be added on a regular basis. This keeps visitors coming back to receive more information. The information should not just be regurgitated from other sites but offer something unique using a friendly, conversational tone.

Share your content with others

Make it easy to share your content with others by offering an RSS feed, Newsletter subscription and/or free reports. Add social media icons to the end of your content and include videos within your content to attract visitors who prefer to watch and listen rather than read your content. Interacting with your visitors helps build long term relationships.

Web Hosting

Make sure you use a fast server to host your website so web pages load quickly. Beware of hosting companies that offer unlimited space and bandwidth. They are trying to maximize the number of sites they can put on one server. If your site suddenly requires more space or bandwidth it may overload the server which may result in your site becoming unavailable to your visitors. Choose a reliable web hosting company.

Website marketing

Your website will not be found if you don’t market it. Even if you do all the things mentioned above it will not appear in the search engines. Website promotion must be carried out regularly and consistently to generate a continuous stream of traffic. Once you’ve built a consistent amount of traffic continue to offer unique, valuable content so visitors keep coming back for more.

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• The longer a domain has been around, the higher reputation it must have
• The long a domain is registered into the future, the more likely that the developers of the site intend to “be in business” for the long haul.

We recently launched a new SEO tool for websites which enables you absolutely free access to information about your website, and gives advice about how to improve search engine rankings and more. As we were testing it (it’s still in testing stage) one of our beta testers ran across a site which was 16 years old. This of course led to the question “What is the oldest site on the web?”. A quick bit of research, and we found a list of the 100 oldest websites on the internet.

Here they are, with convenient links to even more information about each site. Feel free to check out the links below, and try out our new tool (still in beta) to find information about your own site!

1. 15 Mar 1985 http://SYMBOLICS.COM
2. 24 Apr 1985 http://BBN.COM
3. 24 May 1985 http://THINK.COM
4. 11 Jul 1985 http://MCC.COM
5. 30 Sep 1985 http://DEC.COM
6. 07 Nov 1985 http://NORTHROP.COM
7. 09 Jan 1986 http://XEROX.COM
8. 17 Jan 1986 http://SRI.COM
9. 03 Mar 1986 http://HP.COM
10. 05 Mar 1986 http://BELLCORE.COM
11. 19 Mar 1986 http://IBM.COM
11. 19 Mar 1986 http://SUN.COM
13. 25 Mar 1986 http://INTEL.COM
13. 25 Mar 1986 http://TI.COM
15. 25 Apr 1986 http://ATT.COM
16. 08 May 1986 http://GMR.COM
16. 08 May 1986 http://TEK.COM
18. 10 Jul 1986 http://FMC.COM
18. 10 Jul 1986 http://UB.COM
20. 05 Aug 1986 http://BELL ATL.COM
20. 05 Aug 1986 http://GE.COM
20. 05 Aug 1986 http://GREBYN.COM
20. 05 Aug 1986 http://ISC.COM
20. 05 Aug 1986 http://NSC.COM
20. 05 Aug 1986 http://STARGATE.COM
26. 02 Sep 1986 http://BOEING.COM
27. 18 Sep 1986 http://ITCORP.COM
28. 29 Sep 1986 http://SIEMENS.COM
29. 18 Oct 1986 http://PYRAMID.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://ALPHACDC.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://BDM.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://FLUKE.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://INMET.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://KESMAI.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://MENTOR.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://NEC.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://RAY.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://ROSEMOUNT.COM
30. 27 Oct 1986 http://VORTEX.COM
40. 05 Nov 1986 http://ALCOA.COM
40. 05 Nov 1986 http://GTE.COM
42. 17 Nov 1986 http://ADOBE.COM
42. 17 Nov 1986 http://AMD.COM
42. 17 Nov 1986 http://DAS.COM
42. 17 Nov 1986 http://DATA IO.COM
42. 17 Nov 1986 http://OCTOPUS.COM
42. 17 Nov 1986 http://PORTAL.COM
42. 17 Nov 1986 http://TELTONE.COM
42. 11 Dec 1986 http://3COM.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://AMDAHL.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://CCUR.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://CI.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://CONVERGENT.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://DG.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://PEREGRINE.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://QUAD.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://SQ.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://TANDY.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://TTI.COM
50. 11 Dec 1986 http://UNISYS.COM
61. 19 Jan 1987 http://CGI.COM
61. 19 Jan 1987 http://CTS.COM
61. 19 Jan 1987 http://SPDCC.COM
64. 19 Feb 1987 http://APPLE.COM
65. 04 Mar 1987 http://NMA.COM
65. 04 Mar 1987 http://PRIME.COM
67. 04 Apr 1987 http://PHILIPS.COM
68. 23 Apr 1987 http://DATACUBE.COM
68. 23 Apr 1987 http://KAI.COM
68. 23 Apr 1987 http://TIC.COM
68. 23 Apr 1987 http://VINE.COM
72. 30 Apr 1987 http://NCR.COM
73. 14 May 1987 http://CISCO.COM
73. 14 May 1987 http://RDL.COM
75. 20 May 1987 http://SLB.COM
76. 27 May 1987 http://PARCPLACE.COM
76. 27 May 1987 http://UTC.COM
78. 26 Jun 1987 http://IDE.COM
79. 09 Jul 1987 http://TRW.COM
80. 13 Jul 1987 http://UNIPRESS.COM
81. 27 Jul 1987 http://DUPONT.COM
81. 27 Jul 1987 http://LOCKHEED.COM
83. 28 Jul 1987 http://ROSETTA.COM
84. 18 Aug 1987 http://TOAD.COM
85. 31 Aug 1987 http://QUICK.COM
86. 03 Sep 1987 http://ALLIED.COM
86. 03 Sep 1987 http://DSC.COM
86. 03 Sep 1987 http://SCO.COM
89. 22 Sep 1987 http://GENE.COM
89. 22 Sep 1987 http://KCCS.COM
89. 22 Sep 1987 http://SPECTRA.COM
89. 22 Sep 1987 http://WLK.COM
93. 30 Sep 1987 http://MENTAT.COM
94. 14 Oct 1987 http://WYSE.COM
95. 02 Nov 1987 http://CFG.COM
96. 09 Nov 1987 http://MARBLE.COM
97. 16 Nov 1987 http://CAYMAN.COM
97. 16 Nov 1987 http://ENTITY.COM
99. 24 Nov 1987 http://KSR.COM
100. 30 Nov 1987 http://NYNEXST.COM

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According to its co-founder, Biz Stone, the micro-blogging site has reached over 800 million search queries. That’s over 24 billion searches per month, more than Bing (4.1 billion) and Yahoo (9.4 billion) combined.

From Fast Company:

“While Stone’s company is still a long way off from Google, which supports around 88 billion search queries per month, Twitter is quickly catching up. Since last April, Twitter searches are up 33%. To put that in perspective, a study by Nielsen last year concluded that Bing was the fastest-growing search engine in the U.S. after it ballooned over 22%. Now it seems Twitter has taken the title.”

Promoted Tweets

This piece of news also helps to explain Twitter’s monetization plan. Promoted Tweets only appear in the search results page as Twitter relentlessly pursuits the fine balance between ad relevancy and profitability. It’s resonance score metrics, too, has also contributed to its early success. Given its massive amount of search queries, we’re pretty sure advertisers are getting quality impressions in quantity.

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Adsense is considered as one of the most powerful tool in a website publishers arsenal. It enables a person to monetize their sites easily. If used properly, it can generate a very large and healthy income for them. However if you are not using them rightly and just maximizing the income you squeeze from it, you are actually leaving a lot of money on the table. Something all people hate doing.

How you can start earning money with Adsense can be done easily and quickly. You will be amazed at the results you will be getting in such a short period of time.

Start by writing some quality content articles which are also keyword incorporated. There are a lot of people given the gift of being good with words. Writing comes easy for them. Why not make it work in such a way that you will be earning some extra cash in the process.

There are actually three steps to put into mind before you begin writing your ads and having an effective Adsense.

Keyword search. Find some popular subjects, keywords or phrase. Select the ones which you think has more people clicking through. This is actually a keyword selector and suggestion tool that some sites are offering to those who are just their Adsense business.

Writing articles. Start writing original content with keywords from the topics that you have achieved in your search. Take note that search engines are taking pride in the quality of their articles and what you will be writing should keep up with their demands.

Quality content site. Build a quality content site incorporated with Adsense ads that is targeting the subject and keywords of your articles and websites. This is where all that you’ve done initially will go to and this is also where they will prove their worth to you.

The proper positioning of your ads should be done with care. Try to position your ads where surfers are most likely to click on them. According to research, the one place that surfers look first when they visit a certain site is the top left. The reason behind this is not known. Maybe it is because some of the most useful search engine results are at the top of all other rankings. So visitors tend to look in that same place when browsing through other sites.

Some of those who are just starting at this business may think they are doing pretty well already and thinking that their clickthrough rates and CPM figures are quite healthy. However, there are more techniques and styles to generate more clicks to double your earnings. By knowing these techniques and working them to your advantage, you will realize that you will be getting three times more than other people who have been previously doing what they are doing.

Finally, Adsense has some excellent tracking statistics that allows webmasters and publishers to track their results across a number of site on a site by site, page by page, or any other basis you wanted. You should be aware oft his capability and make the most of it because it is one powerful tool that will help you find out which ads are performing best. This way, you can fine tune your Adsense ads and focus more on the ones being visited the most rather than those who are being ignored.

Another thing you should know. Banners and skyscrapers are dead. Ask the experts. So better forget about banners and skyscrapers. Surfers universally ignore these kinds of ad formats. The reason behind this is that they are recognized as an advert and advert are rarely of any interest. That’s why people ignore them.

To really start making money with Adsense, you should have a definite focus on what you wanted to achieve and how you will go about achieving them. As with any other kind of business ventures, time is needed coupled with patience.

Do not just ignore your site and your Adsense once you have finished accomplishing them. Spare some time, even an hour, making adjustments to the Adsense ads on your sites to quickly trigger your Adsense income.

Give it a try and you would not regret having gotten into Adsense in the first place.

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All you need to do is enter our contest below.  It takes just minutes, and you can earn multiple entries. The more entries you have, the more you are likely to win!

If you have any questions on this giveaway, simply contact us, and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Good Luck!

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You need javascript enabled to see this giveaway.

All members of the internet community are eligible to win, with the exception of any individual who could be considered to be a someone competing against one of our current clients.

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Whether you are planning a corporate event, fundraiser or conference, utilizing social media can elevate your next event. Here are some tips to show you how:

1. Determine Promotional Channels
Decide how you are going to get your message out to promote your event. What social media channel are you going to utilize? The answer is as many as you have access to. First create some content about your event that you can utilize to create an event on Facebook and other socially shared calendars. It can also be helpful to come up with a hashtag strategy so you can effectively utilize Twitter for your event promotion. This should be marketed in all print and published materials to help promote interactivity.

Once you have determined your channels, establish a plan for content. You may not always have all the content you need at your disposal so it’s important to have a plan so you can plan to generate some fresh content as needed. Photos, videos and blog posts can be great outlets to drive word of mouth.

2. Incent Your Audience
A great way to engage your audience and create some promotional momentum is to create incentive based promotions. This could be a discount for early registration, a special gift bag for first time registrants, or even a chance to win a prize. This can also dual as a great sponsorship opportunity for event partners.

3. Geo-Location & Rewards
Sites like Foursquare and Social Pass have given companies a great opportunity to create a relationship with customers.  Utilize these services throughout an event to keep people talking and sharing, since both these sights link to other Social Media sites.  Get more for your efforts this way.  Great offers for checking in could consist of free swag, discounts on other events, recognition or raffle opportunities.

4. Twitter – Your On-Site BFF
Twitter when used effectively onsite can make for great discussion and even better engagement from your event’s attendees.  Make sure to keep content fresh and relevant, not redundant. This is where your hashtag from all pre-event promotion will really make an impact.

5. Life After the Party
With all the pre-planning and promotion that went into your event before and during your event why would you hesitate to promote post event as well.  Find a way to keep the conversation going, utilize surveys, event photos and testimonials to do this.  These can be great conversation pieces for your companies blog, helping you bring your recent event back to life.

Utilize these five tips to help make your next big event a success, something your audience will be talking about long after the doors have closed.

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Twiends.com provides introductions to people looking to develop their social network on Twitter. We use seeds to create the incentive for people to check each other out. When you follow someone they give you seeds, and vica versa when they follow you. You can decide how many seeds you want to offer per introduction, and when you run out you remain on the list so people can still check you out if they like. We focusing on making the introduction, and you focus on deciding who you want to be friends with in the long run. We are not a “get followers fast” site or a follower train. You get to choose who you friend and they get to do the same. Our focus is community building.

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There was a time where it was a lot easier to get .10 or .15 cent clicks on Facebook advertising, before the hype caught up and businesses started to see the real benefit that Facebook brings with its targeting ability for advertisers.

These days, you really have to know what you’re doing to overcome the high suggested bid that Facebook hands out now. Remember that it’s in Facebook’s best interest to make the most of the income from it’s ads, so they attempt to show the best ads they can with the “limited” inventory of ad space on their site.

How To Pay Too Much For Facebook Advertising

Let’s start with what not to do.

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Just like any other business, your business would also be having a name that clearly implies who you are and what you sell. In the same manner while building a website make sure to pick up a website name that is easy to remember and have a simple domain name. For a customer it is easy to remember a simple website name.

You might be emailing your existing costumers, prospective clients and others. Your website name should appear at the bottom of your email signatures for everyone you mail. This is how you can spread your name and your business even though you are not selling directly.

