They replied that their philosophy was "more or less throwing all manner of things at the wall and see what sticks." I've heard this philosophy before. Everyone has a right to their own methods but my thought is that this only seems like so much wasted energy -for so few results.

It is certainly no replacement for building solid SEO skills and gaining understanding.

Remember:
The key here is that everyone has their own personal philosophy.

That is really the key to where it all starts. We each have the ability to "choose" what we believe. Regardless of whatever your
belief or personal philosophy on SEO is, we each have the power to choose.

With all of the getting of new tools, new e-books, new training, new new counsel – the single most important thing to "get" is to "get solid understanding." True understanding tones your personal philosophy.

And why is that important to remember?

Your own personal philosophy about SEO, produces the attitude you have. The attitude you have leads to which type of activities you take part in. Those activities you take part in, then lead to the final results you achieve. The results you achieve are what really contribute to produce the current lifestyle in which you live.

If you need help to tune up your SEO skills, I suggest you check out the SEO Roadmap. This may just be the training & help you need to get your site to the top!

Almost every social networking site offers a feature called a "profile" that allows members to include their picture, a biography, live links to their websites and other detailed information. Most of us have multiple online profiles that are empty or only partially completed. It is this profile that helps other users decide if they want to work with you. Another perk of online profiles is that the live links pointing to your website may impact your search engine ranking.

It is very important that you think of these profiles as your own "Public Relations Department or Media Room", specifically designed to sell you and your business. Imagine that you only have a few seconds to sell a new prospect on why they should want to get to know you and possibly do business with you. What is said and offered during these few seconds can make all the difference in the world. This is EXACTLY why your online profiles need to be completed to capture the attention of anyone who visits these sites.

Let's look at the different aspects of social networking profiles and what information and content you should include to ensure that you get the maximum results. The following information may or may not be included in every profile, but the majority of it is standard:

Your Picture – Your photo is the first thing people will see upon visiting your profile or when reading your posts. How does it represent you? Wearing a tank top while giving the peace sign with a beer in your hand is not the way to impress potential clients. If you are looking for clients, then professionalism is a must. You can show SOME personality in your photograph but try to strive for conservative whenever possible.

Your Biography – This is your chance to tell others more about you, such as interesting aspects of your life and what makes you, YOU. Take your time here, as this area is the equivalent of sitting down with a prospect and telling them exactly why they should do business with you. Include specifics about your expertise, your business, how you have helped others and even your personal philosophies. You want others to be excited about connecting with you and this is YOUR time to shine.

Links – Make sure to include helpful links in order to allow others to find you online. A link to your website, your blog and additional information about your business is crucial. However, some people make the mistake of including each and every link that points to a profile of theirs online. If you have 25 social networking memberships, it is NOT advisable to include them all here. A good idea would be to vary these links on every website where you have a profile.

Contact Information – You have to include contact information if you want people to have the ability to contact you. Do not try to hide at this point. Many people have the wrong opinion that they should NOT put contact information in their profile, assuming that people contacting you for business purposes is a bad thing. Would you include your contact information in a yellow pages ad? Then why not provide it online? Please only include information you want to be made public.

Interests – Do you like to play golf, workout, volunteer or build model airplanes? You might be surprised that many people would be interested in connecting with you just based upon similar hobbies and interests. This connection can lead to a deepening friendship that may lead to business and even referrals down the road.

Education – While some people may or may not care about your schooling, including specifics about your education can do two things to help you add to the number of responses. First of all, those who went to school where you did may want to connect. Secondly, by offering details about your education, it will help others to see your experience and expertise in various areas.

Favorite Movies or Books – While you may not see the correlation between your favorite movie and a potential new client, trust me, it exists. Just like much of the information above, the information in your profile is designed to help you connect with potential clients and to build business relationships. Sometimes, simply sharing your favorite movie can be the start of a beautiful business relationship.

