Do you need to get your messages out on the web, so your articles and ideas can be discovered and shared by a wide number of viewers? Do you wish to get the message out about your services or products? Do you wish to enhance your presence on the internet, brand yourself and increase site visitors to your enterprise? Good! Here are three websites that can aid you in building your Social Networking Spider Maze and drive site visitors to your web site.

Most Advertising folks generate many various kinds of advertising and marketing supplies for their promotional efforts. These might include things like particular studies brochures, displays, or white papers that you simply give to your clients and prospects. There’s now a further method to make use of all the “documents” you generate and get some free, targeted traffic back to your website. You should use these websites to rapidly and simply flip almost any file-including PDF, Phrase, PowerPoint and Excel-right into a Web document and share it with the world.

By utilizing these sites you’re making your written works available to people on the Internet and mobile devices, and most importantly, fueling the conversations happening round them. All three are online communities and marketplaces to search out and share professional documents.

Here are the three sites it’s essential to try:

1. scribd.com
2. docstoc.com
3. slideshare.com

So what is so nice about these 3 websites?

1. For those of us on a tight advertising plan, they’re free to use. They are additionally easy to use which is absolutely great. There are some sites out there which can be an actual pain to use. I used to be on one social networking site the other day and it took me close to 15 minutes to figure out an easy way to publish a video.

2. The major search engines like Google crawl these sites. A few of the Power Point displays that I posted to scribd.com where on the primary web page of Google’s search results inside a day. You may also define keywords and generally create inbound links to your website/blog, thereby growing site visitors even more.

3. You possibly can add virtually any type of file or document you want. They are going to be mechanically converted right into a PDF file and are virtually immediately obtainable for looking at and downloading by others (in the event you mark them public). That is nearly like submitting an article to an article directory aside from all of the different file sorts permitted.

Think about the potential site visitors you possibly can get. Not only will people review your presentations, but they can even get copies and share them with their associates. You’ll now have individuals serving to you promote your business. It’s possible you’ll even start to get people whom have never heard of you visiting your site or calling you!

The bottom line!! – these websites aid you create a viral advertising machine and grow your business!

And final of all…..

4. All three of these websites give you monitoring tools so you’ll be able to look at the downloads and see which of your postings are the most popular!

So all in all, these sites present an extremely efficient method for getting targeted visitors and are a very good low cost search engine optimization tactic, and they’re FREE. Now you may see why I like them a lot and wished to clue you in on them.

Have fun setting up your Social Networking Spider Web

Mark Schwartz has perfected Social Networking Spider Webmarketing and backlinking tactics. Social Media Spider Webs are important for businesses because they serve to increase Branding and serve as a giant lair to draw traffic to their business, websites and blogs.

To learn more of his Social Networking Spiderweb strategies like this one please visit his blog at http://markvschwartz.com.

And while you are surfing around check out his MegaRich – For Internet Entrepreneurs Blog. Magic happens for those who take action.

Tags: bookmarking, domination marketing, low cost seo, mark schwartz, Marketing, seo, social media, social networking, spider webs, top rankings, web traffic

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/04/22/3-great-sites-that-will-drive-traffic-to-your-site-social-networking-spider-web-tactics/

Today there are several ways to advertise online and one of the most popular is through social media marketing. You can leverage these ten powerful tips if you want to succeed in defeating competition and generate higher profits or site traffic.

Tip #1 – Start by Developing your Own Plan

You have to identify the target audience and determine how you will be able to deploy the tactics. Before you launch the marketing efforts, one should create objective so that he knows where to focus. Increasing brand awareness is vital and you have to get customers involved.

Tip #2 – Make use of LinkedIn

You have to connect with relevant people and focus on timeliness. It is necessary to complete your profile to get started and encourage people to send comments or feedback.

Tip #3 – Bookmarking Sites

You can use this site to share the ones that you’re interested to use. Users can easily build a community and gain referrals by tapping this social media.

Tip #4 – Leverage Widgets

This refers to standalone applications or tools that contain dynamic content. Make sure that the widgets you’re using are useful and relevant.

