Author: cbmstage

Have you come to the conclusion that you must obtain more information with regard to a blogging platform that is used by most bloggers? If you answered in the affirmative, this piece will provide just the material you needed. Read on to see just how much this platform can make blogging a much easier time for you.

Be sure to choose a design that is not the same as those chosen by others who have WordPress sites. You may be tempted to do this because it’s a time saver, but your site will just look run of the mill. You want to show how your site is different from everyone else.

Clean up any unnecessary comments and content on your website. That way, the site stays suitable for the interested folks who read it. Akismet is a great plugin that you can include that will help you to filter out the daily spam on your site.

Special Characters

Take special characters out of your URLs for your blog posts. Special characters annoy search engine spiders, so it’s best not to have any. Use keywords and short URLs.

The posts you make always appear in chronological order, unless you specify otherwise. To change the list, you must change the dates. Open a post that you want to appear at the top and change the date located in the upper right corner. Changing the date and saving it will re-position it.

If you edit your pictures a little bit, you’ll be able to rise in the search results. Always use titles and alt text tags. If a visitor “pins” your image onto Pinterest, the title that you selected is what will show up on their screen automatically.

Make sure that your greeting is appealing for your WordPress site. Not only does this personalize your website, it welcomes guests based on how they found your blog. That will make things seem less formal on your site, and can be arrived at with the Greet Box plugin.

Ensure that it is possible for users to forward articles from your site to their email easily and at will. This will also allow them to share these articles with others. The WP-Email plugin is great for this.

Use the information you just gathered to improve the quality of your WordPress site. Keep the things you learn here in mind to have a great experience with WordPress. Making use of this information will result in handsome rewards for you.

A full width WordPress page transforms an ordinary blog into a custom website. It removes the widgets and the sidebar in which they are contained. This is particularly useful for site owners wanting to present a more professional web presence. A full width WordPress page also allows for bigger blocks of text and images.

Common Full Width WordPress Page Uses

There are three common reasons for wanting a full width WordPress page. The first place where a full width WordPress page is mainly placed is on the contact page. Site owners often elect to keep their contact page “clean” or cluster free, a full width WordPress page does just that. Another page commonly redesigned into a full width WordPress page is the sales page or e-commerce page. And a full width WordPress page makes room for advertising on any chosen page.

WARNING: The following full width WordPress page tutorial requires code manipulation which may cause your site not to properly function.

Full Width WordPress Page Step-by-Step

In order to make a full width WordPress page, you’ll have to work in the dashboard’s editor. Certain changes in the code and folders must be made. You’ll also need to use an FTP client like FileZilla in order to make a full width WordPress page.

Create a Template

The first step in making a full width WordPress page is to build a page template. Go into the dashboard and navigate to the editor. Inside the editor, look to the right vertical column for the page.php folder. Create a copy of the page.php folder, then rename it something like full-page.php. Open a text editor on your computer like Notepad. Open the copy you made of the page.php, which should now be called full-page.php folder. Inside the new folder, add the following code:

[php]
/*
Template Name: Full Page
*/
[/php]

This will create a page template which will appear as an option for existing and new pages.

Remove the Sidebar

Next, you’ll have to get rid of the sidebar as it will still appear. Inside the fullpage.php folder, find the following code and remove it:

[php]
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
[/php]

This will deactivate the sidebar.

Define the CSS Style

Now that the page folder has been created and the sidebars have been removed, the page will still look as though it is indented and not a full width WordPress page. This is because the style feature needs to be redefined. Look for code similar to this inside style.css:

[css]
#content {
margin: 5px 35px 0;
font-size: 1.2em;
width: 575px;
float: left;
display: inline;
}
[/css]

Once located, change #content to #contentwide, then change the width line from 575px to 800px, 850px or 900px (this will require trial and error in order to find the right sizing).

Define the Full Page Folder Style

Go back into your custom fullpage.php folder and locate <div id=”content”>, change it to <div id=”contentwide”>. Once done, upload your new fullpage.php folder via FTP to your site. Now when you create a new page or edit a current page, on the right bar, there will be a full width WordPress page option.