Testimonials from Past Clients – One of the best ways to demonstrate your ability to help others is by including testimonials from past or current satisfied clients. These testimonials will help others to get a snapshot of some of the work you have done in the past and help to build a foundation of a great business relationship.

Looking at the líst above, there is a lot of information that should be included in each and every social networking profile. Because of this, many people decide to skimp and their profile winds up being about 3 or 4 sentences long. This is a mistake. It is better to leave a profile blank than to create such a lackluster one. If you need inspiration, visit some of the most popular social networking sites and read a few profiles to get some idea of how to get started.

If filling out multiple social networking profiles is too much for your busy day, you might look at getting help from a virtual assistant. Many of them have experience in this area and can create a compelling COMPLETE profile that will best represent you AND your business. We live in a world of social networking … making it a part of your business marketing simply makes sense. Take the time to do it right or hire someone who can do it for you.

About The Author: Bonnie Jo Davis creates and manages social networking strategies for her clients. She is a published author, expert in article marketing, and feels comfortable working in a virtual environment. For more information on how she might help you get the most out of your social networking efforts, visit http://www.marketing-assistant.com . If you need help marketing your local brick and mortar business visit http://www.local-map-listings.com .

by Bonnie Jo Davis

Article Source: AfroArticles.com – Article Marketing Directory

Facebook users upload 250 million photos daily to their pages and Like 2.7 billion times each day. There are 37 million pages with 10 Likes or more with an average time per visit of 20 minutes per page. How can you get some of those users to your website?

There is a two-step approach to using Facebook to promote your website. The first step is to get as many Fans as possible to visit your Like page and give it a "Like." Second, as the number of Likes builds, you start sending as many of those Fans as you can to your website. This whole process requires you to have a Facebook Like page. There are several articles on this topic so I won't be discussing it here.

50/50 Rule

The first method is called the 50/50 rule. You will spend 50% of your time on your own Like page filling it with quality content relative to your niche. The other 50% of your time will be spent on other Like pages that are in your niche; you'll need to spend at least 30 minutes each day on this method. Facebook is social so you need to interact with people, get involved in discussions, and ask questions that encourage a response. Post videos, articles, pictures, and links to your page and other pages. Do not sell on your Like page or any other Like pages; use your website for selling. You're trying to get Likes and earn credibility with your Fans in an attempt to get them to sign up to your e-mail list – then sell to your e-mail list.

Create a Welcome Page

A welcome page is an application that you create on the Facebook Developers site. It's basically another page added to your Like page. It's also known as a landing page. The welcome page can and should include your e-mail list opt-in form. If you use video this is a great place to include one about your site. The welcome page can be set to be the fist page a NEW visitor sees when visiting your Facebook Like page – this is a very powerful feature. While your visitor is on the welcome page you can encourage them to Like your page and even sign your opt-in form.

Edgerank

Did you know that not all of the content you post to your wall will get posted to your Fans News Feed? This is because Facebook wants quality, engaging content to ensure social interaction. Edgerank is used to ensure that quality. Edgerank determines what content will appear in the News Feed. Edge refers to any content that appears in a News Feed.

There are three factors to consider with Edgerank:

1. The affinity score. Shows how often you and your Fans have interacted.
2. Weight. This shows whether your content has been Shared, Commented on, or Liked.
3. Time Decay. The older the content the less important it becomes. To make sure your content always gets seen you need to post often – once a day and encourage people to respond to your content.

Add a Like Button

Adding a Like button to your website is another great method to promote your site. This small button will put the power of Facebook right on your website. Every time a visitor "Likes" your website all their Friends will get a notification saying that your site has been Liked. If the visitor has many Friends, this process will compound resulting in hundreds or thousands of Likes.

The main point to remember about Facebook is you need to be interactive and engaging with other people. Post good quality and relevant content on a daily basis and Facebook will reward you with more traffic to your site than you thought possible. I have a few more methods that I could explain but this article is getting long. Look for more articles on this topic in the days to come.