Your website should be ornamented with interesting and relevant articles. They should be written for people to read and should be related to the products or services you are selling. If your visitors get something worth reading then there are increased chances that your website shows up early in the web search. This is good for your business or product promotion.

By starting a blog about related things to your business you can attract attention of visitors to your regular business website. Include a link to your website at the bottom or within your web blog entries.

If you have launched a new product or service then make a press release that informs your target market about it. These press releases can be submitted to press release websites as well as local newspapers and news stations.

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What Social Media Is Not!

• A magic bullet: It is not a magical silver bullet the will solve all your marketing problems overnight.
• An instant reward: It is not an instant gratification tool that can make your products and services go viral in a second.
• The quick fix: It will not fix the woes of a poorly planned business plan.
• Immediate connections: It will not get you 5,000 fans in a minute just because you have a a great product or service.
• Passive income: It will certainly not earn you a million dollars while you sleep.

What Social Media Is!

• It is a networking platform… as in a conference, a Meet-up or a luncheon with a new client.
• It is a sharing platform… as in an opportunity to exchange valuable information as in website pages, blogs and articles of interest that could help your business or you could help others.
• It is a connection platform… as in connecting with your clients to keep them up to date with new information about your services and products.
• It is a form of advertising… where you can share promotions and specials
• It is a powerful branding tool… where you can brand yourself and tie it in with your products and services.
• It is an event planner… where you can hold an event and invite your connections to attend to further promote your products and services.

The Conclusion: Why We Need It!

Social Media is today’s phone call or direct mailer, but vastly more effective. It targets your customers and it never sleeps. In fact it is a way to penetrate the clutter and get your voice heard. Whether it is through Faceboook, Twitter, Linkedin or blogging, you have an opportunity to meet potential customers, offer advice and begin to build relationships. Social Media is informational and obviously social. The adage, “Give to Get” is the lifeblood of this exploding media. The more connections you make and the more helpful you are, the greater your chances for web success.

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Getting a good organic rank for websites is the top priority today. Due to this Search Engine Optimization is increasingly been practiced by many business owners.

You can easily find a whole lot of information regarding various optimizing techniques, website architecture, crawling and indexing on the World Wide Web but when it actually boils down to the implementation process, you will be really amazed with all the nuances involved in it.

The primary question which generally bothers website owners is that how easy it is for search engines to crawl websites? Since Internet is vast and new contents are being regularly updated, it becomes virtually impossible for search engine robots to crawl the entire content present online. This means that only a percentage of this content is crawled by search engine spiders. Moreover amongst the crawled content, only a portion is indexed due to availability of limited resources.

Elaborating on this topic further, Susan Moskwa of Google, recently uploaded a presentation giving smart tips on how to optimize your crawling & indexing. She states that since URLs act as bridges between a website and a search engine crawler you should not make them complicated or redundant. In order to allow crawlers to be able to find and crawl your URLs, organize them in such a way that crawlers are directly led to distinct contents of your website. On doing this you will prevent crawlers from wasting time on going through empty web-pages and/or crawling same web content again and again via different URLs. Optimization of URLs allows crawlers to spend their time accessing the actual content of your website.

There are some important real life examples that have been categorized under a “not to do” list. These include homegrown URL hacks and encoding, parameters camouflaged as part of the URL path and infinite crawl spaces. In addition to these, you will also find some other useful recommendations like removal of user-specific details from URLs, disallowing actions which Google-bot cannot normally perform and sticking to one URL for a particular set of content.

So if you too want to make search engine crawlers trace your website faster, do make sure to follow all the above Google SEO tips next time you optimize your website.

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1. Backlinks, Backlinks and more Backlinks: Not just any backlinks, though. Quality backlinks are the key and preferential to quantity. Your site makes a bigger showing in the search engines when it is linked to a high rated or ranked site which is popular and not blacklisted. Avoid link farms and blind linking, or your website may be penalized as a result. Any links to pages or sites known for spam or on a blacklist will almost instantly see your own site on the blacklist with theirs.

2. Outbound Links: These types are just the opposite of backlinks. These are links from your website to other reputable websites. The sites you link to should rank well, not be on a blacklist, and not link to spam sites or be a party to spamming or other bad SEO practices.

3. Deep Backlinks: Using backlinks to link directly to target pages within your website instead of to the home page. These links are considered better quality because the person linking is not doing it blindly, without having seen the content. This is achieved the same way as backlinking.

4. Unique Unduplicated Fresh Content: Fresh content makes for better indexing of your website. The more your site updates, the more it is crawled. However, avoid duplicate, plagiarized or PLR content or you will be headed to the dreaded duplicate content search results.

5. Natural, NOT Spammy, Keyword Placement: Search engine crawlers are looking for relevant keywords in relation to the content within the website. The better placed your chosen keywords, the more the crawlers will look at them and your website.

6. Keyword Density: Anything more than 2 to 5 percent keyword density is overdoing it; your site will appear as spam to the crawlers and your site penalized for it with lower rankings.

7. Title & Photo Keywords Count! Photos and titles should contain some of the same keywords as the content. If the keyword used in the article or blog post is Love, then the title and photo should also contain the same word. The same rule for keywords within content applies; no overdone or spammy keywords or the crawlers may penalize you for it.

8. URL Keyword Formatting: The URL of the page should be formatted properly using keywords as well. For example, if you have a post titled “How Do I Rank Well?” The URL matching the post title, assuming you used proper keyword placement in your title, would appear as: “(your side address).com-/how-do-i-rank-well”

9. Good Navigation & Site map: This is probably one of the most overlooked SEO techniques in history. For a website with not too many backlinks or outbound links, this strategy will ensure that when the crawlers hit your site, they will index every page.

10. Social Networking Profiles and Pages: this is an excellent way to boost search engine rankings. Facebook fan pages, Twitter followers, MySpace groups and other website groups and pages devoted to your company’s website will get your website’s name out there and noticed. All strategies used for your website should be utilized for your social networking profiles as well for best results.

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In this article, it asks a few questions, such as:

• What are these essential steps toward achieving ‘Net startup success?
• How do you recognize and avoid the common pitfalls of launch, and which online resources should you explore along the way?
• Simple  count down to launch with these 10 steps for Web startups.

The article acts as guidance for true startups but even established businesses can benefit from the formal process of essential steps herein. Plus, you never know when an idea will strike and, suddenly, you’re in startup mode all over again.

In order to make this launch guide for startups as practical and realistic as possible they’ve developed a hypothetical product – moon rocks.

While they could have chosen virtually any product or service, this one-of-a-kind, out-of-this-world product (and service which you will learn more about) is generic enough to effectively act as an example.

We can’t post the article here due to copyright concerns, but we can provide a download of our scan, which we hereby attribute to Website Magazine.  Again, if you haven’t subscribed to this free magazine, do it today.  You’ll thank yourself once the first issue arrives.

We hope this article provides some inspiration to help your business!

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Social media marketing can easily consume a large portion of your day if you are not organized or have a clear focus. The article below provides 5 easy steps you can do daily to monitor your social media sites.

How to Monitor Your Social Media Presence in 10 Minutes a Day

Monitoring your business’ social media presence is incredibly important. You need to respond to people talking about your brand and understand how people view your company. However, a common concern is that it takes up too much time.

The team at MoonViper spreads out the responsibilities, but it’s entirely possible for one person to keep an eye on things. If you set up a solid routine, monitoring your online presence doesn’t have to be a hassle at all.

Here are five free, easy steps you can take to get things started. Do each task in the morning when you start work, and you should be good to go.

1) Check Twitter for chatter about your company (2 minutes): Use tools like TweetDeck or Twitter Search to monitor conversations about your company in real-time. To check once a day, set up an RSS feed for a specific Twitter Search to go straight to your Google Reader. Do this by clicking the little RSS icon after you complete a search. Now, ongoing search results will be sent to your reader.

2) Scan Google Alerts (1.5 minutes): Check your Google Alerts for your company name, products, executives or brand terms. To set this up, enter your search terms and select to receive updates as they happen or once daily. Now, when people blog about your products, an alert will be sent to your inbox. You can read the articles and respond right away!

3) Check Facebook stats (1 minute): Visit your Company Page’s Facebook Insights. This can be found by clicking “more” under the page’s main photo. Scan your fans and page views count. If you are a member of a group, check to see if any new discussions started.

4) Answer Industry-related LinkedIn questions (3 minutes): Search for questions on LinkedIn that you or members of your company can answer. You can set up an RSS feed for specific question categories to go to your Google Reader as well. When you find a relevant question, respond and include a link to your website.

5) Use Google Reader to check Flickr, Delicious, Digg and others (2.5 minutes): Also set up RSS feeds for searches on your company name and industry terms in other social media sites. Similar to monitoring LinkedIn and Twitter, your Reader will serve as a great place to centralize your other searches too!

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Here are 3 fast ways to get a new web site into Google:

1. Get a link from a web site that is already in Google

The quality and quantity of links pointing to your web site determines its ranking in Google. Your ranking will increase in proportion to the links you get.

One of the best ways is to write an article and submit it to article directories since these are well established and get indexed by Google every day.

Visit forums or blogs related to your web site content and leave a well written and informative post. If you provide information that is valuable to others they will naturally wish to link to you.

2. Add a blog to your web site

Blogs tend to be quickly indexed by Google. Create a blog for your business then include links back to your web site in your posts. Google will find your web site by indexing your blog entry.

3. Submit a Press Release

Create a press release about your web site and submit it to:

PRWeb
http://www.prwebdirect.com/

Free Press Release
http://www.free-press-release.com/

Make sure your press release is interesting, informative to read and includes a link back to your web site. If many people read it you may get hundreds or thousands of new links which will result in an immediate boost in traffic.

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We are in a crazy sort of world right now. There are protests happening in hundreds of cities all over the world, consumers are rallying to defeat new banking fees, and millions of Americans are unemployed.  It’s a tough time for small businesses in America, but it shouldn’t have to be.

We don’t normally talk about politics on this site, instead focusing on how businesses can grow their customer base, but we found it appropriate this time to talk about how small businesses can actually thrive in this environment.

In this article, we attempt to show how millions of people making millions of small decisions can have a radical impact on life in America.

First, let’s begin with a little background.  My friend Anthony is a part of the occupy protest in San Francisco.  He’s been there for weeks.  He tells me so far his greatest accomplishment has been shutting down (albeit temporarily) the Port of Oakland.  For the benefit of those who don’t know what that is, it’s one of the West Coast’s major shipping ports, where many Chinese goods first enter the United States.  By shutting down the Port of Oakland, the occupiers felt that they would stop Corporate America from bringing in their goods for sale, thus hurting corporate profits.  Considering that these goods often take many weeks to arrive, a day or two delay won’t hurt corporations much.

What many of these protesters don’t realize, is that all the issues in America (well not all, but certainly many) could be solved virtually overnight. It would take a concerted effort among Americans, but we could stop the corporations, stop the overinflated CEO pay, and stop the unemployment problems within a matter of weeks.  The solution is simple and two fold:

1. Buy American Made Products
2. Stop Purchasing Products From Corporations

Many will ask how this all relates to the title of this article, we’ll get there soon…

Let’s start with a simple product that everyone uses: printer paper.

You can buy printer paper almost anywhere, your big box stores like Office Depot or Walmart, your local grocery store, and some place many people don’t think about, your locally owned corner drug store.  By simply choosing to purchase a package of printer paper at the local corner drug store, rather than someplace like Walmart, you’re contributing to the local economy, and most likely helping America build more jobs.

You see, what most Americans don’t realize is that small, local owned stores often have a higher number of employees overall than big box stores have.  Considering that a typical corner drug store will have someone to unload the shipping trucks, someone to stock the shelves, someone to ring up purchases, a manager, a maintenance person, and someone to clean the store at night. Simply making the small decision to purchase that package of paper at the corner drug store helped contribute to at least 6 jobs in this scenario, the decision to purchase that same paper at Walmart will most likely contribute to 4 or 5 jobs.

At the same time, the profit from that sale ends up in the pockets of a local business owner, not a greedy bunch of shareholders.

It seems like such a small difference, 6 jobs versus 5. And in reality, one person making a single purchase at that store won’t make a difference. Imagine, however if that one person convinced 3 other people to do the same, and each of them convinced 3, etc.  Soon, millions of people would be making small decisions and that 6/5 ratio of jobs turns into 600/500, or even 6,000,000/5,000.000.

If, at the same time, those consumers demanded that the printer paper they purchased was made in America, rather than in China, thousands more jobs would be brought to America, which in turn fuels the economy more and more.

Back to the title of the article, how small business can capitalize on #occupywallstreet. Remember that most American’s won’t make the leap on their own.  It’s up to the savvy business owner to remind people that making the decision to shop at a locally owned store versus a big box store really makes a difference.

There are many ways to do this, and every business will find their own voice and method, but the message is what’s most important.

Constantly reminding your customers that they are making the right decision by purchasing from you will reinforce their decision to shop from you and grow your bottom line.  Here’s just a few of the ways you could implement a “buy local” campaign:

Offer promotions to your customers that reward them for bringing in their friends.

When people complete the purchasing process (check out at a store, or pay an invoice) thank them for contributing to the local economy, and remind them of how many jobs they have contributed to.

Offer customer loyalty programs. (Buy 5, get one free)

Let people trade in purchases from big box stores to get a discount on your own products and services.

Offer fantastic customer service.

Include a coupon that is only good for a customers friends with every receipt.  This will encourage your customer to give the coupon to their friends and family.

Donate a portion of your sales to local charities. Let your customers decide which charity gets the donations. A company called Buffalo Exchange does this whenever people bring in their own bags.  They keep a supply of wooden nickels in a jar, and customers get to place those wooden nickels in the jar of their favorite charity. At the end of each month the company donates to each charity based on the number of wooden nickels in each jar.