The above full width WordPress page tutorial may have an adverse affect on your site. To ensure it is properly configured and does not harm your site, contact CQuinn Design for professional help.

Here is an article written for guidelines when it comes to website design and content creation.  Let’s face it, search engine optimization and content management can be a difficult decision to make.  Choosing which company to hire is a bigger decision to make.  XTELWEB believes in using the latest tactics and only implements strategies that work with up to date search engine algorithms.  Our search engine optimization plans are on a month to month basis, so we know that showing your company results is the only way that you will keep us on your SEO marketing campaign.  We also provide content management as one of our online marketing strategies, so this is why we are going to show you guidelines we follow when we perform SEO for our clients.

When it comes to website design, remember:

Be easy on the graphics: Make sure that when you are creating text on your website that you leave it as text.  Creating banners on your page to in lieu of actual text is bad for SEO.  Search engines cannot decipher the words on a graphic file (.png , .jpg, .gif, etc..)  If you are going to use graphics make sure that you are using the “ALT” tag to describe what information is contained in the graphics.

An example of an alt tag:

Lets say you have a banner you created which advertises a sale you have featuring 10% off  widgets, your ALT tag would look similar to this:

[html light=”true”]<a href="http://www.widgetcompany/buy_our_widgets.html"><img src="../images/widget_ad.png" alt="10 percent off widgets"></a>[/html]

Notice the “ALT” tag located in the IMG SRC code of the hyperlink?  This tells the search engine crawler that this image is displaying information about “10 percent off widgets”.  Therefore, if the content on your web page is related to the sale of widgets, then the image is seen by the crawler as “relative” and it will be indexed in the search engine results page.

Try to have at least one text-based menu: If your site is using graphics to display its navigational information, such as “Home, Products, Services, About Us, Contact Us” then you should try to include at least one text-based menu on your site.   A typical place to put the text based menu is at the footer of the page.  Instead of using graphics to navigate your site, just use plain text.

Do not use Adobe Flash on Home page or Splash page: Do not use Adobe Flash as a splash page, unless you are not worried about search engine optimization.  Also, do not use Adobe Flash  as the main content for Home Page (index.html, index.htm).  Google, and other search engine crawlers cannot index your Adobe Flash content.  A lot of my customers, most of them not familiar with SEO have asked about a Flash Intro page or Flash based website.  They get upset when I advise against it, but the fact of the matter is that Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft Bing or any other search engine crawler cannot index Flash based content (as of this writing).  So it’s not worth it.

Do not use Frames to build your site: With the expansion of CSS and XHTML frames are no longer being used.  Frames are the old way of dividing content on your web pages and do not look good, or are harder to navigate. Also, when it comes to linking, a frame site is difficult in the sense that technically two or more HTML files are loaded at the same time.  So if you want a lot of people to link to your site, then you will want to avoid frames.

CSS Layout Example:

And now on to Site Content:

Keep adding fresh content to your website: This is by far the most important factor when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO).  Adding fresh content, that is relevant to your line of business, will greatly improve your rankings in search engines. There are several ways you can add fresh content to your website.  The most popular way keeping content fresh is to install a WordPress Blog.  Installing a blog to your website is an easy outlet for you to write about your website, your company, products or services you provide and more.  XTELWEB offers content management services .

What is content management (aka SEO copywriting)?

A) Just so you know, we are talking about content management in terms of search engine optimization, and not in the way that other content management systems work.  Content management is when you hire a company to write or spruce up your content.  We write all of the content for your blog for SEO use.  The articles, or content we write becomes your property and nobody will know that you didn’t write the content.  Our content is accurate and we will always send a copy to you before anything is published.  Our team of SEO Copywriters takes the time to learn about your company and then write relevant content to help your website improve in search engine rankings.  All of the SEO copywriters at XTELWEB are proficient in the English language, and have taken, and successfully completed a College Level English Class.
Every page on your site should be focused on as narrow topic as possible: Let’s say that your company provides several different services, or sells several different products.  You want to discuss those services, or products on a different web page, instead of trying to list them all on the same page.  Following a template such as Product or Service Title, then Image, then Description and linking to the next products or services keeps the content more relative and easier to follow for your website visitors.  Listing too much, or displaying too much information can confuse potential clients and they may not browse your site.  Give each product or service its own web page, and then name the page so that it’s relative.  A good example would be a page on Website Design or SEO Services, you could name them, <code>”website_design.html or seo_services.html”.</code>