Article by Mike Bliss. For how to videos on creating a Like page, a welcome page and adding a Like button to your website visit http://www.internetincomeconnection.com/videos.htm. On Facebook see: http://www.facebook.com/mikeblissonlinepage
This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

But too many times I see companies plastering up a Facebook page just because everybody else is doing it. Or, they shoot out a few tweets and after a few days or weeks give up because no one is paying attention.

Is social media the right tool for your business? Here are some guidelines to help you use social media as a strategic marketing tool:

1. Have a purpose. Like any other marketing strategy, social media should be a tool that helps you meet a goal. You wouldn't just go out and start buying ads without knowing what you want to accomplish, so don't do it with social media. It might not cost anything to start a Facebook page, but there is a cost in time and that's also a valuable resource.

2. Don't sell. Social media is social. People use it to relate to one another and just like you wouldn't walk into a party and start pitching your wares, you shouldn't hard-sell on social media, either. There are ways to get people talking about your products or services, but you have to tread softly or risk losing your audience.

3. Be prepared to invest time and effort into your social media marketing. You will need to understand your target audience and how best to approach them. You need to understand what interests them, and know what it is you have to say that is valuable to that audience. Don't post or tweet just to do it – make sure you have something to say or you will quickly be dropped by your readers.

4. Understand social media and use it yourself. There is no better way to understand Yelp, Chime In, Twitter, etc. than to participate and use them regularly.

5. Tie your efforts together and integrate them with your overall marketing strategy. You should not be doing something completely different online than you are doing offline. Avoid the split personality – don't try to be hip and cool online if you are a traditional, conservative business offline. You risk damaging your brand and alienating online audiences who can see right through that.

6. Keep up with the changes. New sites are emerging all the time. Auction sites, gaming sites, photo sharing and music sharing – they are all expanding their focus to include building communities. Some of those communities are bound to include potential customers.

7. If you don't have time to do it yourself, find someone who can. Often companies have younger employees who are well versed in social media and could, with guidelines, represent the company. There are many agencies that will help you with this.

8. Have guidelines. This ties in with #1 because your guidelines will be driven by your purpose. Establish guidelines for anyone posting on behalf of the company about what they can and cannot say. If you don't want to put pricing on social media, say so. Be clear about what employees can post on their personal sites, as well.

9. Monitor constantly. Many experts in the field recommend that you start your social media adventure by listening first. Find out what your customers and others might be saying about you online. Once you are active in social media, be sure to set up Google Alerts and other tracking to monitor what is being said.

10. React but don't overreact. If you see something posted about your company online that you don't like, feel free to respond. But don't get overly emotional about it, and don't fire back. Respond with basic facts and a real desire to solve the customer's problems – that will gain you a lot of credibility from anyone else who sees the exchange. And remember, one complaint is just one complaint, so don't overreact.

11. Enjoy it. This is a new way to engage your customers and draw in new customers. People of every age are participating in social media, from teenagers to grandmothers, and it is a growing part of our culture. As you bring your business into the discussion, you may find raving fans who will provide recommendations for you.

12. Online marketíng is a tool – it doesn't replace your other marketing efforts. Sure, a lot of what used to be advertised in print media is now online. But there is still an important role for all of the other marketing tools including public relations, direct m@il and advertising. Like your toolbox, each tool has a different purpose and you wouldn't use a hammer to sand wood. Online (or inbound) marketing is a great resource that is very cost effective for businesses, but it must be a part of the larger marketing strategy or it will fail.

About The Author
Kim Deppe, APR – President, Deppe Communications.

Deppe Communications provides marketing strategy and outsourced marketing services for small and medium sized businesses. Services include social media marketing, SEO, marketing planning, advertising, copywriting, and more.

This is an era where presentation and publicity are must for a business house, if it wishes to transform into a mammoth brand. Survival in the Business world is as tricky as Charles Darwin's theory about 'Survival of the Fittest'. There must be a tinge in your website that drags the readers to your website.