Work with local schools and youth organizations to hold fundraisers. One of the hottest business models in America right now is the “Groupon” model.  Companies offer (for example) a $20 gift card for $10. Groupon keeps half, the company keeps half.  Consider using a similar model to sell gift cards for your store, but sell them through these organizations.

Especially for service industries and local brick and mortar stores: Collect the email addresses of every customer, and use that to remind their friends to use your business.

There are many other ways that small businesses can capitalize on the current political environment in America. We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments space below.

MoonViper Web Services

Usually referred to as the KING of ezine advertising, the solo ad permits the advertiser to succeed in her audience of keen to buy opt-in subscribers. These subscribers are already familiar with the publisher of the ezine and trust his or her suggestions.

A well made ad sent through this kind of marketing has the likelihood to create fortunes. Several online professionals have used this methodology to create huge web businesses.

While no one will assure your ad will build you a fortune, using this technique can provide you the simplest probability of getting your marketing message out to heat, willing to shop for interested subscribers.

Once you get rid of competition from other advertisers by using solo ads, it’s up to you to develop your advertising to get that supreme click and shut the sale.

How Solo Ezine Ads Work
One in all the greats of using stand alone promotions is the amount of words you are able to use. Typically publishers permit promotions to incorporate up to 500 words. This allows you to form headlines, bulleted points, and your URL. Assume of it as a mini-mini website.

Your advertisements should have an awareness getting headline (believable headline) subheadings, bullets, and a decision to action. On top of all list, advantages, advantages, edges!

Take full benefit of the quantity of house being offered. Scan your ad, let others read your ad. State a problem, then share how your product or service will resolve it for them.

Once you have a commercial ready, you would like to seek out a resource that can send your message to their readers.

If your specific market is outside of internet marketers, we have a tendency to recommend doing a hunt for ezine directories. Some require membership fees and others are free. There are 1000s of ezines and newsletters to decide on from. Not all will permit promoting. However, you’ll be able to subscribe to some to work out if they are of worth, if thus, contact the publisher and provide your product or service for his or her review. A sensible review from a credited publisher can mean profits to you.

Track Your Ads
Tracking your ads is terribly imperative. If you insert advertisements with additional than one vendor you’ll would like to understand that are pulling and that aren’t pulling.

Are Solo Ezine Ads Dead?
With the appearance of Google AdWords, and therefore the mad rush to advertise using this successful method, Web marketers left the ezine world. This leaves an old but still effective marketing door open, particularly for niche marketers.

Spend a while nowadays looking for quality ezines in your targeted market. A very well written solo commercial during a established ezine will still create the mortgage payment.

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A study by eyeviewdigital.com shows that using video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80%. You can see more examples about it in their case studies.

“People have been glued to TV screens since the middle of the 20th century. Video on the web has had a similarly dramatic impact on the way content is consumed, resulting in YouTube becoming the web’s “second search engine””.

Why Video is a Compelling Medium for Conversion:

• With video, viewers are spending more time on your website.  This can positively affect the impression your message sends
• Utilizing employees of your company can increase trust in your organization and message
• It’s just easier to relay a message this way

3 Ways To Increase Video Affectiveness:

1. Always have a simple call to action in your video.
2. Make sure your message is prepared in advance so that your message comes across more naturally.
3. Publish, publish, publish.  Any company message you have on video should be utilized in other social media.  Post to Twitter, your own site, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn, these sites can positively influence your reach.

Here are a Few of the Top Videos Streamed Online:

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/site-design/benefits-video-landing-pages/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/528-facebook-likes-48-hours-free/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=528-facebook-likes-48-hours-free http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/528-facebook-likes-48-hours-free/#comments Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:40:49 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=16358 Her’s at MoonViper, we’re always trying out new things, and new ideas for doing things on the web.  We decided we would run a little experiment, and see how much traction we could gain on Facebook with just a little bit of work. We were working on getting an extra $100 in free Facebook ad ...

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]]> Her’s at MoonViper, we’re always trying out new things, and new ideas for doing things on the web.  We decided we would run a little experiment, and see how much traction we could gain on Facebook with just a little bit of work.

We were working on getting an extra $100 in free Facebook ad credits, and needed to get 100 new likes to qualify. (For more information on this, see our blog post “Get $150 in Free Facebook Ad Credits“).  We decided to see how many Facebook likes we could get to our fan page in a 48 hour period.  Rather than simply allocating a bunch of resources to the project, and spending a bunch of money, we wanted to replicate as closely as possible the abilities of a typical reader of this blog, a small business owner with limited budget and staff, who can only invest a couple of hours of time into their marketing.

• Here were our ground rules for the experiment:
• We couldn’t spend any money
• We could only invest a total of 2 hours
• The experiment would be over in 48 hours
• We would publish all of our experiences here

So how did we do? We got 528 likes to our Facebook page in 48 hours, and we didn’t spend a penny do to it.  In fact, Facebook “paid” us $100 to do it, as it was the second qualification to get our $150 in Facebook ad credits, so we got paid to engage with more people!

Here’s how we did it.

Over time, we’ve created a lot of Facebook profiles under a lot of pseudonyms.  We use these profiles for various purposes, but primarily games.  See, we don’t want to pollute our “real” accounts with family and friends with Farmville requests, or even posts from our business entities.  Over time, we’ve amassed quite a few friends on these profiles. Seeing as we wanted to keep the results typical for the average reader here, we didn’t ask any of those friends to like the page, although you could certainly pick up a few likes that way if you wanted from your family and friends.

We did, however, use those accounts to fulfill requests on various Facebook Fan Page exchanges.  What’s that you might ask?  A Facebook fan exchange is one where people essentially like each other to give each other a boost.  It’s not very useful at first glance, as people are simply trading likes for the sake of getting likes, but a savvy Facebook marketer knows that it’s not the people who like you that you’re after… it’s the people who like them!

We’ll post a future blog post about that topic, but essentially, when Joe likes your page, all of Joe’s friends not only see that he liked your page (giving them the chance to check you out) but more importantly, all of Joe’s friends see every update you make to your fan page.

You see our information to the left, were we have 2,266 likes, but really, we’re marketing to close to 3/4 of a million people.  That’s worth two hours time.

So, here’s how we did it.

1. we logged into one of our pseudonym accouts.

2. We created accounts at 3 different Facebook Fan Exchange sites. Get Likes Easy, Pulse Exchange, and Facebook Like Exchange.

3. We logged into each site, and just randomly started liking pages. We use these sort of services alot for our Twitter promotions (with sites like Twiends.com) , so we’re pretty good at knowing how to manage credits.  Before you take this type of promotion mainstream, you’ll want to play around with how you want to manage each site’s crediting system.

4. Finally, we went over to LinkedIn, and started posting comments on various discussions around the site.  We pointed people to our Facebook page, where we got quite a few likes as well.

Long story short, we got 538 likes to our Facebook page in 48 hours, and we’ve got remaining credits to get a couple hundred more.

We’ll report later to see if some of the other goals of our experiment, such as higher traffic to our main site pan out from this experiment.  Initial reports show that our traffic definitely went up by about 25%, but it will be interesting to see if that bump in traffic is a one time occurrence, or an ongoing one.

Update 2/28/2012

We had so much success with this experiment that we added a few more Fan Exchange Sites to our arsenal.

• Grow Popular
• ARTMeo
• SocialFan
• ExchangeSocial

 

Feel free to post your comments about your own experiments with getting likes to your Facebook pages below.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/528-facebook-likes-48-hours-free/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-tips-from-the-guru/10-real-reasons-to-join-twitter-today/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=10-real-reasons-to-join-twitter-today http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-tips-from-the-guru/10-real-reasons-to-join-twitter-today/#comments Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:32:06 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://www.espiremarketing.org/?p=180 For those of you who aren’t yet convinced that Twitter is the real deal, that it can help grow your online presence, and can help you network, easier than any other social networking site on the web. This is my attempt to give the extra push you need to become an avid Twitter user. Instant ...

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]]> For those of you who aren’t yet convinced that Twitter is the real deal, that it can help grow your online presence, and can help you network, easier than any other social networking site on the web. This is my attempt to give the extra push you need to become an avid Twitter user.

1. Instant News Feeds- Twitter has instant feeds into anything that is happening in the real world. For instance, when the United Airlines flight landed in the Hudson river a few months ago, it was a Twitter User that sent the news out into the world first. He took an eyewitness photo of the scene, and he was the source that the media was using at first.
2. Constant Entertainment- Twitter is big pretty much all over the world. For all of you insomniacs out there, twitter is your social networking haven. No matter what time day or night, Twitter constantly has thousands of users updating their twitter accounts 24/7 365.
3. Get to Know your Favorite Bloggers- Some of Twitter’s most avid users are some of the internet’s best bloggers and writers. With Twitter you get to find out what your favorite blogger is up to in between each blog post. Their updates give you a glance into the person behind the blog. Twitter makes it easier than any other social networking site.
4. Get Other People’s Opinions- So you just read a story that you can’t quite figure out? Hit up search.twitter.com or check Twitter’s top trending topics to get great candid advice from the twitterverse. A lot of times on a blog you will get a watered down opinion from someone but on Twitter, users will tell you what they really think.
5. Find New Sources for Info- With the power of retweeting through twitter, people are spreading new sources and new great information, from all over the internet. Sometimes even the big time bloggers and media miss out on some great information. Why not use Twitter to introduce you to some other great minds.
6. Get Connected to People in Your field- Again Twitter is probably the easiest social networking tool for looking to network with people in your profession. For example, I have made countless numbers of strong connections with people in my field (internet marketing) or a related field, that I have been able to work directly with in order to achieve a common goal.
7. Get Fresh Ideas- Twitter gives you access to some of the worlds most creative minds. Whether it be a new recipe for dinner, a new contest idea, or a new way to organize your life, Twitterer’s are coming up with new creative ideas on a daily basis that you have at your disposal right at your fingertips. Cool huh?
8. Stay Connected with Your Community- By following people in your local communities you can have better access to more opportunities to participate in your community than ever before. Take this scenario for instance; It’s Saturday afternoon and you’re sitting around being lazy and bored. So you get on Twitter and check out what some of your local twitter friends are tweeting about and you see that there is an Arts Festival in town that you didn’t know about with free entry for the first 500 people. You hop in your car and head to the participate in the festivities; Problem solved!
9. Get Closer to Your Friends and Family- Let’s face it, life is busy, we’d love to be able to keep in touch with our friends and family more but simply don’t have the time. With Twitter, that problem is solved as well. You can log on and see that your friend Suzy’s daughter just got accepted to Harvard, or that your brother just started putting up a new fence at his house, Twitter makes getting closer with your family and friends easier than any other social networking service.
10. Share your knowledge with the world- Most of us don’t consider ourselves experts in everything we do. But just like you look to others for cool new ideas and advice, others will look to you. Share some of your ideas and advice with the world, while you might not think it’s that big of a deal, others might.

Twitter is a great tool for many reasons. From staying connected to friends and family, to coming up with your next fun project, Twitter is a social tool that is more powerful than any other social networking tool on the internet. It is the most powerful because it has broken down the barriers of the friend request. You don’t have to ask permission to read someone’s updates, you can do that by simply choosing to follow someone you find interesting. Check it out. I promise you will not be disappointed.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-tips-from-the-guru/10-real-reasons-to-join-twitter-today/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-tips-from-the-guru/sponsoredtweetscom/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sponsoredtweetscom http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-tips-from-the-guru/sponsoredtweetscom/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:44:44 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=16338 SponsoredTweets.com is an online marketplace that allows you to connect directly with influential tweeters to create sponsored conversations through Twitter. Our system allows you to compensate tweeters with cash in exchange for promoting your product, service or site. Think of it like eBay for tweets. Ethical Sponsored Tweeting Everything within our platform is designed with ...

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]]> SponsoredTweets.com is an online marketplace that allows you to connect directly with influential tweeters to create sponsored conversations through Twitter. Our system allows you to compensate tweeters with cash in exchange for promoting your product, service or site. Think of it like eBay for tweets.

Ethical Sponsored Tweeting

Everything within our platform is designed with ethics and safety in mind. Our Code of Ethics includes:

• Mandatory Disclosure
• Freedom of Authenticity
• Freedom of Choice
• Transparency of Identity

SponsoredTweets.com is designed to force compliance of the FTC regulations that state, “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed.”

Safety and Trust

IZEA, the parent company of Sponsored Tweets, is a venture backed company with ten million dollars invested from leading venture capitalists. We are a Better Business Bureau Accredited Business and have been operating since 2006.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-tips-from-the-guru/sponsoredtweetscom/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/onethird-facebook-users-worthless/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=onethird-facebook-users-worthless http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/onethird-facebook-users-worthless/#comments Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:00:23 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1656 One of my  readers asked me why I always write negative things about Facebook. First of all this isn’t quite true, since I’ve written a few articles about how to make money on Facebook and the top ads on Facebook. I just like to question what is going on, look beyond the headlines and the ...

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]]> One of my  readers asked me why I always write negative things about Facebook. First of all this isn’t quite true, since I’ve written a few articles about how to make money on Facebook and the top ads on Facebook. I just like to question what is going on, look beyond the headlines and the spin.

So, in that light, I want to examine the numbers: According to Comscore, in June, over 130 Million people within the US used Facebook. This is about one third of the population of the US that uses Facebook – some of them day after day, many times a day, making it one of the most popular media sources ever in the history of the world. However, despite this, Facebook may only bring in $1 Billion this next year, even with expected growth. This may seem like a lot money, but it’s actually not – and I know why.