Use accurate, relevant page titles: This is easily ignored, but is vital..  You want to make sure that not only each web page has its own unique content, but when you title your pages, they have relevant page titles.  This is very important because most search engine crawlers look at the page title first, and the page title almost always shows up in the search engine results page.  So if your company is selling Yellow Widgets, then you will want to title your page, “Yellow Widgets from ABC Widget Company”

The keywords and description tag are not important: Google’s search engine crawler does not look at these tags anyway, so there is no need to use them.   According to Google, they do not use the keywords meta tag because web masters were stuffing irrelevant content into the tag and causing websites to show in the search engine results page that had nothing to do with the keyword and keyword phrases being searched for.  There are some website design and SEO companies that still use the keyword and description meta tags, and this is fine, just know that it is usually a waste of time.

So these are some basic guidelines to follow when it comes to website design and content creation.  XTELWEB uses these guidelines and more when it comes to maintaining a SEO strategy.  Our company works very hard to make sure the websites we create are all search engine optimized and that when you hire us for search engine optimization, you will always see results.  Give us a call today at 727-359-5150 to schedule a free consultation, or fill out our contact form and one of our friendly professionals will get back to you.

***Note: These are not all of the guidelines and techniques we use as that would be revealing our trade secret. This is, however, a good basic outline to follow when using your own SEO plan.

Check out our Blog Post titled: How to Write an Effective Article – Its great if you are just starting your own blog.

Google analytics is a statistics service offered by the search giant. It uses algorithms to produce pre-populated metrics which display specific data to the user. This data demonstrates a number of stats such as traffic, visitor source, links, optimization and search terms people are using to find a site.

Sites which have Google analytics installed not only have a reporting system, but a research system as well. This is important because site owners can use Google analytics data to make changes to their site in order to increase traffic. Knowing what visitors are looking at and the behavior of those same visitors is the most powerful tool a site owner can have in their possession.

About Google Analytics

In April of 2005, Google acquired Urchin Software Corporation which developed an analytics system known as Urchin on Demand. Combining Urchin on Demand and another analytic data system from Measure Map–which was a product of Adaptive Path. In November of 2005, Google analytics was introduced to the public.

Google analytics has undergone many changes over the years but perhaps the most important was its development and insertion of what the search giant calls an “asynchronous tracking code”. The search portal claims by using asynchronous tracking code, users are given more fine-tuned data as it is much more sensitive to activities occurring on the site on which it is installed.

Using Google Analytics

To use Google analytics, site owners can simply log onto the dedicate site and create an account. Once an account is created, the new account owner is given a proprietary code which he or she can install on their site as meta data. After the code is installed, Google analytics confirms the installation and begins to collect data as it occurs. Though there is no immediate data displayed, within a day the site owner will begin to see metrics being measured and reported.

As the days, weeks and months go by, Google analytics continues to collect and display data in a chart formation which the site owner can use to understand which pages are most visited. But page views aren’t the only thing that Google analytics displays:

• Visitors. Visitors are displayed in numbers, complete with their geographic location, browser being used, spoken language as well as how often they visit.
• Traffic Sources. This data displays how visitors got to a site–whether directly, from referred sources, campaigns and other sources. This data also displays which sites are linking in and the search terms people have used to find the site.
• Content. This data shows site owners which pages are most viewed and the behavior visitors are engaging on the pages they visit. It also shows how people are entering a site’s pages as well as exit pages.
• Goals. The goals data on Google analytics are set by the site owner to measure desired performance. The great feature about the goals data is it is totally customizable.
• Ecommerce. For site owners who are selling services or products online, this data is ideal to measure inventory, transaction and revenue.