The market has developed this tendency of going where the crowds go. Such a crucial task of pulling a whole community to oneself cannot be tackled by any just-out-of-the-hobby person. One has to have a proper training and expertise that is sure to entice the crowds to one's clients.

SEO has become a complete industry now, with several features like Website Development, Web Designing, Online Reputation Management, Blog Management and Marketing etc. that are sure to raise a company's traffic by a large extent. The professionals provide their clients with the A to Z strategies of Online Business and they charge as per the complexity level of the project.

The world today is tech-savvy and the internet has not just attained the level of a 'requirement' in the domain of everyday life, but it has now become the 'mode of survival'. Every little or big thing that they need is ordered online, be it their pizza or their return tickets. The internet has taken over the lives and there is no doubt that one feels handicapped when the internet does not work. Thus, the best service is the one that is located the most easily.

Google→Keyword→Hit Enter→Search Results→Pick the first one!

This is how the people have trained their minds. The one they strike the first on Google must be the best, which is how they see it. So the easiest way of 'getting caught' is to rise up and reach close to Number 1. And that is what Search Engine Optimization is all about!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mehak_Taneja  Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6990614

Like my website? See what else I can do here.

Your visitors look at images, so consider putting a thought-provoking caption under your images. Makes it sales worthy and clickable, when possible.
 

Today's post is inspired by a true story that happened to me just last week. While browsing around the Internet, I landed on a website that turned out to have a virus embedded within it. My computer downloaded the infected file which was detected by my anti-virus software. A popup window appeared from my AV software notifying me of the infected file and asking whether I wanted to quarantine the file for cleaning.

Before I even had a chance to click the 'Quarantine' button, however, the damage had already been done. My computer immediately began its shutdown procedure leaving me no time to save what I was working on. After shutting down, it attempted to reboot itself, but it was never able to reboot fully. I wasn't even able to start the computer in 'safe' mode. Things were looking pretty bleak.

Ultimately, we had to do a lot of work to my computer to restore it to working capacity. The good news is that we were able to bring the computer back to life. The bad news is that I lost several data files in the process.

As you can see, having anti-virus software is not always enough to prevent damage to your computer or your very important data files – your Word documents, spreadsheets, pictures, mp3s, videos, etc. You need a plan to recover from the damage as quickly as possible should a virus or other type of malware make its way onto your computer. Heck, your laptop/computer could be damaged by any number of factors, not just viruses. (Ever dropped your laptop into a swimming pool? I can guarantee you it doesn't enjoy swimming as much as you do!) For all of those situations, you need a strong, robust backup system in place.

Fortunately for me, I do have a backup system running for times just like this. Because of my backup system, it was a relatively painless process for me to recover the damaged files and get back to work after the virus had been successfully scrubbed and purged from my computer. Would you have been able to do the same?

It happens to the best of us, and if it hasn't happened to you yet, it's only a matter of time before your computer suffers from some type of ailment or dies a painful death … and takes your files with it. More than 60% of small businesses that suffer a data loss end up going bankrupt or out of business which is why it is crucial for you to put a backup system in place as soon as possible. The loss of data, and the lack of a backup system to restore that lost data, can quite literally be the difference between life and death for your business.

There are many different ways you can backup your data. The most traditional method, and the one that saved me, is backing up to an external hard drive. At less than $100 for up to 1TB (terabyte) of data, external hard drives can be a cost-effective way to backup your data. If you go this route, you will want to install backup software that will periodically and automatically backup your files to the drive. Most people will not remember to manually backup their files, so it's important that you have software running that will do it for you. Otherwise, you could find yourself restoring files that are months old rather than hours or days old.

A popular alternative to the external hard drive, and the one that I recommend to the majority of my clients, is cloud storage. Cloud storage means that your backup files will be stored 'in the cloud' on a Web server. The best cloud-based backup systems will automatically update your backup files whenever you're connected to the Internet and will run in the background so your files are being backed up even while you're busily working away on your computer.