The Superbowl gets around 100 million viewers each year. While the number goes up and down, it’s a good round number for this post and makes it easier for me to do the math. According to my research (Google) there was last year 62 ad slots sold at between $2.5M and $2.8M. That’s at least $155M in revenue, perhaps even as much as $175M in revenue for whichever network broadcasts the Superbowl. That means each viewer is worth at least $1.50 for the Superbowl.

In contrast, the number $1 Billion estimated in Facebook revenue is for their 500 Million (and growing) users throughout the world. While I can’t find any numbers that say how much revenue is generated in the US and how much is generated internationally, I’m going to make a conservative guess that at least 90% of the revenue is US based, meaning that next year $900 million dollars is expected to be made from Facebook. That means that each US user, over the period of the year is only worth about $7.00 for the entire year.

That is a ridiculously low number if you think about it. Viewers watching a several hour football game are worth 21% of the value of a Facebook user who may use the site 365 times plus a year, spend hundreds of hours a year talking to their friends and family, and more importantly interact with people of similar interests, communicate their needs, buying habits and much more. If you translate the value into hours of use of a Facebook user compared to a Superbowl watcher, an hour of a Facebook user is insignificant – I can’t even do the math, but you are talking about hundredths of a cent per hour for each Facebook user compared to around 50 cents per hour per Superbowl watcher.

The value comparison here is hard to believe, in light of all the media coverage about Facebook. This raises two possible sets of questions.

The first set of questions asks what the real value of an internet user is. The second set of questions would ask why we can’t monetize those users. If we concentrate on the first set of questions, we would come to conclusion that internet users, especially those on Facebook have little value financially per user. That the only reason that Facebook has any value is because of press coverage of the substantial size of the user without comparing the users actually value. When you look over the value of broadcasting corporations in comparison to their revenue, the inflated difference is great.

The second set of questions interests me a great deal more, because it might have two subsets. The first question to ask is, is it easy to acquire users for a social networking site (and then lose them like MySpace) and how relatively cheap is their value. We are estimating the value of Facebook at 12 billion, although the majority of those users have only been on the site for less than a year. They have no loyalty, they have no value beyond that time. Any significant change in Facebook, or the rise of another more interesting social networking site could immediately doom the value of Facebook. Their value when it comes to advertising is clear. I’ve pointed out, that so far, their value is insignificant per user.

So, now the important question: why are these users so useless, and why can’t we monetize them? Why hasn’t interactive advertising advanced far enough that it can actively engage users and create both branding and direct response experiences for social users that equates to actual value? This is a very significant question for anyone who is looking at the development of advertising on the internet and the value of social networking to advertisers.

We can believe that either we haven’t learned how to monetize these users and we will very soon, or we can believe that the value of a social networking user is useless. This is probably the most important question of our time when it comes to the economy and its relation to advertising on the internet.

I believe the issue is simple: we need to be considerably more creative (as does Facebook) about advertising on the internet.

After 10 years of substantial growth, we still depend too much on display advertising in the form of 728×90 banners. I remember in 2000 being introduced to some of the rich-media expendables that are still in place.

Facebook, on the other hand, still depends completely on CPC text advertising for its revenue. Here is the good part: this means whoever finds a way to be creative can monetize these users significantly. I am of the opinion that the Facebook user’s current value is less than 1/100th of what it could be – that for every dollar made now, within the next few years someone can figure how to bring in $100.

Whatever this might be, I’m not sure – but it does mean that monetization of users needs to be beyond the CPM, beyond the CPC, and start to use possible metrics and systems that we haven’t even thought of.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/onethird-facebook-users-worthless/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/website-indexed-google/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=website-indexed-google http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/website-indexed-google/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 06:39:53 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://www.moonviperweb.com/?p=6279 The first step to getting your site to rank highly in search engines is to have it indexed.  Essentially, indexing is getting your site at least listed by a particular search engine.  This tutorial is all about how to get you site indexed by Google. If you have a WordPress blog, the first thing you ...

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]]> The first step to getting your site to rank highly in search engines is to have it indexed.  Essentially, indexing is getting your site at least listed by a particular search engine.  This tutorial is all about how to get you site indexed by Google.

If you have a WordPress blog, the first thing you should do is to get the Google XML Sitemaps plugin and install it on your site. What this will do is to notify Bing every time you make an update to your website.

Your next step is to download and install the Google toolbar. To get it, simply sign up for Google Toolbar. This gives you access to a Windows Live ID, which you will need to set up your back end management center at Yahoo. Also, one of the unique things that most people don’t know about these toolbars is that every time you load your web page, it sends the URL back to the search engine (in this case Bing) and attempts to get information about the page. If it’s not already indexed, it puts that URL into the queue to be indexed.

Last, but not least, you should sign up for Google Webmaster Tools.

GWT is a free toolset provided by Google that helps you first understand what’s going on with your website. This way you make decisions based off of data instead of going in blindly.

Here is how GWT works.

Adding your website

 

The first thing you need to do after you login to GWT (it’s free to sign up) is to add your website.

After you add your website you’ll have to verify that you actually own the website. You can do this through four ways:

• Add a DNS record to your domain’s configuration – You can use this option if you can sign in to your domain registrar or hosting provider and add a new DNS record.
• Add a meta tag to your sites homepage – You can choose this option if you can edit your site’s HTML.
• Upload an HTML file to your server – You can choose this option if you can upload new files to your site.
• Link your Google Analytics account to GWT – You can use this option if your site already has a Google Analytics tracking code that uses the asynchronous snippet. You must be an administrator on the analytics account for this to work.

Dashboard

Once your site is verified you’ll start seeing data on your website. Sometimes it can take a few hours before you see any data, but it’ll start rolling in.

The dashboard gives you a rough overview of everything from what keywords you are ranking for to how much traffic you are getting. In addition to that you’ll see if the Google bot is experiencing any crawl errors when going through your website, the number of sites linking to yours, and how many pages Google has indexed.

Site Configuration

Just like everything else, Google isn’t perfect. So configuring your site can help them do a better job of ranking your website. When configuring there are a few areas that you should be familiar with:

Sitemaps

Submitting a sitemap will help Google determine what pages you have on your website so they can index them. If you don’t submit a sitemap they may not index all of the pages on your website, which means you won’t get as much traffic.

Sitemaps have to be submitted in an XML format and they can’t contain more than 50,000 URLs or be larger than 10 megs. If you exceed any of those limits, you need to split up your sitemap in multiple files and then submit them.

If you aren’t technical, you can go to XML Sitemaps to create a sitemap. All you have to do is enter in your URL of your homepage and click “start”.

Once your sitemaps have been uploaded, Google will tell you how many of your URLs are being indexed. Don’t worry, it is common for them to not index all of your web pages. But your goal should still be to get as many pages indexed as possible.

Typically if pages aren’t being indexed it’s because the content on those pages aren’t unique, the title tags and meta descriptions are generic, and not enough websites are linking to your internal pages.

Crawler access

There will be some pages on your website that you just don’t want Google to index. This could be private login areas, RSS feeds, or crucial data that you don’t want people accessing.

By creating a robots.txt file you can block not just Google, but all search engines from accessing web pages that you don’t want them to get their hands on. However, for highly sensitive areas of your website you may want to consider password protecting all relevant directories.

Through the robots.txt generator and tester, not only will you be able to create a robots.txt file, but you will be able to see if it is done correctly before you upload it to your server. It’s wise to do because the last thing you want to do is make a mistake and tell them not to index your whole website.

And if you accidentally mess up and find Google indexing pages that you don’t want them to index, you can request them to remove it through this section.

Sitelinks

Sitelinks are links to a site’s interior pages displayed on a Google search results page. Not all sites have sitelinks, but as you grow in popularity you’ll naturally get them. Google generates these links automatically, but you can remove sitelinks you don’t want.

Through this section you can somewhat control what sitelinks show up when someone searches for your website. The reason you can’t fully control what pages show up here is that you can only block which pages you don’t want to appear, and you can’t pick which pages you want to appear.

Change of address

If you are looking to change the URL of your website, you better let Google know or else your traffic is going to decrease.

You can tell them through 4 easy steps:

• Setup the new site – You have to get the new domain up and running. Make sure all your content is available for the public to see.
• Redirect the old traffic – A 301 permanent redirect tells users and search engines that your site has permanently moved.
• Add your new site to GWT – Make sure you also verify your new website.
• Tell GWT your new domain – In the change of address section, you can select the new domain name of your website.

Settings

If your target audience is someone in a specific country, then you can select this option in GWT. For example if my target customer for KISSmetrics lives in the United States, I would then tell GWT that my target audience lives in the United States.

In addition to that you can select a preferred domain name. This is going to be http://yourdomain.com or http://www.yourdomain.com. Either one works, you just have to select which variation you prefer. The reason for picking one is that people may link to both versions of your domain and by selecting one Google will combine the links, which will help your rankings.

The last setting you should be worried about is crawl rate. If you feel that the Google bot needs to be crawling your website more often and faster then you can tell them to do so. Or you can just let them pick the crawl setting for your website. (this is typically the best option because if they crawl your website too often it can cause too much bot traffic going to your server and increase your hosting costs)

Your website on the web

Have you ever wondered how Google looks at your website? After all, it’s a search engine and not a human… so naturally it won’t be able to look at a website in the same way you do.

But luckily for you, through GWT you can see how Google views your website.

Search queries

Not only is it important to go after keywords that have high search volume, but it is important to make sure that you have a good click through rate.

By monitoring the search queries page, you can work on improving your click through rate so that people are more likely to click on your listing when they search. Typically you can do this by making your title tag and meta description more attractive as that is what people read before clicking through to your site.

Links to your website

The best way to increase your rankings on Google is to get more sites to link to you. Usually this happens naturally if your website is providing valuable information to potential customers.

A good way to monitor your link growth is to continually monitor this area in GWT. In addition to that, make sure you monitor which pages people are linking to.

If your links aren’t growing fast enough consider writing relevant linkbait that could be submitted throughout the social web. Getting on the homepage of Digg.com can drive thousands of new links to your site.

Keywords

You may have a good idea of what keywords you want to rank for, but that may not be consistent with what Google is ranking you for. Under the keywords section you can see what keywords your website is the most related to.

You can also see what variations of each keyword that are also relevant to your website. For example some people misspell keywords and you can find out which misspellings your website is most relevant for.

And if those aren’t the keywords you care to rank for, you can then use that data to adjust the content on your website.

Internal links

Linking your web pages together is a great way to get more Google love. For example, if you want your about page to rank for your company name make sure you link to it multiple times.

If you don’t link to your internal pages, they will not get as much PageRank and they won’t place as well in the search listings.

In addition to that, this data will also help you determine which pages Google feels is the most important. For example, if you look at the image above you’ll see that website owner felt that their about pages was one of the most important pages on their website. So naturally Google felt that as well.

Subscriber stats

If you have a blog, this area of GWT will be useful for you. If you don’t, it won’t.

Under the subscriber stats section you can see which of your blog posts are the most subscribed to by Google’s feed reader. You can then take that data and write more posts that are similar to your popular ones. And of course, you can stop writing blog posts similar to the ones that no one subscribed to, as readers probably didn’t enjoy them as much.

 

Diagnostics

Websites are made by humans, so don’t expect them to be perfect. Your code maybe a bit messed up, and even worse, your website may contain malware.

Through the diagnostics section, you can figure out what’s wrong with your site and how you can fix it.

Malware

If you have malware on your server, you should see a message here. If you don’t, GWT won’t show you much.

The reason it is important to not have malware on your server is that Google tries not to rank infected sites high because if someone goes to an infected site, their computer may get infected. If you do happen to have malware, make sure you clean it up.

Crawl errors

The crawl errors section will show you if there any problems that relate to your site on the web or on a mobile phone. The most common error that you’ll see is a 404 error, which means Google’s bot can’t find that page.

The most common reason that you’ll see 404 errors is because other websites sometimes link to pages that don’t exist on your website or used to exist.

What you need to do is get a list of all of the websites that are linking to dead pages on your site and hit them up. When emailing them, ask them if they can change that link to a valid page.

Or if you see a lot of people linking to a dead page on your site, you can always 301 redirect that old URL to the new URL.

Crawl stats

If you have thousands of pages on your site, then you should expect Google to crawl most of these pages on a daily or weekly basis. If they aren’t, then something is wrong.

Through the graphs and data tables that GWT provides, you should be able to get a good sense if they are crawling enough pages on your website. If they aren’t, consider adjusting the crawl rate under the settings tab.

HTML suggestions

When Googlebot crawls your site, it may find some issues with your content. These issues won’t prevent your site from appearing in Google search results, but addressing them may help boost your traffic.

The most common problem is related to title tags and meta descriptions. If every page on your site has unique and detailed title tags and meta descriptions, you should be fine. At the same time, you also have to make sure your title tags aren’t too short or too long.

And if that isn’t the case, then you can go through the URLs that GWT tells you they have an issue with, and fix it.

Labs

GWT regularly tests new features out. The easiest way to find out about these new features is to go through the labs sections.

Fetch as Googlebot

With Fetch as Googlebot you can see exactly how a page appears to Google. All you have to do is type in a URL and GWT will tell if they could successful see it or not.

There currently isn’t a ton of data that GWT is showing in this area, but I expect this to change in the future.

Sidewiki

If you’re a webmaster, you can leave a special Sidewiki entry on pages of your site. You can choose to leave a master entry for the whole site, or create page specific entries to engage your visitors.

All you have to do is:

• If you’ve successfully validated your account in GWT, you will see an option to write as the page owner.
• Select the “Write as the page owner” checkbox in the entry form. If you’d like to leave a master entry across the whole site, also select the “Show this page owner entry on all pages…” checkbox.
• Click Publish.