Google analytics has more features than explained here but these are the most prominent of all its data. Site owners who take advantage of Google analytics will have more control over their search engine optimization, resulting in increased traffic and increased business.

If you want to learn more about Google analytics or how to use it effectively to monitor your online business, then contact us for a free consultation. We’ll be happy to put you in the know and help improve your site.

Even if you think that you are very experienced with web designing, there are always more basics that you could be learning. The problem is that with so much information online it can be hard to find what really works and what is fluff. This article was compiled specifically to resolve this issue. The tips which appear below will give you ideas for your website which will help you take it to the top of your niche!

Programs are available to assist you in creating an attractive website. Programs made specifically for web page design are often easy to use and can help you craft good looking websites quickly. If you have a site that looks bad, you won’t attract the visitors you need.

Always keep your opening page simple. People will quickly decide whether or not they want to do business with you by how your homepage looks. Make sure that you provide a very clear description about your business or other purpose for your site. Other information on your site should be minimal, but still clear, so that you don’t overwhelm your visitors.

Free software is great to start with when you’re getting into website development. A lot of people think that they need to use costly software, but the truth is that there are a number of free, quality tools that can help you begin and keep your website running. You just need to do a little Internet searching in order to find some free tools that will work best for you.

When you design a site, try to stick to just a few web fonts. Also consider how the fonts look on a regular screen. Small serif fonts are harder to read. Fancy fonts may look attractive at a glance, but a closer look reveals they can be extremely annoying to read.

Think about your user at all times. A good web designer will always remained focused on the needs of the end user. This includes user experience, usability, user interaction, and accessibility. You should consider these issues as you go about your work. See things from the perspective of your visitor.

Keep in mind that the Internet contains a plethora of website design examples. There is no shortage of websites from which you can draw inspiration. Find one you like, write down what appeals to you and then figure out what you can mimic on your own. Remember that a successful website needs more creativity, not just the stuff you have borrowed from others. You must make improvements to those ideas.

Don’t push annoying things on your visitors. This also means avoiding surveys or pushy offers that cause viewers to break their focus and lose interest. If you utilize these techniques, your readership will decline.

Regardless of your website development experience, you must always keep the basics in mind. There are many sources that claim to show the basics, and deciding where to look can be difficult. The above article has valuable tips so you can start creating great websites.

Are you interested in learning about WordPress? It represents the way in which countless individuals build websites and blogs. It’s not difficult to pick up! Amateurs and professionals alike utilize WordPress. This article has WordPress advice to help you better your skills.

If you have a long title on a post, be sure to clean up your permalink. A lengthy URL would be created by a title like “How Wild Children Can Be Made to Behave by Outsmarting Them.” Rather, seek out keywords in the long URL and create a shorter permalink for it.

Familiarize yourself with the options and tools available on WordPress. For example, clicking on KITCHEN SINK gives you many more choices in formatting and importing that set your posts apart. Also, notice SCREEN OPTIONS on your administrator pages. Use this for many formatting options.

It’s easy to incorporate videos on your blog with WordPress. Although you may have to put in a little more time, you will get rewarded for your effort in the end. Most users on the web will love this. Videos offer perspectives that written content cannot, so they are quite helpful.

Prior to installing WordPress, find out as much as possible about the program. The greater the amount of advance planning done, the more comfortable you will be. Learn about SEO, creating content using plugins.

When you are set to post, set a schedule. Doing this provides you with the necessary motivation to make your posts. You might want to create posts up to a week ahead of time, then set the posts to upload on a schedule.

Make sure that your work is saved at all times. This isn’t always true. Clear your cache to see if it will fix the problem. Just press and hold your “shift” key while refreshing your browser and your changes should appear.

You must make adjustments if you do not want your posts to show up in the order published. If you want to rearrange the list, you’ll have to change the date first. Open a post that you want to appear at the top and change the date located in the upper right corner. Click the date, choose a new one and save the post to alter its position.