Tip #5 – Learn How to Blog

If you want to get the word out, blogging is one of the best options. This type of social media marketing is a great way to provide vital info to your target market.

There is a need to update the content regularly once you start posting blogs. You will benefit more if you include the human touch instead of just using auto-responders.

Tip #6 – Utilize Facebook Marketing

Like Twitter, Facebook is also another popular social media website that can help you in generating potential traffic and increase sales. You will have to create a suitable profile so that you can connect with your friends and target market.

Tip #7 – Utilize Twitter Marketing

If you have a Twitter account, then this is no longer new to you. You can use the social media site to promote the products or services that you’re offering. Perhaps you’re already familiar with tweets. You can send out tweets that has something to do with your business.

Tip #8 – Use YouTube

Viral videos are very popular these days and YouTube is on top. This will allow you to generate large traffic.

Tip #9 – Host Giveaways

Regardless of the social network site that you’re using, you can host giveaways. People like to get ‘free’ things and if offered something of value, you can easily build credibility.

Tip #10 – Combine all these Social Media Resources

You don’t have to use these strategies one by one. You can easily use them simultaneously as long as you’re equipped with adequate knowledge.

Visit http://www.cha.fm to install a free Facebook Friends statistic tool. Or join the Facebook exchange network to promote your Facebook Apps for free.

Tags: marketing tips, social media marketing, social media tips

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/04/22/social-media-marketing-10-useful-tips/

When you are designing a website, also think about the photos or “images” you want to include. Images in this context means diagrams and drawings as well as standard photos. All of them are held in a digital format on your computer and saved as such on the web server. Be aware of certain pitfalls in their use as this will make all the difference for visitors to your website.

Size matters

Images or photos come in all shapes and sizes. As digital cameras have advanced, the available camera size has soared from barely 1 mega-pixel to 10 or 12 or more mega-pixels, with a consequent increase in the photo size. You may have experienced what happens when a friend emails you a photo taken on their nice new camera. The attachment can be huge, and takes forever to download, even on broadband. Now imagine what would happen if you put that photo on your website – exactly the same: it would take ages for the image to be downloaded by the browser.

What you have to do is “re-size” the photo, using your photo-editing software. It’s an easy thing to do: open up the photo-editor and the photo you want to re-size, and click the menu button marked “image” (this is how most editors label it). What you have to do is change the horizontal width to a number of pixels that fits inside your web page. So if you have decided on a page width of 1,000 pixels, a photo size of 250 pixels would be one-quarter of the page width. Let the photo-editor work out the corresponding vertical length for you automatically, so apply the option to “maintain aspect ratio” or similar wording.

When you save the image, you will be given the option of saving it in different resolutions or qualities, from low resolution to high resolution. Unless you are building an “arty” website, low resolution will be quite adequate. Some photo editors actually give you a specific option to save at a suitable resolution for websites.

Finally, use “save-as” with a different file name rather than just “save” so that you don’t overwrite the original version.

Help the browser

When you include the image in your web page, you will have a line of HTML code looking something like this: img src=”mynewphoto.jpg” alt=”Words for Photo” height=”125? width=”250?

It’s important to provide the height and width data. You can make a note of these values from when you re-sized the photo. By providing the data you are helping the browser allocate that amount of space on the page, and process the remaining HTML while the image is being downloaded.

If you don’t specify these values, older browsers will stop formatting text, download the image, check its dimensions, make room for the image and then start formatting text again.

If you follow these tips when designing a website, you will speed up the download time for your web pages, which will make it better for visitors to your website.

M. Ruthe runs a website design service for small businesses and has developed an online information resource for aspiring web designers. For further information on various aspects of website design visit www.bedfordwebsitedesign.com

Tags: how to size an image, image sizing, website images

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/04/11/website-design-tips-image-sizing-why-big-isnt-best/

Help your website be faster than this snail. (Photo from Flickr CC by Randy Son Of Robert.)

Faster Websites Can Rank Better

Having a fast site – or at least a site that’s not slower than the average – can help you gain or maintain good search engine rankings and traffic to your website.

