Social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook, and even Twitter, can be great places to promote your website or blog.
Start by creating a group or groups, centered around your niche market and begin networking with other users who have the same interest in your niche topic.
FaceBook allows you to create a business or “fan” page that can be used to share and post information to promote your business website.
You can use your fan page to share information such as your hours of operation, location, etc. It can function as a marketing tool that can generate leads for and promote your business.
Twitter’s founders don’t actually classify their web site as a social networking site, but anyone using Twitter can tell you in a hurry that it definitely falls into that category.
Twitter is actually more like a micro blog; and although many people consider Twitter and Tweeting to be a total waste of time, if you learn how to use it properly, it can be a valuable sales asset and traffic generating business tool.
Just like anything else, social networking sites can be great promotion tools. But to get the best results, you need to learn how to use them effectively.
It will require a bit of testing and experimentation on your part to determine what works best for you. But when you DO get the right formula; you’ll be glad you “wasted your time” playing around with social networking sites.
We realize that social networking sites aren’t for everyone and that they’re not absolutely necessary to run a successful website or blog, but using them to promote your web sites can definitely make your life run a lot smoother.
It’s important to understand the benefits of Twittering, and that Twitter can be used for much more than just personal updates.
With the introduction of microblogging to the Internet, Twitter has reduced the time it takes to market content from hours, that it used to take from using previous forms of communication; to minutes and even seconds, through the use of Twitter Tweets.
Although many users like to put in cat updates, or tell everyone what they’re doing in the bathroom at 2:00 in the morning; Twitter has many more useful purposes than that.
Initially blogs used to have the same stigma attached to them; but with microblogging, the world suddenly woke up and almost immedately understood what the power of simple publishing, combined with citizen journalism could accomplish.
Twitter is a place where you can freely accomplish many things.
The benefits of Twittering allow you to:
- Promote yourself
- Promote your business
- Promote others (affiliates)
- Get advise on almost anything
- Run polls to find a consensus
- Acquire human resources
- Immediately broadcast important breaking news
- Socialize
- And the list goes on ….
Microblogging has become so widespread, that if you participate in any social media community these days; people probably already know that you’re also on Twitter.
While Twitter doesn’t in itself have the best methods of finding people; you can always Twitter to see who your friends are following, or just join the conversation without being too intrusive, and simply ask.
Don’t be bashful, join in and make your presence known.
When you get involved with the community, jump in and share your expertise. See what people are talking about, ask questions and give good answers when you have them.
Know the difference between pushing and pulling. For instance, when you post a link to your latest blog post to Twitter, you are making a push, or an action to grab the reader. Direct marketers have mastered the technique of pushing and have developed it into an art form.
Although some of your readers can ignore your posts; the people that appreciate your posts will immediately check you out.
On the other hand, RSS is a pull. Users generally check RSS at their own speed, and it usually takes much more time to get any “buzz” going around your content.
Read the Tweets that are already out there.
One of the benefits of Twittering is that there’s a lot of valuable information from a lot of smart individuals on Twitter, that you can use for yourself and your business, if you just take the time.
This is how to get automatic Tweets on your Twitter page, when you get too busy or overwhelmed to do it yourself.
Twitter Feed, is a simple free tool you can use to pull in RSS feeds from your blogs, article sites, or any other site that has an RSS feed you want to hook up with.
You can use Twitter Feed with only your own blogs, or in conjunction with your friend’s blogs and other quality sites that you would like to use to update your blog.
This works great for people who are often too busy to post to their own blogs on a regular basis.
First do a Google search for Twitter Feed, go to their website, and sign up for your free account by providing your email address and creating your password.
- You will then be directed to the second step where you create your feed for your blog.
Here is where you name your feed, and insert the RSS feed URL for your website.
The URL of your feed will depend on which blogging platform is used, but you can usually find it by clicking on a button or icon labeled “RSS”, “Atom”, “Syndicate”, or something similar or by clicking on the icon located in the right hand side of your browser address bar.