Once you have gotten a handle on WordPress, it will be possible to create a professional looking website. You do not need much for getting started. There are many WordPress resources online and in book form to help you out. You should take advantage of this.

Google is constantly changing its ranking system, making search engine optimization a very dynamic skill set to learn, practice or implement. It seems like once a particular SEO strategy starts to work, you later find out that it is not as important as it once was. One of the worst SEO techniques is putting keywords or text on to your web page and having it match the background color. This is highly illegal and Google will certainly blacklist your domain for doing this.

Multiple Angles

Right now, for best results, you have to hit SEO at multiple angles.  What does that mean? Well you can’t just implement your SEO into your web page designs.  Sure you should still setup your Meta Tags (keyword, title, description, etc) but you need to go at SEO at all angles.  Social media marketing, search engine marketing and a good word of mouth campaign will definitely do the trick.  SEO does not have to be expensive!

So we’re going to talk about the new ways that you can get to the top of Google with search engine optimization.

eCommerce SEO

Retailers, or eCommerce sites, face never ending struggles to exploit the approximately 200 ways Google uses to govern search results.  Google sites currently account for sixty-five (65%) of the 15.4 billion searches performed in the United States in March, according to web measurement firm comScore, Inc.

If your site is search engine friendly, Google’s site crawlers will overlook your site, rank you low and ultimately your site will be ignored by visitors!

Rules of the Game

Google constantly changes its search engine algorithm to deliver sites that have authority (backlinks) – information (content) – importance (web presence).  Google is incorporating more of its search engine results from social networks and online videos, and is making results more personalized for local searches.  For instance some search experts say linking strategies have become more vital in persuading Google that a web page is important.

Up to 50% of the variables used to rank  a websites rank involves linking, up from about 25% to 30% in 2008 – according to Craig McDonald who is the senior vice president and chief marketing officer at search strategy firm Covario Inc.  And Google is also emphasizing on real-time search results that incorporate feeds from social media and include video results will require broader search engine optimization efforts from website designers, web developers and the overall company should get involved.

1. Make URLS Google-friendly (or search engine friendly)

Let’s say that you own a home cleaning service and you have just hired a website design company to re-design your website. Hopefully this company incorporates search engine optimization into the development of your website. Here are some ways that making Google-friendly URLS can help your site:

One of the most important improvements for your website can be changing your URLS from basic “contact.html, about.html, services.html” to more keyword-friendly terms like “about-mycompanyname.html – home_cleaning_services.html – whole_house_cleaning_services.html – weekly_house_cleaning_services.html, etc..” You get the idea right?

Some of your CMS (Content Management Systems) use ugly URL’s that look something like “pageid=?193” – well there are ways to make those links “search engine friendly”.  I mean, just browse around my blog, click some of the topics and then look at your address bar, you can easily see that WordPress integrates SEO into the URLs for your website (if you know how to set it up properly) For Instance:

2. Show Expertise

If you really know your business, which hopefully you do…then show people! Get a blog…Google’s search engines are now using blogs as a way of proving authority on your website.  A blog does not have to be difficult and you don’t need to write in it every day  (although it helps) for it to be successful.  You have to start somewhere.  After a few months of blogging, you will have a whole sleuth of articles and content to share with your customers.

If your company sells products, then you can offer personal reviews about the products you sell. Or instructions or tips on how to use the product you are selling.

If your company provides a service, take pictures (or better, video) and show your customers the great work your company performs.  Your customers will love to see you providing your service to others, and get a feel for how your company operates.

If you think a blog is too difficult for your company to manage, you can hire a CMS Management company like XTELWEB to provide a blog to your customers.

Writing blog articles is not difficult either. You will soon find that when you are writing about something you love (your business) then it comes very easily!

3. Build Social Networks

One way to quickly boost your companies online web presence is to participate in social networking sites like Twitter, FaceBook or a LinkedIn profile.  These sites are all great even if you just a profile to start with.  The profile can include things about your company, but more importantly in creates links to your company’s website!