Site speed refers to how fast all the elements of a web page – its text, images, video clips, etc. – appear in a web browser window after someone clicks a link to that page, or types its URL into the browser navigation bar.

Early in 2010, Google added site speed to its website ranking algorithm. Now a website’s loading speed is one of about 200 factors that help Google determine which websites to rank highest in results for a specific search term. That means site speed has to be considered when you’re working on your website’s search engine optimization (SEO).

Google added site speed because a faster site is better for people, and Google wants its results to be of high value to searchers.

First: Check How Fast Your Site Loads

Use any of these free tools to check how long it takes to load your website into a web browser window:

• Pingdom’s site speed test is a popular tool for checking website load time. It’s easy to use.
• Google Webmaster Tools has a section with information on the speed of your website, from the source that may matter the most. Once you’ve logged in to Webmaster Tools, click “Labs” on the left, and then “Site Performance.”
• WebPageTest.org’s website performance test lets you check the speed and performance of your website in different web browsers such as Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox. It also allows you to test how your site performs in different geographic locations.
• GTmetrix.com’s website speed test combines info from Google Page Speed and Yahoo! YSlow in a nice presentation with a nice list of things you can do.

What’s Considered a “Fast” Website?

Alexa says that Facebook has below average site speed.

To give you an idea, Alexa says that Facebook.com takes just over 2 seconds to load, and that 70 percent of sites are faster. Alexa.com provides traffic statistics for most of the world’s top million websites. If your site is in this group, you’ll find some good information about your site on Alexa, and you’ll be able to compare your site to others in the top million.

In general, a website that loads in 2 seconds or less is doing well. A website that loads in 2 to 5 seconds isn’t fast, but it’s probably good enough.

A website that takes more than 5 seconds to load is likely to annoy some of its visitors. The longer it takes a website to load, the more likely the site is to be hurting its standing with Google. The search giant considers site speed as a factor when ranking web pages in search results.

How Can I Make My Website Load Faster?

Here are some relatively simple and quick fixes to speed up your website.

Some of these things you may be able to do yourself. For the rest, your hosting company or the person or company that created your website for you should be able to make these changes pretty easily for you.

#1 Website Compression

Compressing your website’s content – using gzip compression, for example – can help reduce the time it takes your webserver to send your website’s content to site visitors.

Compression affects the text elements of your website — HTML, javascript, and CSS — and speeds up the time it takes them to load. For more information on website compression and how to do it, read our article about compression.

Compression does not affect the images on your website though, so read on.

#2 Optimize Your Images

a) Don’t Use Images Any Bigger than Necessary
Don’t use a large image. Yes, you can set the width and height in HTML to 100 pixels by 100 pixels, if that’s the size you want to display – but your site will still be carrying a large image that loads slowly. If you want to display an image that is 100 pixels by 100 pixels, use an image of that size, or scale down your large image before placing it on a web page.

I asked AboutUs community members to share their experiences with compression tools. Ed Mus of Deals2Save.net recommended a tool he’s used to optimize images for load speed: Smush.it, available at Yahoo.

b) Choose the Best File Format
The file format of your images can help you or hurt you. Don’t use a JPG file unless you want to include a photograph with a huge range of colors. For most images, using a GIF or PNG file is usually fine, and these types of files load faster.

• GIF is great for images with few colors – for example, most company logos.
• PNG is a file format specifically for websites. PNG images have good quality, but sometimes they don’t display in Internet Explorer 6.
• JPG is a traditional and common file format for photos. It’s best to convert a JPG image to a PNG, unless you really want a highly detailed, slow-loading photo for a specific reason.

c) Don’t Use Images If You Don’t Need To
Your logo or a photo must be included as images – there’s no other way to convey them to your site visitors. But many websites put things like a phone number, address or other text into an image, even though it’s not necessary. And really, it’s not a good practice. Images are not only slow to load, they’re also essentially invisible to search engines, unless they include descriptive alt text. Search engines can’t “see” the information in an image, so use text to convey any information that can be rendered as text.

#3 Put Your Code in Optimum Order

Placing your style sheets near the top and JavaScript near the bottom of the coding for each of your web pages can improve the perceived speed of your website for human visitors.