If you still have trouble finding it, you can always check the documentation of the blogging platform software that you are using. This should tell you how to find the feed URL.
You can click on the advanced settings to further customize how you want your feed sent.
- Next you move to step two where you configure your publishing services.
Here you can get automatic Tweets on your Twitter page, Laconia, Ping.fm, Hellotxt, or Facebook by just clicking on each service and either joining, or activating and authenticating your existing subscription.
That’s all the work you need to do to finish your feed and to get automatic Tweets on your Twitter page.
You can create all the additional feeds you like by signing into your dashboard and following the above procedure.
This is probably one of the easiest ways to get automatic Tweets on your Twitter page, Facebook, and your other publishing services.
You know that Twitter is good for business, when both Google, and Bing, begin to index Tweets in the search engine results.
Although we’re not sure how they are going to accomplish it; last week, both Google and Bing, made their announcements to that effect.
If you need to be convinced that Twitter is good for business, just go to some of the “big boys” websites to confirm my opinion.
Twitter has been steadily growing in importance, attracting more and more followers every day.
Since so many consumers are now using social media sites like Twitter, more and more savvy internet marketers have noticed that online merchants, are also testing the waters, and experimenting with Twitter.
To date, most merchants still do not seem to be paying much attention to Twitter, or to the other social media sites; however, with Google and Bing’s announcement, things are about to change!
If you’re not currently on a social website like Twitter, your competition may already be out gunning you.
You should consider using Twitter to promote your brand, increase your visibility, and maximize your earnings.
It’s obvious that Twitter is good for business, when e commerce merchants like Amazon, Sears, and Walmart, start using accounts dedicated to Twitter.
This should tell you something.
Some merchants like Amazon, use multiple accounts to manage different sectors of their business, while others like Sears, use only one interactive account.
If you decide to experiment with Twitter, it’s important for you to explain to your customers, exactly how you operate.
You should clarify how many accounts you have; and what type of information you provide on each account.
This clears up any confusion your followers might have, and gives them up to date information on your products, or services.
Keep your customers happy, and give them Tweets with the information they are looking for.
Twitter is good for business; take advantage of it, and use it wisely!
There is a plethora of free home based internet marketing information available online that focuses on keyword research which is essential if you intend on improving your Search Engine Optimization or paid search advertising.
People on the Internet search for specific content, products or services using a variety of methods; all of which utilize keywords and keyword phrases in some manner.
Since creating an extensive list of keywords can be quite a task, we need all the help we can get to make the job easier.
Fortunately, there are plenty of good keyword research tools available on the web that make life easier for Internet marketers and many of them don’t cost you a dime unless in certain cases you decide to upgrade to a “premium” product.
The following list of research tools is a small sample of what is available online at no cost:
Google AdWords Keyword Tool is by far the most popular tool in this list and is placed first for this reason. It allows users to enter a keyword from their market niche and look for exact terms or phrases that contain them, when using advanced filters and options.
Wordtracker’s Keyword Questions Tool allows users to enter a keyword or keyword phrase to generate additional relevant keywords.
The majority of Wordtracker tools are free to use. They create an extensive list of keywords so users can fine tune their keywords and get additional data about the popularity and relevance of certain topics within their market niche.
Trellian’s Keyword Discovery Tool allows users to enter a seed keyword in the Discovery tool. It then generates a list of the top 100 keywords applicable to the chosen keyword.
Open Site Explorer is a service from SEOmoz that is perfect for researching keywords that your competitor’s are using. Simply enter the URL to start searching.
Bing Ads Intelligence is a powerful PPC keyword research tool that allows users to build and expand on their keyword lists using the Excel interface. Users can discover new keyword ideas by entering either their website URL or a list of keywords. A Bing Ads account is required before you can use Bing Ads Intelligence.
SEOquake is a popular, handy analytic seo-tool for Firefox, Chrome and Opera web browsers that helps users find keyword data based on keyword density “on the fly”. SEOquake also obtains information on a wide range of parameters such as page rank, Google index, Alexa, etc. from any website as you surf the Internet.