Social media marketing is easily the fastest growing marketing strategy for online marketing right now.  It takes  a certain skill-set to do it right, but when you do – the possibilities are endless.  When you combine social networking with a blog and search engine optimization – you will quickly see your website rise through the ranks of the search engines.

Late last year, Google began providing what is calls real-time search results that includes blog posts and tweet’s from twitter.  So after I finish publishing this blog post, Google will see already have it on it’s search engine results page.

If your company offers products and services worth talking about, and that is exactly what your customers are doing – talking about your product – on their Twitter or Facebook pages – Google’s site crawlers will recognize this and your web page will gain an abundance of authority.

4. Offer Videos

Video’s are not just for movie stars and musicians anymore…Video increases your customers temptation to buy a product or order a service.  Video is a lot more effective then pictures because more than half of America has high speed internet and they enjoy watching video’s.  It’s almost more fun than watching TV!

Google is not just looking at words – you need Video on your site – Google and other search engines are increasingly returning “blended” results that show videos, news stories, maps, and images on their search engine results page.

Siloing is a strategic on-page process of building well-defined sites. It is an approach that few designers incorporate but is an absolutely critical building-block of website construction. The purpose of Google and Bing is to deliver the most relevant sites in returned search results. Years ago, all that was necessary was keyword density. But search engines have grown tremendously sophisticated. Search engines now penalize for excess or unorganized keyword use. Siloing is a fundamental incorporation of matching a site’s theme to it’s keywords.

Siloing Explained

The term “siloing” is derived from the cylindrical structures found in the midwest. These storage units contain specific products, like corn. In other words, a site about dogs would likely have the following silos: puppy training, dog breeds, canine nutrition. But the site would not contain things such as cat breeds, cat behavior and other unrelated terms. One of the best examples of siloing can is About.com. The site is informational based–which is its theme. It has specific silos such as career, autos, computers, food, health, travel, sports, et cetera.

Under each category or silo, the information is strongly related to the topic. However, most websites are not designed or maintained in this fashion. The vast majority of websites tend to be disorganized and disjointed, even though it appears to have a well oriented structure.

More often than not, a website is [an] array of unrelated information with no clear central theme. Such a site suffers in search engine rankings for sought after keywords. –Bruce Clay

This phenomenon occurs largely because of changes in industry trends. As things change, content reflects these changes. But this often means the central theme or subject matter becomes diluted.

Why Search Engines Prefer Siloing

As mentioned, the stated mission of search engines is to return search results with the most relevance. It’s why About.com and Wikipedia come up at the top of the organic search results. So, for a site which sells musical instruments it would use siloing to differentiate the instruments it sold.

For instance, “Guitars” would be the broad category. But under “Guitars” would be the specific types:

• www.musicalinstruments.com/guitars
• www.musicalinstruments.com/guitars/acoustic
• www.musicalinstruments.com/guitars/electric
• www.musicalinstruments.com/guitars/semi-hollow-body
• www.musicalinstruments.com/guitars/twelve-string-electric
• www.musicalinstruments.com/guitars/twelve-string-acoustic

In another silo, bass guitars would appear with its types. And another silo would contain drums with its subsets. woodwind, brass and all the other instruments would likewise be grouped together. But the overall theme would not change–the whole site is still dedicated to musical instruments. However, there is no bleed-over from one category to another.

Search engine algorithms are specifically designed to look for this type of siloing structure, then rank sites accordingly. So even a site with solid content and a bunch of relevant keywords will rank below a site containing quality content, less keywords and well-structured siloing–simply because the later site is better organized.

If you want a professionally designed site that incorporates good siloing, then contact us for a free, expert consultation. We will construct a well-planned, eye-catching site that search engines will love and visitors will keep coming back to time and again.