When someone directs a web browser to a web page, the browser starts from the top of the code and works its way down. The style sheets are one of the more important pieces for human viewers, because they determine how the site will look. After that, your website’s actual content will load pretty quickly. It’s as if the style sheets set out a framework, and then the content loads into that framework.

The JavaScript – or script tags – provide things like interactive features or actions that your viewer won’t notice unless they perform an action on a web page. So allowing the JavaScript to load last means your visitors see everything on the page that’s visual, even while the JavaScript is still loading. So your visitors see your page as loading faster than it really does.

Why does this matter? Because people are impatient. If a web page seems very slow, they’re more likely to leave.

#4 Remove Unnecessary External Code

Many websites have some code whose purpose is to pull something from a service that’s out of their control. For example, a website may use:

• A “share” button from a service such as AddThis
• An e-commerce shopping cart provided by another company
• A widget that displays the company’s recent tweets on Twitter

The code for Google Analytics can also slow your site down a bit, though the insights you’ll gain from using analytics usually outweigh this slight disadvantage. I recommend that you take advantage of other speed improvements, and keep the analytics.

It’s wise to check the speed of any external features on your site. If you aren’t using a feature, or if it is of minimal value to your business and website, you should remove it.

#5 Get Specific Recommendations for Increasing Site Speed

Google Webmaster Tools’ section about site speed. If you use Google Webmaster Tools for your site, you can find out how fast your site loads for Google. You’ll also find some general technical suggestions for improving your site’s performance, speed or both.

If you browse the web using Firefox and already have the Firebug add-on, you might find Yahoo’s YSlow and Google’s Page Speed extensions quite helpful. While you’re viewing a web page, you can click on these extensions to pull up information about why that web page is slow, and get ideas for improving its speed.

Google introduced a new tool on March 31, 2011 called Page Speed Online. It analyzes the speed of web pages — and the mobile version of pages — and gives suggestions for improving their load time.

#6 Get a Better Website Host

“Really, the best thing someone can do to speed up their website is to have a site hosted at an operator that knows what they are doing.”
—Karl Matthias, system administrator at AboutUs.org

For the majority of websites, many factors that can speed up a website – or slow it down – are in the control of the company that hosts the site. That’s why it’s important to have a competent host that responds quickly when you have a question or problem.

If your website is loading too slowly, you probably want to look at your hosting company’s service first. You may want to consider upgrading to a better hosting package with your current hosting company, if the better package includes a promise of increased speed. Otherwise, shift your site to a hosting company with a better offering, reputation, or both.

Note: Depending on the type of website software you use, not every host or hosting plan will be able to accommodate your site. Before you switch, make sure the company and hosting package you’re considering can handle everything on your website.

Some good hosting companies:

• DreamHost (visit)
• Polur.net (visit)
• GoDaddy (visit)
• BigWetFish.co.uk (visit)
• Network Solutions (visit)
• Dotster (visit)

For the more technically inclined, consider Amazon EC2, Slicehost and Linnode.

How Do I Make These Changes?

You may be able to implement some of the suggestions above yourself through the system you use to edit your website’s content.

If you use WordPress, the W3 Total Cache plug-in may be a good do-it-yourself solution.

For anything you can’t do yourself, ask your website hosting company, or the person (or firm) who created your website for you.

Want more? For more complicated and technical methods for speeding up your website, see Yahoo’s list of rules for site performance and Google’s articles on site speed.

Check out how your home page looks to search engines and people with the free Home Page Analysis. Want a deeper look at all your site’s pages? Try an AboutUs Site Report.

This article was contributed by Kristina Weis of AboutUs.org (visit). Kristina is a community manager for AboutUs.org who talks with a lot of website owners who are trying to promote their business online. Have a question? Contact me.