Site performance

Your website’s load time is one of the most important things you should be monitoring. Every month you should be making sure you improve this number because if your website is too slow your Google traffic may drop.

Numerous website owners have seen a positive increase in their traffic by improving their website load time.

If you aren’t sure how fast your website should load, don’t worry. Google will tell you if your website is too slow or quick enough.

Video sitemaps

If you have video on your site, you want to make sure you include those raw video files in your sitemap. This way, Google can index them as they may not be able to find them otherwise.

This will help ensure that your videos are getting the traffic they deserve from Google video search.

If you are trying to create a video sitemap, this page should explain how to do so.

Conclusion

GWT is a useful tool that’s free. If you aren’t making use of it, you should start doing so now. The reason it’s worth using is because it will help guide you and tell you what to do if you want to improve your Google traffic.

Once you’ve got some content indexed by Google, you can go about the other aspects of getting high rankings.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/website-indexed-google/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/traffic-generation/effective-automate-targeted-visitor-generation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=effective-automate-targeted-visitor-generation http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/traffic-generation/effective-automate-targeted-visitor-generation/#comments Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:41:29 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1296 Finding people to see your brand-new website is unquestionably a hard endeavor. It takes lots of time to generate a regular flow of traffic to your websites. However these day there are various different methods you can take a look at to help you speed up the process. Putting together an autoblog is a great ...

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]]> Finding people to see your brand-new website is unquestionably a hard endeavor. It takes lots of time to generate a regular flow of traffic to your websites. However these day there are various different methods you can take a look at to help you speed up the process.

Putting together an autoblog is a great demonstration of automation. It is possible to create an entire network of targeted traffic and money generating specific niche market websites in less than an hour or so. By simply seeking out related and high quality content material, auto blog software guarantees your blog is relevant towards the niche you are targeting. You will not ever need to craft a bit of content again since the autoblog program creates fresh and new posts every single day!

Despite the fact that the content material won’t be unique, as time passes your auto blog will rank adequately for countless long end key words giving massive amounts of cost-free natural and organic visitors to your blog ready for you to earn money. It may sound like very hard work but trust me it isn’t!

Web 2 websites such as Flickr and MySpace are perfect sources for eager visitors and targeted visitors. Every single social website is separated into categories so that it is effortless to discover plenty of people that are eager to look over your content, social websites makes it simple to focus on your target sector!

Mixing the auto blog method with social web traffic is a dangerous blend and can hammer your site with traffic as time passes! Even though all the content material on your autoblog will be replicated content taken from numerous locations on the net, Search engines still ranks the auto blogs highly in their search results!

I have a massive network of auto blogs running all of which utilize duplicate content material and take benefit from social media web-sites on full auto-pilot each and every day! It is one of the easiest methods to make money online, and even though it calls for a bit of time for you to startup after that you may forget about this!

You should certainly think about blogging automatically if you are wanting to generate income on-line or improve your existing web earnings!

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/traffic-generation/effective-automate-targeted-visitor-generation/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/creating-planning-search-engine-friendly-web/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=creating-planning-search-engine-friendly-web http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/creating-planning-search-engine-friendly-web/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:02:34 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://www.wordpress-profits.com/adsense/creating-and-planning-a-search-engine-friendly-web/ In this article we’ll cover meta tags, content creation principles along with outsourcing as well as site structure and navigation. All of these are important for your web site no matter what niche you’re in or what products or services you provide, so let’s get started. First the content that only the search engines see, ...

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]]> In this article we’ll cover meta tags, content creation principles along with outsourcing as well as site structure and navigation. All of these are important for your web site no matter what niche you’re in or what products or services you provide, so let’s get started.

First the content that only the search engines see, meta tags. After you have your keywords you will need to make sure you put them in your title and description tags in the header section of the HTML. This is not a meta tag but I decided to mention it here: also put your keywords in a headline or two on the page. Next will be the articles for the site.

Have quality content that your visitors will find useful and make sure to put in a few keywords to make it search engine friendly.  To find them just put your keyword into the Google keyword tool and you will get a big list of them.

You need to keep in mind that you should not over due this, keep your content natural. If you try to use too many of these keywords the search engine could view it as keyword stuffing and de-list your site. This is also not a good idea because your customers will not find this type of content to be worth anything and leave your site quickly. If you visitors don’t like the content you provide and hit the back button what good is getting that traffic in the first place?

If creating all this content seems a bit overwhelming for you don’t worry. This can easily be handled by a ghost writer and it doesn’t have to cost you a fortune either. There are plenty of places on the internet where you can outsource your content creation for as little as $5 an article. Whenever outsourcing content though, be sure to proof the copy to make sure it is up to snuff as far as quality goes.

Now let’s talk about ease of use. You’ll want your site to be simple to navigate both by the search engines and your customers.For your customers you’ll want your site navigation to be simple and uncomplicated. If they can’t find what they are searching for quickly they will leave quickly.

For the search engines include an XML site map. This is an easy way to give them all the info on your site in one spot and you can get it made for free online. MoonViper Web Services makes this easy.  Most every site we create automatically generates this sitemap for you, and submits it to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com every time your website is updated.

Let’s review: use your keywords in the meta tags and headlines of your web site and keywords throughout the content. Use useful content that will appeal to your visitors and the search engines as well. Make your site easy to navigate for the search engines and humans as well. If you follow these guidelines you are sure to make you site a huge success.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/creating-planning-search-engine-friendly-web/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/google-maps-optimize-listing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-maps-optimize-listing http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/google-maps-optimize-listing/#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 03:22:09 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1279 Web site owners spend big money to achieve top rankings in the search engines so customers will find them easily to purchase their products or services. A web site that appears after the first page on Google won’t get any traffic unless they employ other methods of marketing. Google maps changes all this. Now local ...

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]]> Web site owners spend big money to achieve top rankings in the search engines so customers will find them easily to purchase their products or services. A web site that appears after the first page on Google won’t get any traffic unless they employ other methods of marketing.

Google maps changes all this. Now local businesses can attain first page listings without paying anything. When a customer enters a keyword to find a local business Google will automatically display businesses that are closest to you. Local results are displayed above the regular listings.

Example
If a customer enters “web site design bowie maryland” they will see your company information listed at the top of the search results.

How to get listed in Google Maps

Open an account at Google’s local business center then submit your web site and company information. You can create multiple listings if you have more than one local business.

How to optimize your listing on Google Maps

1. Choose the correct category

Enter the category that best describes your business ie web design, dentist, photographer, etc.

2. Create a captivating description

This is what customers will read about your business. Describe it in such a way that will want to check it out. Include keywords customers would enter to find your business.

3. Make your listing stand out

Here are the things you can include in your listing:

• Description
• Payment
• Email
• Business Hours
• Categories
• Photos
• Reviews

Enter as much information as possible so it will stand out from your competitors (their business will be listed with yours).

4. Location

If your business location is in the center of the town, it is more likely that it will appear at the top of the list.

5. Get listed in other local directories

Google Maps gathers it’s results from other online directories and databases therefore submit your web site to online yellow pages and yahoo local. Find other local directories by entering keyword+location in the search box.

6. Optimize your web pages

Include the city and state names on the home page of your web site. Place them in the meta tags and web copy. This makes it easier for customers to find your business because you’ll a top listing in the search engines.

7. Encourage customers to write reviews

You can improve the your listing by getting customers to write positive reviews about your business. The more stars you acquire the higher your position becomes.

If you follow the 7 steps outlined above your web site will achieve a good listing in Google Maps and you’ll start attracting visitors from the search engines.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/google-maps-optimize-listing/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/site-design/landing-page-practices/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=landing-page-practices http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/site-design/landing-page-practices/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:45:20 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=16353 Your landing page is the first point of contact for your website so first impressions must be considered.  Think of this page as you would the entrance to your business, you wouldn’t leave this area a mess or cluttered would you? Of course not, you want every customer that walks in your door to like ...

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]]> Your landing page is the first point of contact for your website so first impressions must be considered.  Think of this page as you would the entrance to your business, you wouldn’t leave this area a mess or cluttered would you? Of course not, you want every customer that walks in your door to like what they see…the same applies to your landing page. So when putting together your companies landing page, put yourself in your customers shoes to help determine the things that they expect to see here.

Here are a few quick tips to help you design a better landing page.

10 Quick Landing Page Tips

• A landing page should have a single purpose with a  single message
• Be succinct, keep your landing page free of clutter
• Make your primary message PROMINENT and position it above the fold
• Use video to showcase your product being used in context
• Testimonial is your best friend, position customer feedback in a prominent place on the page
• Social Media can work wonders and build the case for you.  Utilize Twitter and Facebook widgets on your landing page to increase credibility
• Offer potential clients a free trial or guarantee to reduce buyer’s remorse
• Include business affiliations or partners to encourage the adage “safety in numbers”
• Display your contact information so people know you are real and can interact with you
• Make it pretty, make sure your page is balanced with a nice flow

These are just a few tips that will help you to build a more impressive landing page. We have included some screen shots of these tips in action below.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/site-design/landing-page-practices/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/150-free-facebook-ad-credits/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=150-free-facebook-ad-credits http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/150-free-facebook-ad-credits/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:22:21 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=16329 Facebook quietly launched a contest Tuesday called Small Business Boost that will award $10,000 to 10 small businesses that gain the most new Likes by April 1. Small business owners in the U.S. that manage pages on the social network can enter the contest through an app on the Facebook Marketing Solutions page. Entrants with ...

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]]> Facebook quietly launched a contest Tuesday called Small Business Boost that will award $10,000 to 10 small businesses that gain the most new Likes by April 1.

Small business owners in the U.S. that manage pages on the social network can enter the contest through an app on the Facebook Marketing Solutions page. Entrants with 50 Likes on their page when they sign up for the contest will receive a $50 ad credit for the site. Pages that gain 100 new Likes during the contest period will earn another $100 ad credit. The ten pages with the most new fans will win $10,000 in Facebook ads.

The stated goal of the program is to help “invest, educate, and connect” with small businesses by giving 200,000 companies $50 each in ad credits. The company wants to show businesses how Facebook advertising works and how it can help their businesses if they spend more ad dollars targeting social networkers. Facebook also wants to pull ad spending from the likes of Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Once you add the app, you will receive a coupon code good for $50 in free advertising.

What is a Facebook coupon code?

A coupon code is activated through Facebook’s online ad system and then becomes an advertising credit. This advertising credit can be redeemed for advertising on Facebook.

How do I activate the Facebook coupon code I just received?

To create your ad and redeem your coupon, please follow these steps:

• Go to http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/.
• After creating your ad, click “Review Ad” at the bottom of the page.
• At the “Review Ad” page, please check to ensure your campaign, targeting, and budget are correct, then click “Place Order.”
• Please select credit card or PayPal as the funding source for your account.
• If you select a credit card, on the next screen, select “I have a coupon to redeem.” Copy the coupon code you received, then click “Submit.”
• If you select PayPal, please add your PayPal account, then go to your Funding Sources tab at https://secure.facebook.com/ads/manage/funding.php, and click “Add a funding source” link at the top right of the page. From the “Add a Funding Source” screen please select “Facebook Ad Coupon” then copy the coupon code you received and click “Submit.”

 

What you need to participate:

• A Facebook Page for your small business
• Your business must be based in the US
• Your page will need at least 50 likes

How It Works:

• Get $50 in free ads if you have at least 50 likes on your Page
• Get $100 more in free ads if you add 100 more likes to your Page before April 1, 2012
• Win $10,000 more in free ads if you are one of the top 10 pages that gains the most new likes before April 1, 2012

 

 

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/150-free-facebook-ad-credits/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-tips-from-the-guru/quality-quantity-twitter-followers-businesses/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=quality-quantity-twitter-followers-businesses http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-tips-from-the-guru/quality-quantity-twitter-followers-businesses/#comments Thu, 03 Jun 2010 15:35:13 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://www.espiremarketing.org/?p=349 Quality Vs. Quantity, that is the question that everyone is asking themselves when trying to start their Twitter campaigns for their respective businesses. I have worked with both and seen results with both, but I am here to tell you why having quality Twitter followers is far better than having a large quantity of them ...

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]]> Quality Vs. Quantity, that is the question that everyone is asking themselves when trying to start their Twitter campaigns for their respective businesses. I have worked with both and seen results with both, but I am here to tell you why having quality Twitter followers is far better than having a large quantity of them for your business.

What is your main motivation for starting a Twitter account anyway? Is it direct sales? For some of you it might be, but I would say for the majority of you, you want the opportunity to create opportunities for viral marketing and get the chance to be more connected to your customer base. Quantity might get you more direct sales, but with so many people in your feed at all times, it’s nearly impossible to pick out which of your twitter followers is actually a fan of yours, and actually cares about your product. If you have a refined list of people who truly care about your business, you will get the chance to really connect with these people, and turn them from a one time customer, into a lifetime customer.

What else can you get from a quality twitter following? As you’re connecting with these true fans you’ll get a chance to hear some of their stories, some of them will probably even let you know why they love your business so well. It’s the word of mouth marketing that you are really looking for right? There is nothing like it. Think about it, when you want to try a new restaurant in town, who do you go to? Generally, you ask your friends right? Well that’s what these quality twitter followers will give you, they will recommend you to their friends, and even better they will do it on a large social network in front of millions of users for everyone to see. Recommendations from other people are so valuable. Don’t you want to to get as much of it as you can for your business?