“Facebook Value Plunges!” headlines have recently exclaimed. With its latest SEC filing, the world’s most trafficked social networking site disclosed that an estimated 83 million of its registered users are fake, according to a report by industry follower PC Mag. What’s more, the social giant also revealed that 4.8 percent or about 45.6 million accounts are duplicate–having the same owners which use pseudonyms or alternate email addresses. And, to worsen matters, undermining Facebook value is yet another 22.8 million or 2.4 percent of monthly active users are mis-classified. So, what does this mean for the future of Facebook value? And more particularly, what does it mean for your social media marketing?

Facebook Value Explained

Let’s begin with the basics. Just a few years ago, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Stumble Upon, Pinterest and other prevalent social media outlets weren’t even indexed by Google or Bing. But that has changed. The search engines couldn’t ignore what has been proven to be more than a fad. And in with the crowd the search engines went. With so much original content and millions of links, Google and Bing had to include these social platforms in search results. And although value of Facebook stock has fallen approximately 50 percent from its initial public offering, it remains a serious force on the Internet.

The reason is simple and the math bears it out: 950 million users minus all the suspected “fake”, “duplicate” and “mis-categorized” users still adds up to a whopping 798.6 million. The logistics haven’t fundamentally changed and Facebook value remains well intact for SMM. The fact of the matter is, these numbers are not a big slice relative to nearly a billion users.

What the Value of Facebook Means to Your Social Media Marketing

When FB went public, its IPO debut was $38 per share. The value of Facebook stock has since fallen to just over $20 per share. But while the stock value of Facebook has dropped by nearly 50 percent, the search engines don’t watch the market–at least, not in the way investors and traders do. Users are still logging on. Accounts are still being created. Content is still being added and links are still being shared across the network. And that, at least for the foreseeable future, is why Facebook value and social media marketing are still compatible.

But if the ship is slowly sinking, now’s the time to review your SMM plan. Here’s how to take action and ward off any potential problems in the future:

1. Diversify. Like investing in the market, diversification is key. Pinterest is the rising star of the moment. But other platforms like Four Square, Digg, Stumble Upon and others are making inroads.
2. Get familiar with other venues which are expanding. Google Plus is one example. And Linked In is undergoing some serious changes. Both of which look to be preparing for the long haul.
3. Just because it isn’t and “it” doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Yahoo! still has employees. It still makes money. MySpace might not be at the forefront, but it’s there nonetheless.
4. Don’t jump ship just yet. The paradox about the Internet is it provides on-demand information. But it takes months, even years for diamonds in the rough to shine.

If you want your site to rank higher in search, then contact us for a free, expert consultation. We can offer you options that will increase your visibility, lower your bounce rate and turn visitors into customers.

Millions of people out there have a Facebook account. More than likely that includes you. If you are a business owner, Facebook can expand your customer base. The following piece includes useful ideas for Facebook marketing for your business.

Custom Audiences will let you upload your current customer’s email addresses so you can target them with ads. This can increase your conversion rate while lowering your campaign costs as more of your audience morphs from being leads to becoming customers.

Building a fan base is the first step in marketing through Facebook. Having an excess of 5,000 fans is best. When you hit the 5,000 follower mark, the percentage of people who buy your product should start to rise.

Hiding your content from non-fans is an effective method in converting visitors into followers. When only followers can see certain parts of your page, it will make visitors want to become followers. Hide only a little bit of your content because hiding too much can affect your SEO negatively.

Don’t post updates that are dull and boring. You might feel tempted to share personal updates or share some current events, but remember that these may not interest all the subscribers. Personal news and interests should be kept for a separate personal Facebook page.

Only invest real resources in this form of marketing. Marketing on Facebook takes real effort, but it can be a big deal. Anyone who takes over this responsibility cannot be working on 20 other projects; Facebook marketing will never get the time that it deserves to reach its full potential. Invest the necessary time and resources to see real results.

Be sure people are able to share content with you and other people via your Facebook page. The more interesting or valuable the information you provide is, the more likely that your followers are going to want to share it with their friends. Facebook lives on sharing and interacting with others. When you put out important information, your audience will help your marketing efforts by sharing that information within their own networks.

You now should understand Facebook marketing back and forth. Use these tips and you’ll be surprised at the success you have. Start now and watch your business grow.