KGen which is short for Keyword Generator is another nice Firefox add on that scans the Web page the user is on to find the keywords used. KGen is great for determining keyword density research of your competitors.
Alexa allows users to see search engine queries from their competitors as well as the percentage of traffic that those search terms actually bring to their sites.
SEMRush allows users to get data on the top 10 keywords that your competitors are getting traffic from on both paid and organic searches. Just enter the URL of the competitor’s site to start your search.
The SEO Book Keyword List Generator takes a little time to get used to but when you enter keywords, keyword phrases or modifiers separated by commas in each box, it generates a list of keywords results based on combining your words. Select your desired keyword match type and hit the Generate button. A keyword “cleanup” tool is also available.
The SEO Book Keyword Research Tool powered by Wordtracker, generates a list of related search terms for a user’s query and also provides links to keyword suggestion tools from the major search engines however, you must register for a free account in order to use the tools.
The Moz Tools and Resources site provides users with tools to help you optimize your local business listings, track your social media performance, conduct link research, access SEO metrics for any page, and more. Their Term Extractor allows users to enter a competitor’s URL to receive search phrases that the site is targeting.
KeywordSpy searches out the keywords that your competitors are using in their advertising campaigns. This includes AdWords, the Bing Adcenter and Yahoo Search Marketing. Just enter your competitor’s URL.
WordStream’s Keyword Tool provides users with free keyword suggestions for the target search terms entered into the Keyword Tool however, you will need to provide your email address to receive the full list of suggested terms.
WooRank is a nifty website review tool that provides a complete dissection of your website. It shows the top keywords, the site ranking, competitor’s sites, and an in depth analysis with recommendations for improvements of the site URL that is queried.
Soovle is the fastest keyword suggestion tool we have encountered to date. It provides an almost immediate simultaneous response from Answers.com, Google, Bing, Amazon, Yahoo, Wikipedia and YouTube. You have got to try this one.
Google Trends is another powerful tool that allows users compare multiple search terms by volume when they are separated by commas.
UberSuggest is another free keyword suggestion tool that uses Google Suggest and other suggest services. It takes your base keyword and adds a letter or number next to it for probable search combinations.
RANKS.NL is a Keyword Combinations tool designed to help you expand and manage your keyword lists for use in PPC campaigns. This online tool has a phenomenal number of variations and different combinations you can use for keywords and keyword phrases.
All the above keyword research tools are free for the asking and can provide Internet marketers a great deal of assistance creating an extensive list of keywords.
Easily locating links is important to the successful navigation of every website.
One of the main goals of website usability, specifically navigation, is the correct placement of internal links so readers can easily locate their position on your website or blog.
Without any links on your website, there would be no ability for readers to navigate and view other topics on your site.
For all practical purposes, your site would be a single web page, i.e. a dead site.
Webmasters will include links into every page of a website for cross referencing articles, changing topics, advertising and for basic navigation to whatever area of the site or other sites they want their viewers to visit.
Links are as vital to your website and are just as important as your content.
Without them, it is not possible for visitors to your site to connect to any other document on your website or the web.
There are two types of links on a website.
Internal, for navigating within your website and external for navigating to other sites on the internet.
Internal Links:
Internal links function like tabs in a book. Their main purpose is to connect other pages of your website together.
A book has an index for readers to navigate through it’s pages. Like a book, your website also contains separate pages to navigate through. These are called web pages.
The home page of your website functions like a book’s index. Here your readers can choose which web “page” they want to look at by simply clicking on an internal link or tab.
External Links:
An external link connects a web page from your website to some other website’s web page on the internet.
It’s only function is to direct the reader to another outside “book” page or in the case of the Internet, to another website web page.
Without any external links, your website would be more or less isolated.
No Internet purchases could take place, no electronic billings could occur and no commerce or communication could exist.