Like I said before I’ve seen great success with both types of Twitter marketing. It is really up to you to decide what you want. I will tell you that in my experience the quality followers will give your business a much more intimate relationship with your customers and that will help you tremendously. Test both theories for yourself though. If you start with one and find that you want to go another direction you can always change paths by refining your list later, or trying to go out and get as many people to follow you as possible.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-tips-from-the-guru/quality-quantity-twitter-followers-businesses/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/marketing-4-ps-seo/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=marketing-4-ps-seo http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/marketing-4-ps-seo/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:46:20 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://www.soloseo.com/blog/2007/08/30/the-marketing-4-ps-and-seo/ Much of a discussion on marketing can be broken down into what is termed “The Marketing Mix, or the 4 Ps” namely: Product – the product or service we sell Price – the retail price the customer is willing to pay Place – the location in which the product is being purchased Promotion – the ...

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]]> Much of a discussion on marketing can be broken down into what is termed “The Marketing Mix, or the 4 Ps” namely:

• Product – the product or service we sell
  
• Price – the retail price the customer is willing to pay
  
• Place – the location in which the product is being purchased
  
• Promotion – the method we use to get our product seen

 

The goal of a marketer then is to properly address the 4 Ps for their specific situation and to sell as many units of product as is potentially possible.

The online world is a bit different from the offline world. Some of the 4 Ps haven’t changed much, and others have.

Our Product essentially remains the same.

The Price has also not changed very much, although with increased access to information, and more access to online resellers, economists would expect at least a downward pressure on price, if not overall lower prices altogether. Generally speaking, this has not remained true, and pricing is similar both off and online.

Place can also can be a bit different, while many of us may still have a store front, there are some small business owners who only sell their products online. So presently, we either sell both online, and through a brick and mortar store front, or we just sell online which is a new spin on “Place.”

Finally we have Promotion, which in some cases is very similar to how we promote offline. Using banners and Ads on webpages. Some companies still take out ads in newspapers, radio, and television.

There are many websites we’ve seen where advertising is displayed. This can be a very good online advertising option, as we are able to target clients who we can predict visit sites with a certain theme, and we have a degree of control on the content, color and message of our ad.

Advertising our revolutionary new shoes for example, on a site developed to provide marathon running tips to novice runners would predictably be a good advertising opportunity/match.

In online promotion we also have the opportunity to start an ad campaign and purchase ad space on search engine results pages. Both Yahoo and Google have programs for doing this. So if we search for “marathon running” in about any search engine, we will not only have organic or unpaid results, typically found in the center of the page, but we will also see a column of paid ads down the right hand, and sometimes even across the top of our results page.

Again this type of advertising allows marketers to target potential clients they believe would be most interested in their product. However, these results page ads are frightfully limiting compared to other forms of both online and offline marketing. The ads all look the same in color and size, there are limitations on what can be stated, and on how many words can be used to get the message across. So it is much more difficult to really stand out through ads on a results page, I personally rarely look at these ads.

Imagine driving down a Freeway with all the billboards having a white background, with an underlined blue heading (sometimes it may be bolded, wow!), black text of approximately 10 words, and a green URL link at the bottom, that’s it. Not many keen marketers would pay the billboard owners for such a poor advertising opportunity, but it may be a good way to get rid of all the billboards.

I am not a big supporter of billboards in the first place, in fact, they don’t make much sense to me at all. It has nothing to do with whether they work or not from a marketing perspective, I just don’t understand why we want these colorful distractions taking the attention of drivers moving along at 70 mph, with other distracted drivers all around them.

It seems smarter to keep all the attention focused on the road, hey, maybe billboards painted right on the road? And don’t tell me these billboards are mainly for the car passengers, the HOV lanes around the country prove there aren’t many passengers in all those cars.

In this apparent increasing difficulty in search engine marketing, we should really be seeing an opportunity to become specialists at anticipating the keywords our clients will use to find what they need. I see a very interesting research project here. It would be cool to analyze the behavior of a test group when they are all given the same, random items to search for online. It would be amazing to see how each would construct their query to best find what were looking for.

It is this intellectual process we need to focus upon as online marketers and small business owners, how potential clients are conjuring up their searchers, what is the basis of their search, how do current events and trends influence their queries? With these questions in mind, creation of new keyword phrases will keep things fresh and relevant. We need to remember that due to the thousands of pages thrown on the Internet each day, the process of search has become quite different and more complex. Many of us understand that our searches need to be more detailed in order for us to truly find what we want, quickly. Searchers actually use long-tailed, localized keyword searches to get around the garbage Wikipedia like pages, and the miserable “informational” websites only created to rake in Adsense revenue. My average search queries are now at least 5 words, and usually contain a localization aspect to them.

So if we are mindful that 25% of search queries are new, and potential clients are using longer and longer tailed searches to find what they need, then we understand our creative juices really need to get flowing to benefit from the new long-tailed keywords trend. And we need to be addressing these long tail keywords possibilities for all our sites on a regular basis.

Whether we create a new web page, change some product descriptions, or add a blog post using our new keyword phrases, it needs to be done. It is actually quite amazing how quickly one can rank number 1 when the keyword phrases used are unique and well placed. And many will be surprised when some of these phrases not only start bringing in new clients for the specific phrase, but also start ranking well for just portions of the original long-tail phrase originally created.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/marketing-4-ps-seo/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/website-recognized-search-engines-free/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=website-recognized-search-engines-free http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/website-recognized-search-engines-free/#comments Tue, 08 Jun 2010 02:45:51 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1268 So you’ve got your website built but it doesn’t appear in the search engines even for your company name. Why not? Many new website owners think that once they upload their site to the net it will instantly be recognized by the search engines. This is not true. The search engines find your site through ...

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]]> So you’ve got your website built but it doesn’t appear in the search engines even for your company name. Why not? Many new website owners think that once they upload their site to the net it will instantly be recognized by the search engines. This is not true. The search engines find your site through links. For example if CNN links to an article on your web page you’ll instantly receive thousands of visitors because they get redirected through the link on their site.

Should you submit your website to 1000s of search engines and directories?

Absolutely not! You have no idea which search engines or directories your site is being submitted to. For instance if one of the websites is about gambling your website may get penalized for linking to a bad neighborhood. Once penalized it takes a long time to get back into the search engines. Steer clear of companies that promise to submit your website to 1000s directories. Instead submit your site to specialized directories..ones that compliment or relate to your content.

How can I get my website recognized by the search engines for free?

The fastest and easiest way for your site to get indexed by the search engines is to find a website or directory that already has high rankings and receives lots of traffic.

How to get top rankings with article directories

The top article directories such as ezinearticles receive millions of visitors each day. Write an article related to your niche then include a link back to your website in the resource box at the end of the article. Make sure you include the primary keyword or keyword phrase that describes your content in your article title as well as the anchor text (linked text). Submit your article to the directory. Within a few days (or sometimes within hours) your site will get indexed and appear in the search engines.

If your keyword phrase doesn’t have many competing sites you may achieve first page rankings immediately. If it’s a very competitive phrase your site will still get indexed however it won’t appear in the top pages.

To improve your site’s rankings you need to acquire many more links from other websites. This involves a link building campaign which takes a lot of time and must be carried out consistently to be effective.

The quality and quantity of links pointing to your website will determine your rankings therefore these sites must be carefully selected to maximize your results.

Over time your site’s rankings will increase resulting in more traffic, sales and subscribers.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/website-recognized-search-engines-free/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/ways-build-quality-backlinks-website/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ways-build-quality-backlinks-website http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/ways-build-quality-backlinks-website/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 03:40:38 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1294 A back link is a link from another website linking back to your website. It is without doubt that quality backlinks play a great important role to the Search Engine Optimization and the success of a website. The more backlinks you get to your website or blog, the search engine will assume that website regards ...

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]]> A back link is a link from another website linking back to your website. It is without doubt that quality backlinks play a great important role to the Search Engine Optimization and the success of a website. The more backlinks you get to your website or blog, the search engine will assume that website regards your website highly and the more traffic you will receive from the search engines throughout the world. Then a question: how to get backlinks to your websites comes to the mind of every webmaster who eager to be successful online. Well, go through this post you will find different ways to build backlinks and enjoy success online.

1.Link building with commenting on do-follow blogs

Here the key is do-follow blog. Many blog comments are no-followed, which means that search engines will not give weight to the link. Followlist.com provides dofollow blogs where you can leave comments that give link weight and you will definitely find out some blogs that are relevant to your niche.

2.Link build with directories submissions

If you are serious about your website, submitting articles to article directories website is essential. Article writing is a good way for building traffic and backlinks because many webmasters and people who publish newsletters or their own blog are of high likely to get their content from the different article directories republished on their websites. However, according to the terms of service of these article directories, they must leave the resource boxes and the links within the article unchanged, which means you can expect backlinks from their visitors if your article is valuable. But the problem is that submitting articles to directories can be more time-consuming especially if you are not so good at writing. Overall, it deserves your try.

3.Link building with guest posting

Guest posting as the name suggested is posting on others blog instead of yours. Guest posting is a win-win process. As for the blog owner, it gives the blogger a chance to relax for some fresh ideas to publish unique content on their blog. As for guest blogger, guest posting has lots of benefits: you will not only see traffic overflow from that blog to your blog but also find out that it’s also a great way to get yourself known among the blogosphere around that blog.

4.Link building with using anchor text

It is widely known that using anchor text in your links will help you build quality backlinks to your site and can greatly helped the search engines more aware of them. What is anchor text? It is simply the text in a link to your page. The importance of anchor text has been defined by many SEO experts because search engines use it in their algorithms to determine their rankings. For instance, if one of your keywords of your blog is “free ebooks”, what you need to do is anchor the link to your site within those words. With each time the phrase displayed in your anchor text, you chances for increasing your ranking for that phrase will be increased. It is worthwhile to note that you should not insert the irrelevant keyword to your website or you will run the risk of being penalized by Google.

5. Link building with social bookmarking websites

Social bookmarking websites are become increasing popular these days and they can be used as a very good source of backlinks. The core here is to create good original content on your website and then submit to social bookmarking sites. After you have got your content displayed on the popular social bookmarking websites, the possibility that your article get broadcasted thousands of times will be increased.

6.Link building with forum signatures

These days, many forums offer Dofollow link via signatures of signed up users. If you can receive backlink from a popular forum, it will be very valuable for you. Whenever you know the answer to the question that other people asked it is advised simply answer it. With your signatures of every post and the link to your website, you will definitley get some backlink to your website. Compared with article writhing, forum postings can be short and do not require much effort, it is the most common and easy practice to get back links.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/ways-build-quality-backlinks-website/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/top-search-engine-rankings-dont-guarantee-success/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=top-search-engine-rankings-dont-guarantee-success http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/top-search-engine-rankings-dont-guarantee-success/#comments Sat, 05 Jun 2010 03:20:13 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1277 Are you always checking your web site rankings? Is your traffic dependent on maintaining top rankings? Do your rankings convert into sales? Attaining top search engine rankings doesn’t always translate into a successful online business as there are multiple factors influencing a visitor’s decision. Here are 5 reasons why top rankings don’t guarantee success 1. ...

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]]> Are you always checking your web site rankings?
Is your traffic dependent on maintaining top rankings?
Do your rankings convert into sales?

Attaining top search engine rankings doesn’t always translate into a successful online business as there are multiple factors influencing a visitor’s decision.

Here are 5 reasons why top rankings don’t guarantee success

1. Search engine ranking formulas change

You may enjoy top rankings for a while when suddenly your site disappears. This is because search engines constantly change their ranking formulas.

2. Competing web sites

Your rankings may drop due to other sites competing for the same top position. If your only source of traffic is from the search engines you may suddenly have no sales and be out of business if you lose your top position.

3. Geo targeted search results

If you enter “shoes” in the Google search box local business companies are displayed in the search results in Google maps and the Google ads on the right side of the page. This is because search engines know your location by your IP address and will provide results that are beneficial to you.

The same happens when searching within your Google or Yahoo account. You’ll receive personalized search results based on your preferences. Google is always trying to make searches more targeted so you quickly receive the information you seek. The rankings you see from your desktop may not be the same as what others see.

4. Top rankings don’t mean more traffic

It’s easy to achieve top rankings for keywords no one is searching for. The search engine company you hired may give you a list of all the keyword phrases that received first page rankings. These keywords are useless if they don’t increase the number of visitors to your web site.

5. Top rankings don’t equal sales

If your web site looks unprofessional it will turn away your visitors. Some other factors that influence conversions include:

• poorly written web copy
• slow loading times
• difficulty navigating to other pages
• broken links
• cluttered web page

Instead of constantly checking your rankings evaluate the performance of your web pages to convert visitors into sales.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/top-search-engine-rankings-dont-guarantee-success/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-top-7-ways-generate-web-traffic/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=twitter-top-7-ways-generate-web-traffic http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-top-7-ways-generate-web-traffic/#comments Sun, 30 May 2010 22:16:43 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1191 One of the things that sets MoonViper Web Services apart is our innovative usage of Twtter.  We’re constantly looking for new ways to help our clients to integrate their websites with Twitter, help them get new follows, and improve their response rate. Because we’re always on the look out for new strategies to generate more ...

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]]> One of the things that sets MoonViper Web Services apart is our innovative usage of Twtter.  We’re constantly looking for new ways to help our clients to integrate their websites with Twitter, help them get new follows, and improve their response rate.

Because we’re always on the look out for new strategies to generate more traffic but often view new tools with quiet skepticism we try the tools before recommending them. We’ve begun using Twitter on an almost daily basis now and are convinced it’s a useful addition to our marketing arsenal.

Top 7 Strategies to Generate More Traffic With Twitter

1. Create a twitter account for your website

MoonViper Web Services now has the ability to automatically syndicate your content to your Twitter account within 140 characters. Every time you submit a new article your followers will see it and can respond to it.