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/04/06/6-easy-ways-to-improve-your-site-speed-for-seo/

If you’re like many small business owners, your online brochure you call a website might not be hitting the customer grand slams you want or expect. If people cannot learn something new from your content and you haven’t updated it since 2007, put up an under construction sign and read on. You must have superior content to rule the search engine universe and hold the eyeballs of visitors with attractive, valuable and changing content. Web video marketing is a great way for you to provide that content that web viewers in 2011 are growing to expect. It also puts your SEO on steroids to take on the major search engines. Warning: do your web videos the right way, the better way, to have people watch, relate, and buy.

The key to quality web video is the content more than the technology. Here are some of the best video marketing methods to promote your business online:

PRODUCT, SERVICE OR CAPABILITIES DEMO

Whatever it is that makes your company unique and worth talking about, you can video it and with some simple editing to introduce it, post it on your site, and distribute to your YouTube Video channel (if you don’t have one, get one, it’s free). Many firms will have physical products they can show in action. Think auto manufacturers websites showing videos of the new line. As a small business, yours doesn’t have to be that sophisticated, just show what your widget does and how it provides value to those who would buy it.

Most small businesses out there are service businesses. If you have a dog grooming business, show the pooches getting cleaned up with their happy canine smiles. Cleaning business? Pan in on the crummy before shot of the ___, show the cleanup process, and finish it off with the much improved after view.

Often the unique advantage of a business is a process that means they’re faster or better than the competition. This works really well when showcasing that new MRI machine that doc just bought, or the fully programmable laser cutter at the sheet metal house that shows how it can make parts faster, cleaner, and at better quality than metal shops without one.

HOW-TO VIDEO

This falls into the category of value-add or training for your web viewers. It can be an instructional video on using the topsy-turvy planters you sell at your greenhouse or simply how to do something better around the house. The main purpose of how-to is some way to make life easier or better for your readers, and for you it creates site stickiness, where prospects and customers will want to come back often.

NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH

This can take the form of a product demo with a little extra. New product launches tend to be time sensitive, hyped and require sufficient explanation as to what the product does that sets it apart from prior versions or other current market offerings. Ideas are to show interviews with customers requesting, “I wish we could get…” statements that provided you with the original market pull to create the product or service, your CEO or top Exec enthusiastically explaining the launch (see next section), stats or data cleverly shown that show it’s the next big thing, and of course sufficient product demo components. These same elements might comprise a new product launch press release, simply meaning that this video can double as a video PR. There can be a lot of editing and cost involved if you bring in all of these ideas, but how much are you spending to develop your new product or service?

EXECUTIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW

Here’s one that is not often seen that provides you with a presentation of 3rd party credibility for your small business. The Executive Video Interview is an affordable way to promote small business, both on your site and virally. The return on investment can be disproportionate to the cost.

All you need as a small business owner is a Skype account and a webcam. That’s it! Your webcam quality is more than enough to make quality video. The real magic is in the interview process. Picture Larry King or Matt Lauer interviewing you as CEO of your business about your business as if it’s the national news, asking your probing questions that get at the value your business brings to the marketplace in an informative way. If you’re going to pursue it, look for a provider that has experienced interviewers and a sample portfolio before you pull the trigger.

Look, anybody with a webcam can record herself speaking into the lens in a monologue in an introductory video. Have you ever watched one? For those not trained in speaking before a camera, they can be dry, boring, and all too often comical as the speaker reads from cue cards. Is this how you want your business to come across?

The Executive Video Interview provides more value because you are being asked questions that drive great answers in a relaxed, authentic way that highlight the competitive advantage of your business while providing some take away value for your viewers. There are no cue cards, you can pause when answering and even trip over your words and it is all expected because people are viewing a dialogue. A nice marketing touch is to use your Executive Video Interviews to accompany blog posts and provide a a unique perspective for viewers on your small business area of expertise.

Many ways exist to effectively web video market your business. I’ve listed a few here, some you may have known and some maybe not. Whatever you do, consider adding video to your site in some fashion to keep readers interested, provide more takeaway value, and keep the site dynamic.

Stand apart from the more than 10.5 million hours of video uploaded on YouTube annually by reading http://bit.ly/hC6NHs. Use of Executive Video Interviews at http://bit.ly/e8MY3I is an economical alternative for small business.