Webmasters, since the inception of the internet, have been using a relatively standardized method of locating internal navigation links on web pages.
Internal links are almost always placed either in the left hand column or at the top of each web page, just below the header.
Research through the years has shown that these are the first areas on a web page that are immediately viewed by visitors. Our eyes naturally go to these areas when we view a fresh web page.
Because these are the first places on a web page that your visitors check, Webmasters naturally designed web pages to prominently place their links in these areas and immediately capture the attention of their audience.
Internal links are occasionally placed at the bottom of a web page, however they are usually not as prominent. This is done primarily to avoid design redundancy or as an alternate, backup link.
External links are also commonly placed in the right hand margins of some web designs and even in the content of the web page.
Most webmasters place external links in the content of web pages primarily for explanatory purposes, but also for advertising and as a reference to other outside web information.
Many webmasters believe that because our reading is performed from left to right, the right side of the web page should be allocated to external website links.
Regardless, easily locating links on the web page is standardized relative to these explanations.
The one exception is Google AdSense and other similar text advertisements where external links are often allocated to the center and/or right side of web pages.
Based on these general practices, easily locating links on your website should not be a problem for novice webmasters however, these are simply guidelines and not rules chiseled in granite for website designers.
Easily locating links is extremely important on your website however, so long as navigation is not impeded, deviations from so called “standard website design” can often create an interesting and unique surfing experience for your visitors.
As we all know paying attention to small details is important to all businesses, but it is critical to successful online drop shipping.
Online Drop Shipping
Today, thousands of drop shippers make high paying net salaries from the comfort of their homes.
The most successful drop shippers understand that they are not selling a product, they are simply selling detailed information about a product.
It is important to understand that there is a difference.
Merchants must evaluate their suppliers on the basis of price, customer service, and their shipping policies.
What should also be considered is the quality of the merchant’s product data that they provide you as a drop shipper, and how frequently the supplier updates that data.
Successful online drop shipping mandates that close attention be paid to the accuracy and quality of the product information that is being sold.
Although many suppliers frequently sell the same product lines, the product data they provide to their shippers varies from supplier to supplier.
Although this may seem inconsequential to you as a drop shipper, it is important that close attention is paid to small details.
For example: Suppliers often include outdated or irrelevant categories with information they provide about a product.
Product data that is listed in one supplier’s paper catalog may not be relevant and therefore should not be included with the drop shipping information.
In addition, suppliers often have identical SKUs (Shop Keeping Units) for entirely different products.
Because most successful online drop shipping entrepreneurs use multiple suppliers, bulk uploading of identical SKUs from different suppliers can obviously cause some serious problems with an order.
This is only one of many examples where details are essential to successful online drop shipping.
Relevant data for one product is often easily overwritten with data from a totally different product when you bulk upload identical SKUs from several suppliers.
For the above example, the problem can easily be solved by simply adding a unique prefix or suffix to identical Shop Keeping Units before the data is uploaded.
Adding unique prefixes or suffixes to identical SKUs is the easiest way to distinguish between suppliers who use the same SKU.
Another important detail that can be critical to successful online drop shipping, is understanding the data listings you get from your suppliers.
Distinguishing between active, out of stock and all other items can be a problem with different suppliers.
If the stock list supplied by your dropshipper is only limited to active items, they may have removed the out of stock or inactive items that are skipped when you re-import (refresh) the data.
Because attention to details is so essential to successful online drop shipping, it is important that the formatting of all the data provided by each supplier remains coherent.
If it is not, you could encounter errors with weight, price, availability, UPC codes, etc. of the available product database.
By paying close attention to the quality of the data your suppliers provide you before you provide it to potential customers, you can minimize these potential issues.
Product weights, item descriptions, the quality of images, etc. are all important and even when your supplier does provide you with quality data, you should always review the product information before uploading it to your online store.
When you finally transfer product data to your online store, make sure the data appears in it’s proper category or location with no missing values.
Paying attention to details is important to every business, but it is critical to successful online drop shipping.