2. Provide sweet morsels of information to your followers

People following you on Twitter are probably interested in nuggets of information they can use immediately. Provide a quick tip to help them grow their business.

3. Start conversations

Twitter is an excellent communication medium that allows you to reply directly to someone in your niche you are following. The replies are often faster than communicating with them by email.

4. Create joint ventures with online Gurus

It’s often difficult to get an email response from online Gurus however if you follow and engage them in conversation on Twitter you have a better chance of doing a joint venture with them. The key is to build a relationship with them first and have a great product that is in high demand.

5. Build a community

Building a community means following and communicating with people in your niche and attracting others that want to follow you. People with the same interests want to gather together to share information. Your community will help you build your business instead of trying to figure out everything on your own.

6. Include links to your favorite resources

Twitter allows you to include links to your blog posts, web site or others sites. Long urls are automatically shortened. This means you can send people to a favorite article by creating an attractive headline within 140 characters then include the link to the rest of the article (or blog post).

7. Research tool

You can enter a keyword in the search box at http://search.twitter.com/ and it will return a list of Twitter sites related to your search. You can also search on a Twitter username and it will return tweets (twitter messages) for that name.

Tip

Attract more followers to your Twitter account by notifying your newsletter subscribers, placing a link on your blog, social marketing sites and email messages. If you take action on all the points mentioned above you’ll build a steady flow of traffic to your web site.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/twitter-top-7-ways-generate-web-traffic/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/business-facebook-landing-page/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=business-facebook-landing-page http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/business-facebook-landing-page/#comments Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:00:41 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=16197 Facebook is the most popular Social Network in the world with over 850 million active users around the globe; you can’t afford to not have a presence. Your Facebook Landing Page is simply a public page that allows you to share info about your company, its services, products and incentives that your currently are providing ...

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]]> Facebook is the most popular Social Network in the world with over 850 million active users around the globe; you can’t afford to not have a presence.

Your Facebook Landing Page is simply a public page that allows you to share info about your company, its services, products and incentives that your currently are providing and it gives your visitors a real reason not only to LIKE your page but also to stay tuned for anything that you may be rolling out.

Like any form of marketing, we all know one thing for sure and it’s that first impressions are everything.

When a Facebook user stumbles or looks for your page for the first time, you need an impressive way of welcoming them to your business page and that’s exactly what a welcome page does, it converts first time visitors into Like’s. Once they like your page, just like people joining your newsletter. they have now given you permission to market to them.

Most Businesses have a Facebook page that looks like a business page. In order to impress your visitors, however, you must make a real impression on visitors so you stand out from the rest of the sites on the web.

Your Facebook Landing Page Can:

Generate Traffic:

• Ability to drive traffic to your page and share information directed to current fans or potential fans
• Customers are able to see your posts every time they log on
• You can inform customers about new products, services, events, photos and new deals you might be rolling out
• Awesome form of online advertisement. Your landing page is your digital online billboard just with more traffic than your local freeway
• Ability to direct Facebook viewers to your company website, blog and even videos. Increasing your interactions on Facebook will increase your external site traffic.
• Many companies use their Fan Page interaction opportunity to gather emails for marketing, events, surveys and much more.

Create Better Communication:

• Cost efficient way of communicating to your potential clients with out actually leaving your place of business or home
• Ability to click a simple button and instantly message or even video chat with your audience to better respond and serve “Digital Customer Service”
• Ability to ask questions and receive feed back in real time
• Ability to send updates and focus on better customer relationships and lead generation

Build Trust:

• 50% of shopping that occurs daily in the world occurs online, so having a presence and a legit Facebook Page will create trust.
• A Fan Page with comments and answers show potential customers that there is actually someone there to provide customers with service.
• Improve your social media presence and you will improve your sales, the rules that apply in store also apply on line, the only difference here is that there are more people online than there are in your store.

Keep Your Customers Better Informed:

• Unless you are Oprah or Coca-Cola, you need to have something that does more than rattle off a bunch of bullet notes as far as items and services you provide. If your business page is generic and only has a bunch of posts you are losing that possible connection with that potential customer. Be sure to use your fan page to provide users with useful information about your company.

Provide A Call To Action:

• Not only are we providing your business page with a digital bill board but, now were encouraging Facebook users to not just LIKE your page but to browse your information. This automatically increases your conversion rate of new followers.

There are plenty of reasons to create a landing page for your current and potential consumers, and when done properly, you can gain clients, leads, sales and more.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/business-facebook-landing-page/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/traffic-generation/build-7-steps-website-marketing-tool/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=build-7-steps-website-marketing-tool http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/traffic-generation/build-7-steps-website-marketing-tool/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:39:45 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1292 Creating a powerful and productive website is as easy as 1, 2, 3! (Well, really, there are seven steps, so let’s get started!) STEP 1: DECLARE YOUR INTENTION & MAKE GOALS A truly stellar website is created with intention. So begin the process by writing down your goals. What do you want your website to ...

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]]> Creating a powerful and productive website is as easy as 1, 2, 3! (Well, really, there are seven steps, so let’s get started!)

STEP 1: DECLARE YOUR INTENTION & MAKE GOALS
A truly stellar website is created with intention. So begin the process by writing down your goals. What do you want your website to do for you? You’ll have both primary and secondary goals.

STEP 2: DECIDE ON THE WEB PAGES
Once you have your goals written down, you can rough out your website. Most small business professionals in the service industry can get by with four to six pages. At the very least, you’ll need a Home page, Services page, About Us page, and Contact Us page. If your budget allows, you should consider some other pages that will help your clients understand more about you, such as a Testimonials page and a Portfolio page.

STEP 3: WRITE YOUR WEBSITE TEXT
The next step is to begin writing your website text (also known as “copy.”) You can do this yourself if you enjoy writing and have a good mastery of grammar, punctuation, spelling, word flow, and compelling statements. If you are not a stellar writer, it may be a good idea to hire a copywriter. As you create your web copy, always keep your target market in mind. What would make them want to work with you? What do they need most? Why are they visiting your site? What kind of information can you provide that is interesting and relevant to them? And, although this may sound basic, make sure your site tells visitors who you are and what you do.

STEP 4: DESIGN YOUR WEBSITE
Your website is your company’s storefront, and it must look professional and portray the right image. It must have the perfect combination of fantastic imagery and technical functionality. If your budget will not allow you to hire a designer, you can do it yourself, but keep it simple. Companies like GoDaddy.com offer website templates you can use or you can purchase a program like Dreamweaver or Frontpage to create a site from scratch. You’ll need to purchase your domain name as soon as possible. GoDaddy.com has very affordable rates, at under $10 per year per domain name. You’ll also need to find a website hosting company, which will likely charge you by the month to “host” your website files. Shop around, because prices really vary. (Or, use the FREE website hosting company that I recommend in my Purposeful Website Planning How-To Guide.)

STEP 5: GIVE ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS
You’ll want to make your website easy to navigate, quick-to-load, and easy-to-read. Fonts, colors, photos, graphics, and links all can make or break the success of your site. Don’t forget to make it accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. Visit http://www.w3.org/WAI to see a list of guidelines for how to create web sites that are accessible to as many people (and systems) as possible.

STEP 6: OPTIMIZE SO SEARCH ENGINES CAN FIND YOU
Search Engine Optimization (also called SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines (like Google and Yahoo) via unpaid search results. Your goal is to appear earlier/higher up on a search engine results list, because most people look at the first few websites that appear as a result of their search. Your web designer should optimize your website for you. If you design your own site, you’ll have to do this yourself. For example, your website should have hidden code that lists your “meta tags.” This includes key words and phrases that your target market will use to find your type of business via the search engines. Also, add fresh content regularly. This will improve your rankings. Consider adding a blog within your site, and update it at least twice a week. (More helpful tips about optimization can be found in my Purposeful Website Planning How-To Guide.)

STEP 7: ASSESS & UPDATE YOUR SITE REGULARLY
Put it on your calendar to thoroughly review your website quarterly. Make sure all the external links still work, all your contact information is still accurate, and that the site reflects the services you offer. Consider your website a work in progress. A great website is your best marketing bet, so take the time to do it right!

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/traffic-generation/build-7-steps-website-marketing-tool/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/facebook-edgerank-research-comments-4x-valuable-likes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=facebook-edgerank-research-comments-4x-valuable-likes http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/facebook-edgerank-research-comments-4x-valuable-likes/#comments Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:20:21 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=16377 Whenever you login to Facebook, you see only a very small fraction of all the content being posted by your friends at any given time. In order to determine which items should appear within your news feed, Facebook grades all content posts according to what it thinks your level of interest with each of them ...

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]]> Whenever you login to Facebook, you see only a very small fraction of all the content being posted by your friends at any given time. In order to determine which items should appear within your news feed, Facebook grades all content posts according to what it thinks your level of interest with each of them is likely going to be. The mathematical formula that determines this for Facebook is known as Edgerank.

Edgerank has many factors, but today I’m concentrating on comparing the two most basic forms of interaction with a Facebook post – comments & likes.

Research & Statistics behind EdgeRank

The awesome guys at EdgeRank Checker examined a random sampling of 5,500+ Facebook Pages. They analyzed 80,000+ of their Posts over the month of October (2011). The 80,000 posts were all of the “Link” type, to keep Clicks more accurately represented in their data. Each Post was analyzed (clicks, shares, fans, etc).

They analyzed how many Clicks a Post received against each major metric (Likes, Comments, Impressions). This can give a marketer a basic guideline on how many Clicks (on average) they can expect per engagement type. For example if you’re Post received 2 Likes, the Link on average should receive approximately 6 Clicks. The overall results are as follows:

• Avg Clicks Per Like: 3.103
• Avg Clicks Per Comment: 14.678
• Avg Clicks Per Impression: 0.005

So what does this mean?

For every Like a Post gets, it received on average 3.1 Clicks. For every Comment a Post receives, it results on average 14.678 Clicks. This ultimately means that the more engagement your update receives, the more Clicks it will receive. The most interesting fact about this data is that a Comment results in roughly 4 times the amount of Clicks.

What does this mean for you?

If you’re promoting your company’s campaign on Facebook, make sure you share content that your audience will want to engage with. This doesn’t mean that everything you share has to be unique, it just means that the content you share has to draw the attention of your audience and then connect Facebook users with your message.

If you look at Mashable’s Facebook posts, they always ask a question to engage their followers and encourage them to comment. More comments = more clicks.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/facebook-edgerank-research-comments-4x-valuable-likes/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/seo-tortoise-forget-hare/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seo-tortoise-forget-hare http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/seo-tortoise-forget-hare/#comments Mon, 18 Oct 2010 22:15:45 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://www.soloseo.com/blog/2007/10/30/in-seo-be-a-tortoise-forget-the-hare/ On Aaron Wall’s site www.seobook.com, Aaron Wall makes a statement which makes me chuckle every time I read it, not because it isn’t somewhat true, but because I can imagine how it must drive others crazy. Aaron states, “SEO is not hard, Anyone can be successful at it with the right information.” While I agree ...

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]]> On Aaron Wall’s site www.seobook.com, Aaron Wall makes a statement which makes me chuckle every time I read it, not because it isn’t somewhat true, but because I can imagine how it must drive others crazy. Aaron states,

“SEO is not hard, Anyone can be successful at it with the right information.”

While I agree that anyone can be successful through SEO, if they have the right information and the right tools, I don’t think SEO is “easy” for everyone, not even for most people.

I think for him SEO is easy. But for the rest of us, the average humans, SEO is tough work. It is especially difficult for those who are running more traditional/non-technical businesses. There is so much to do as a small business owner, and the entire organization relies on you and your efforts. Quite frankly you don’t have the time to sit down and work with site optimization all day, or dedicate enough time to learn how to make the required changes to web site pages in just a day or two. It is going to take more time than that. How much time really depends on not only your available time, but also on how good your information and tools are.

With accurate information, the SEO process can become more manageable, that much is true. But please never let anyone convince you SEO will be easy, unless you are a technological genius, and there are more than few using SEO as a profession.

This hard work revelation probably isn’t what anyone with aspirations of quickly making it big online wants to hear, but I wouldn’t feel good about giving the impression SEO is some magic online wand, which when waved, instantly delivers more traffic and orders than a site can handle. It just doesn’t work that way.  I am sure there are many out there who have heard and believed the claims of this “SEO ease,” then got in, got to work, and became quickly disenchanted with the SEO process, perhaps even felt frustrated at their inability to quickly grasp the “simpleness of SEO.” If you have felt this way, you are not alone, it is common, it is okay.

The very same horror stories exist for those who build their entire business on a great SEO ranking, and then along comes a change to Google’s algorithm, and suddenly they are out of business.

As perhaps some of you have done, I have spent my life as a very average person, not overly smart, not overly quick, not overly fun, not overly funny, not overly thin, just not overly impressive in almost everything.

Fortunately I came to grips with my total averageness a few years ago, and I realized my only chance to get ahead in this world, was just to work harder than the naturally talented and smarter people were willing to.  I can’t compete with the “blessed ones” one on one, hour to hour, but if I only sleep 4 hours, and they sleep 10, then I have picked up 6 hours a day on them, and my chances are better.  I have no problem seeing myself as a tortoise, and I have always loved that story.  I think most my fellow slower folks have too.

I think most entrepreneurs, who have created and succeeded in their own business, have either worked harder, or are “blessed.”  For most of us it is simply a matter of out-working the competition, we may never be the biggest, or grow the fastest, but we can be successful, and live a comfortable life by out-working the others.  And if we work harder, using the best tools and information, we can not only increase our chances of success, but shorten the time required.  The same is true with SEO.