Tags: internet video, online marketing, online video, video marketing

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/03/30/effective-internet-video-marketing-for-small-business/

As a small business owner you’re probably doing a ton of things yourself in your business – some you need to do but some also that maybe you shouldn’t be doing, right? In talking with hundreds of entrepreneurs every month I find that the majority of them (you/us) struggle with our email inboxes…they’re overflowing right?

You’re either:

1. Overwhelmed with email and your inbox

2. Feeling like you’re tied to it or it follows you around (on your smart phone)

3. Confused on how to organize it better – the flow, the emails you need, the spam, etc.

4. Ignoring it all together

5. Wondering how you can ever take a vacation (or a couple days off) and NOT check in

6. Or you’ve got it down and thoroughly organized like a well-oiled machine

Well, if you’re NOT in the situation of the very last point then you may be interested to know a few things you can do to better manage your emails and inbox. After all, you’re wasting hours a month deleting and sorting through emails you don’t even need to show up in the first place.

The following are 4 tips I suggest to better manage your emails:

1. Sort and organize your emails – Use the rules option in your mailbox feature to send specific emails into their own folders in your inbox to start.

• I send all the emails from my team (various VAs) to one folder so I can hammer out responses all at one time every hour or couple hours or so as it fits my time schedule.
• I send all my email newsletters (the ones I do want to keep) to a newsletter folder in my inbox to read when I have time. Guess what? Rarely do I ever have time nor do I miss them!
• I send all emails from particular people like my own coach, my mastermind or other group I may be a part of to their own respective folders to keep them organized and my main inbox less cluttered.

2. Unsubscribe from everything you really don’t need – Ask yourself, do you need it?

• Like the Staples and Office Depot emails I was getting….I know when I need office supplies where I’m going to go to buy them, I don’t need reminders of where to go and I certainly don’t need to be tempted with special sales to buy stuff when I don’t need anything.
• Or, the email newsletters you get that scream sales at you or that don’t have relevant content anymore for you; if you don’t want the person to know you’re unsubscribing them have them automatically sent to your trash folder.

3. Create template emails - For emails or information you send regularly, keep a folder handy with the most recent emails in it for easy reference and copying to save time on future responses.

• I receive applications for complimentary strategy sessions with me from people every week and I send pretty much the same thing to each person to schedule their session, all I have to do is copy an old email, enter in updated dates/times available and press send.
• I also send out information about speaking for groups or telesummits to organizers and event producers so I have an email ready to go with my speaker sheet in it which includes talk titles, bio, picture, references and logo in it so I don’t miss out on any opportunity that comes along because that information isn’t put together.

4. Delegate when you’re away – Find someone to check your email for you so you can actually take a few days off or an entire vacation without checking in. (what a concept!)

• Use a service such as logmein.com so they can log into your computer from anywhere which makes it convenient for them and write out a cheat sheet for them for what to look out for when managing your emails.
• My cheat sheet is 5 pages long but it covers all the bases and important emails that could come through and what to do with them so I don’t return to hundreds of emails responded to but not ‘handled’; there’s a big difference.
• My team knows to text me on my cell with any pressing issues but there rarely are any when you have a team that kicks butt like I do. (That comes in time)

Follow these simple steps and you’ll be well on your way to Mastering Your Email and Inbox!

(c) Copyright 2011 K. Sawa Marketing International. Katrina Sawa is an Award-Winning Author Speaker who’s helped hundreds of small business owners take dramatic steps in their businesses to get them to the next level in business, revenues their personal life. Get her Free Entrepreneur’s Success Kit at www.JumpStartYourMarketing.com!

Tags: email, inbox, time management

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/03/28/mastering-your-email-and-inbox/

When starting your own online Internet Business, there’s one very important factor that has to be determined. And while having it, won’t guarantee success, not having it will almost surely guarantee failure. It is simply a market or a hungry crowd which needs a result from your internet marketing product. If there is no one who wants what you are selling, then your online business is destined to fail.

For an online internet marketing business to succeed, it’s essential that research for any given product must be carried out first. The most popular way to carry out your research for your niche is to use Google. The key isn’t to Google your internet marketing product, but rather to Google the problem that your online business idea solves.