The two most popular of these backup services are Mozy and Carbonite. At approximately $225 per year and up, neither service is as affordable as the external hard drive option. However, their ease of use, plus the fact that all of your files are backed up to a server that is miles from your home, make both services well worth the price. One downside to both services, especially Mozy, is the slow speed at which your files will be uploaded to their servers. A full backup of your files, especially if you have many gigabytes of audio and video files, will take several days. Fortunately, you can continue to work on your computer while your files are being uploaded, but it's important to know that the process is not fast.

Regardless of how you choose to backup your system, it's very important to do so. As I was reminded last week, a good backup system is worth its weight in gold.

Author:  Kasey Traeger, The Lady Tech Tamer, is the owner of Web Tech Tamers and your go-to resource for all things web-techy. To receive her free tech tips and web "strategery" info, visit her blog at LadyTechTamer.com.

The following elements also seem to influence whether Google displays Sitelinks or not: (but there is no clear science or guarantee that you can get Google sitelinks by following any formula.)

• Your site needs have a a pretty stable top ranking for the searched keyword. Other Web sites coming up in lower spots don't ever seem to be awarded Sitelinks.

• The number of searches and the number of clicks that your website gets, for that certain keyword phrase seem to also be an influence.

• The number of links that point to your website with the searched keyword as the anchor text seem to influence the creation of Sitelinks.

• Sitelinks only seem to appear for the major primary keyword phrase of a website, but not for all keywords.

• If your website meets these criteria Google might assign Sitelinks to your website for your most important keywords.

• Sitelinks can be a very nice bonus for search results.

•  Google seems to prefer links near the top of a web page.
•  Sitelinks usually only appear for more general search phrases.
• Sitelinks do show up most often on brand related searches.

Which links does Google choose for the Sitelinks?

You'll notice that they always seem to be first level links on any website. In other words, any links not included on your homepage won't be used as Sitelink criteria.

• Unpopular Keywords that are not searched too often don't get Sitelinks.

• Older Web sites seem to be awarded sitelinks more than newer sites.

• It also seems that your website has to get a certain volume of clicks for the searched keyword.

…-Wink-… / Foter

To recap, the big changes we previously touched on are the addition of the large cover photo at the very top of your Page and the conversion of the tall, skinny profile picture into a perfectly square profile picture. We also discussed what types of images can and cannot be used as cover images as well as the new, double-column, wide format for content posting and the transition from "tabs" to "apps" for navigating around your Page. If you'd like to review that post, you'll find it at http://ladytechtamer.com/facebook-introduces-timeline-for-pages.

What are the "smaller" changes that will be coming to your Facebook Page?

New Content Layout

There are now a few new ways that you can categorize and display content on your Wall. The Timeline format has two, side-by-side, equal-width columns for displaying content.

New Content Categories

Within those new columns, you're now able to 'star' and 'pin' your posts as well as change the date of the post or set it as a milestone. Each of these different categorizations will have different implications on how the post will be displayed to your visitors.

Say 'Goodbye' to the Default Landing Tab

Remember how you used to be able to send a new visitor to a specific tab within your Facebook Page? Come March 30, you'll no longer be able to set a default landing tab for your page.

Say 'Hello' to Private Messaging

Another new feature of the Timeline layout is messaging. If you choose to enable messaging on your Facebook Page, you are allowing anyone who visits your page, whether they've 'liked' your Page or not, to send a private message to the Page owner and/or administrator (which is probably you). This can be quite useful, especially if you want your customers or clients to use your Facebook Page as a customer support portal.

There are even more changes coming that I haven't mentioned here. I recorded a video describing all of the changes in detail. To receive that video (it's free!), visit http://ladytechtamer.com/changes-coming-to-facebook-pages-timeline-for-pages.

Author: Kasey Traeger, The Lady Tech Tamer, is the owner of Web Tech Tamers and your go-to resource for all things web-techy. To receive her free tech tips and web "strategery" info, visit her blog at LadyTechTamer.com.