To me SEO is similar to the process of digging for gold.  There are many technologies we can use to find gold now, and those technologies get better all the time. With today’s technology we simply don’t have to head out with a shovel and start digging hither and thither until we find something shiny, there are better ways.  But even with all the modern tools and technology, when it comes right down to it, getting the gold out of the ground is going to take work. We can dig with a shovel, we can dynamite, we can use large equipment, and we can hire an army of miners, but it is all work and it is required to reap the eventual reward.  No way around it.

There is no doubt SEO can be worth much to a company looking to increase sales, it can take a struggling company trying to make any sale at all, and turn that company into an online success story. Where they once wondered if they would convince anyone to buy at all, they now they struggle with cash flow, barely having enough cash on hand to pay vendors, so they can barely stay ahead of the orders onslaught.

But to experience this kind of transformation in online sales, the SEO work must happen. We are going to need to focus on our site’s Keywords, Content, Links and effort must be spent to put it all in place.  No way around it.

We can use all kinds of great tools, and have the latest information to make our efforts as efficient and effective as possible. We can even hire others to do our SEO for us, but SEO is the price for long-term online rewards.  SEO isn’t easy for most people, it isn’t a get rich quick scheme, there is nothing magic or extraordinary about it, but if the SEO work is done well, then success is more than likely, if not virtually assured.  I like that about SEO, we can work harder at it than others do, and see success for our efforts. And as for all the other tortoises out there, I know you will like that about SEO too.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/seo-tortoise-forget-hare/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/verify-site-alexa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=verify-site-alexa http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/verify-site-alexa/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:20:59 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=15773 One of the most important parts of SEO is being listed in the major directories. Alexa is one of the major directories in which you need to be listed.

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]]> One of the most important parts of SEO is being listed in the major directories. Alexa is one of the major directories in which you need to be listed.

If you’ve never heard of Alexa before, it’s a website, owned by Amazon, which helps website owners to know their “true place on the web”. Every site on the web is given an Alexa Ranking, 1 being the highest Alexa ranking a website can achieve. These Alexa rankings are essentially a ranking of the amount of traffic that a website receives, so a 1 ranking means the busiest site on the internet, a 2 ranking is the second busiest site, etc.

All of this ranking is done through a toolbar, which is installed by millions of visitors around the world, and as each visitor using that toolbar visits your site, the toolbar reports home to Alexa that they have visited, and that helps determine your ranking.

With millions of sites in your database, it’s possible for Alexa to compare your website with others. The right information makes all the difference. Stay informed with the Alexa Site Audit. and you will be able to compare your website with millions of other sites out there.

Most importantly, every website owner should sign up with Alexa to at least “Claim Their Site”. This is Alexa’s way of knowing that you are the owner of the site, and with a free membership through this link. They will allow you to manage some of the basic information on your website, and tell the world how to get in touch with you.

Millions of users use the site to find related sites, so taking 5 minutes to verify your information with them is important.

The first thing you will need to to is verify that you are the owner of your site. Alexa will ask you to enter your URL, and then present you with a verification code.  Simply copy that code into your site’s header and follow the online instructions.

Next, you’ll be asked to update your site information. You’ll see a screen that looks similar to this (click the image to enlarge):

Simply enter your information, click the blue button and you’re done.

Some WordPress plugins, like the “WordPress SEO by Yoast” plugin will help you to enter the information in your header so that there is no need to have your web designer do this for you.

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/verify-site-alexa/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/understanding-content-facebook/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=understanding-content-facebook http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/understanding-content-facebook/#comments Fri, 17 Feb 2012 20:06:14 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=16374 Ever wonder why you can have 548 friends on Facebook, yet only 15-20 show up in your news feed? It’s not that those other friends have stopped using Facebook; chances are they’re still there. It’s just that they aren’t showing up in your news feed. For businesses, back in the day when you posted a ...

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]]> Ever wonder why you can have 548 friends on Facebook, yet only 15-20 show up in your news feed? It’s not that those other friends have stopped using Facebook; chances are they’re still there. It’s just that they aren’t showing up in your news feed.

For businesses, back in the day when you posted a status update on your Facebook Fanpage your fans saw it in their news feed.  Yes, it was that easy. Now…sorry to say for many Facebook Fan page owners we now must compete and over come the Facebook EdgeRank formula.

Facebook EdgeRank is the sum of each Edge’s Affinity x Weight x Time Decay.

An Edge can range from Creating a Post to Sharing a Post. As an object within Facebook receives interactions it becomes more likely to show up in the news feed.

This relatively straight forward algorithm can lead to complicated results.

It determines which of your connections is the most important to you and thus appears most frequently, and which kinds of content should appear higher than others. For anyone seeking to market a product or service on Facebook it’s essential you understand how this algorithm works.

Many executives take a quick look at their fan count and cite that as their reason for success or failure. In reality, creating engagement (shares, comments, and likes) is much more important as it will create greater exposure and higher click through rates.

However, a typical post created by a page only reaches about 17% of their fans. Multiple Posts a day can help increase this number for the total each day.

In order to understand how this works, we must first understand the terminology:

Affinity

Affinity is a score based on the proximity or how “friendly” you are with someone. You’ve probably seen this in action. Spy on an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, snoop on their profile and suddenly they’re in your news feed all the time.

Comment on someone’s photos and you’ll find them appearing in your feed more often.  This is affinity in action. You’ve sent a proactive signal that you have a ‘closeness’ to that individual or organization. The algorithm acknowledges this and begins to order the results in your news feed accordingly.

Edge Weight

Edge Weight is a basic formula which decides that certain pieces of content are more likely to appear in news feeds than others. Photos are more important than someone “liking” a business profile, etc.

There’s no definitive sequence of Edge Weight, but there are certain objects which acquire more EdgeRank than others. This can imply that they tend to have a higher Edge Weight than other types of content.

The three types of content which are widely understood to have the highest Edge Weight are Videos, Photos, and Links. Knowing that these are have the heaviest weighting should alter the way you communicate using Facebook. You should try and incorporate objects with high weight scores into any announcements that you want to reach as many of your followers as possible.

Recency

The final element of the EdgeRank is related to recency, which is actually known as time decay. For example, regardless of how much the EdgeRank is based on Affinity and Weight, if it’s old news it becomes less likely to appear. This is different to Twitter which relies only on chronological order;

Facebook is still very reliant on the temporal nature of content, which is again pretty self-evident. Put simply, recency is that something newer is more likely to appear than something older.

Things you can do to increase your EdgeRank

Now if you’re a regular user of Facebook, many of these ideas behind EdgeRank are obvious, but with a good appreciation and understanding of how EdgeRank works you will begin to make more intelligent decisions in your Facebook marketing campaign.

First of all, you want to do all you can to increase the affinity between your followers and you ahead of the announcement. Perhaps you could start a debate on one of your status updates which lots of your followers contribute to.

Not only will the number of comments increase the likelihood of that particular item appearing in the news feed , but also anyone who has made a contribution will have increased their affinity to you.

The more important the ‘object’ is, the higher the possibility of it being seen in the News Feed. Videos, photos, and links are considered the heaviest forms of edge. Apparently, a video post has a greater chance to be seen in the News Feed than a simple “like”. Always remember that friend’s photos are more significant to “like” rather than a business profile.

You want to post objects that will encourage interaction through comments.  Just simply saying, ‘I’m tired’ does not encourage interaction but, saying ‘Who else has had an exhausting week and tell me why?’ creates a ‘buzz’ to answer and engage with that ‘object’.

You can even ask controversial questions or even post a controversial picture. People love to express their point of views and opinions.  Bottom line is, this makes your update engaging and now your Facebook EdgeRank will be increasing with that user.

Post links because the link requires an action, click to get to the other side.  You can also share good content from other resources too.  Don’t just post the link, be sure to tell why you are posting the link and why your fans or friends should check it out.  This will increase the engagement on that particular post.

Don’t be afraid to ask for your fans to share or to click ‘like’ especially if you are just starting out. Just know it takes some time for a page to gain momentum but if you stay consistent you will speed up the process.

Facebook EdgeRank basically comes down to content.  You want to publish content that encourages engagement, through the users commenting, sharing and liking in order to have a killer Facebook Marketing system in place.

 

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/facebook-tips-from-the-guru/understanding-content-facebook/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/show-search-results/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=show-search-results http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/show-search-results/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:21:18 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1563 Why SEO? “Build it and they will come” may be an effective strategy for a Kevin Costner movie, but it won’t work in the jungle of today’s web. Mining the rich opportunities available to companies requires the right tools and techniques. Without those tools, you risk being eaten alive by your better-equipped competitors. Like an ...

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]]> Why SEO?

“Build it and they will come” may be an effective strategy for a Kevin Costner movie, but it won’t work in the jungle of today’s web. Mining the rich opportunities available to companies requires the right tools and techniques. Without those tools, you risk being eaten alive by your better-equipped competitors.

Like an intrepid explorer in the wild, the person searching for something in the jungle of the Internet needs a map and good directions. A properly built website and a well-designed search-engine strategy are the map and directions that will lead new customers to your website.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the practice of directing the right people to your website, at the moment when they are looking for what you’re selling. By optimizing your site’s visibility to search engines, you’re putting your business on the Internet map, and outlining quick, easy routes to your site.

Americans increasingly rely on the Internet to help them make buying decisions. According to a consumer study by media advisory firm BIA/Kelsey, 97 percent of consumers use the Internet to research local products and services.

Making your website visible to search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo is critical. If these search engines can’t find you, your prospects probably won’t find you, either.

SEO is not one thing, it’s many things

Optimizing your site for search engines starts by learning how the engines determine whether a specific web page is relevant to someone’s search.

A search engine looks for different cues on a web page to determine what it’s about. These cues must be designed into the page layout, and written into the page’s code and text.

The core concepts of SEO can be boiled down to the three Cs: content, code and credibility.

• Content must be unique, valuable to readers and filled with the words that your prospective customers are most likely to use when they search for your offerings.
• Code must be clean so it doesn’t impede search engines as they scan your site’s content. At a very high level, this includes the type, placement and amount of code.
• Credibility is conveyed by a number of factors, including:
  • How long your site has been on the web
  • How many relevant, credible sites link to your site
  • Your site’s PageRank, a value that Google assigns to convey how authoritative a site is

Ideally, you should optimize your site for search engines from the very first planning stages. But even if your site is already up and running, you can still optimize by using best SEO practices.

Top Search Engines

Google dominates the search market. In the first half of 2010, Google was used for more than 71 percent of Internet searches in the United States, and more than 80 percent of global searches.

Source: Hitwise.com

Though other search engines are well known – Yahoo and Bing together account for almost 25 percent of U.S. searches – it’s Google’s guidelines and recommendations that are taken most seriously within the search industry. Best practices for Google are typically the best practices for all search engines.

SEO: Cost effective marketing

Properly done, SEO can cost less – and deliver better results – than any other form of online marketing. Although the initial costs of hiring an SEO agency or purchasing a content management system may seem high, the long-term payoff can be significantly higher. That’s because unlike ads, which are often perceived as an interruption of someone’s activity, search engine results are delivered to people exactly when they are actively looking for something they need or want.

SEO offers another important benefit: accountability. Using the right tools, it’s easy to track how well a given keyword performs in attracting searchers to your website and getting them to buy or opt in to a desired activity. That makes it much easier to determine return on investment and make decisions about how to spend precious marketing dollars.

You can dramatically lower your cost per lead when you employ good SEO practices. By researching and targeting the most effective keywords and keyword phrases for your audience, you can reach precisely the people you want to reach, at the moment when they are preparing to make a buying decision. That’s a much more efficient strategy than broadcast advertising, whether on the web or by traditional means.

 

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]]> http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/search-engines-seo/show-search-results/feed/ 0 http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/easily-build-promote-brand-online/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=easily-build-promote-brand-online http://moonviper.com/tips-from-the-guru/easily-build-promote-brand-online/#comments Sun, 20 Jun 2010 14:28:04 +0000 eric@moonviper.com http://moonviper.com/?p=1352 It’s official: Business is happening online… and you need to be there! Getting started can be a little overwhelming so in this Tuesday Tip we’re sharing a few easy ways that you should build and promote your brand and business using free online tools. Establish a social media presence. In addition to a MerchantCircle listing ...

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]]> It’s official: Business is happening online… and you need to be there!

Getting started can be a little overwhelming so in this Tuesday Tip we’re sharing a few easy ways that you should build and promote your brand and business using free online tools.

Establish a social media presence. In addition to a MerchantCircle listing page, you should also set up Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook accounts. Talk to customers, create discussions, connect to other merchants. The opportunity to network and be where your customers are is invaluable!

Be consistent- Respond to feedback. Blog. Send updates and newsletters. Stay in touch with customers to identify wants and needs. But do it regularly. Don’t pull a Houdini on your followers! Make sure they know that you’re available.

Be Human- Use real pictures. Tell your story. Introduce your hard-working team.  Have a strong voice and be transparent. If you’re working on something talk about it. If you made a mistake, fess up. Being honest builds trust. So be real!

Pay attention- Listen to customer feedback. Set Google alerts for your business and topics specific to your business. Use your online channels to ask questions and offer solutions. And it doesn’t hurt to check in on your competitors. Read Yelp reviews for your business and businesses like yours. Learn what your customers like and don’t like.

Return the favor- If you’re sending our surveys, fill ‘em out when they land in your inbox. (Hint: Survey monkey is a great tool for that!) Posting questions? Answer some. Respond in forums. Fan local business pages on Facebook, accept Merchant invites, and don’t be afraid to click that Re-Tweet button on Twitter.

Growing your business and building your brand will take some time- but keep it up! You’ll be a social media star before you know it!

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