Find out what kind of buzz is happening in relation to your internet marketing product that you are attempting to resolve and if there aren’t any complaints about the problem, then there isn’t a need to solve it.

These days people can keep in touch with each other or find people they’ve lost contact with, by using social networks.

These are incredible networks, as they can also be used for business. When starting their own online internet marketing business. a lot of budding entrepreneurs go broke because they hire out people to help them get the necessary exposure for their online business. This does have it’s benefits long term, however these same people often overlook the value of social networking web sites and programs that can be helpful in attracting possible customers. Having a social network page to advertise your information marketing product is becoming very popular.

When you find the social network site you want to use for your online business – Facebook or Twitter, you should register your internet business with it’s professional name. Most of these social networks have a marketplace – type page to put your business onto. Ensure that you check all the options available to you within that particular network. When you register your marketing products make sure you provide accurate descriptions about your online business, which will educate and interest people.

As with Google, you should always use keywords within your social network marketing. From there you have to get connected. You need to invite as many people as you can to get invited to your site. In time your business could get connected to new clients thanks to friends or friends of other friends. Connections can spread like wildfire but only if you take the time to ignite that fire.

Finally don’t neglect your social network site, keep updating it, promote new products and keep in touch with new clients. A lot of times budding information marketers don’t do this and this can have consequences to your online business. Mixing business with pleasure is almost impossible in some realms of information marketing, but using online social networks can be great fun and can help push your online internet business to new heights.

Uncover a secret library of ebook resources that show you exactly how to start and grow your own online internet business and visit www.samibmarketings.com and download your free report now

Tags: online business, product demand, social networking, social networks

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/03/25/how-to-create-demand-for-your-product-by-using-online-social-networks/

Recently I read a LinkedIn article for small business owners that stated, “You should think of your profile as an online resume.” I could not disagree more. And, when you are done reading this article, let me know what you think!

Now, while you think whether or not your LinkedIn profile should be regarded as a resume, let me ask you: When was the last time you read an interesting and intriguing resume?

Most resumes tend to be boring and bland. Now, how is this going to help you attract viewers and prospects? Simple, it can’t.

As a small business owner or a business development executive, you have to start thinking of your profile as a marketing tool and not a resume.

Since you have to change your mindset about this, I have developed six distinct reasons why your profile should not look like a resume.

Why You Should Not Think of Your LinkedIn Profile as Your Resume

Reason #1: A resume is not personal enough.

The goal of LinkedIn is to connect with people and build relationships. The only way you will connect with prospects is to personalize your profile. To do this you need to tell stories and share information that gives a better scope of:

* Who you are.
* What makes you tick.
* How you can help the prospect.
* What new and exciting information you have to offer them.

Make viewers want to learn more about what you and your business can do for them. Be creative and use all the applications that LinkedIn provides you can show videos, presentations and documents.

Reason #2: Remember LinkedIn is a social human network.

Most resumes lack that human touch that LinkedIn can provide if used correctly. You need to make your profile interesting and enjoyable to read. You have to keep in mind that if you want others to read it, you should want to read it too. Here is an excerpt of my summary to give you an idea of what I mean.

With over 80 million professional members in over 200 countries, LinkedIn offers small business owners and internet marketer’s unlimited opportunities to build, and nourish profitable relationships online.

However, out of the 80+ million people on LinkedIn, only a FEW successful companies and internet marketers are using LinkedIn to its’ fullest profit-making potential.

Do you want to know some of my top secrets on how to get more business using LinkedIn? As a Social Media Expert (not a self-proclaimed expert, the New York Times called me that) who specializes in LinkedIn, I’ve uncovered…”14 Underground Secrets to Making Money And Taking Complete and Total Control Of Your Industry and Niche on LinkedIn” Here I reveal mistakes that other LinkedIn experts are even making.

Reason #3: The goal of LinkedIn profile is to get people to connect with you so that you can funnel them back to your website.

Your profile is a way to tell prospects what you and your business can do for them. Your LinkedIn profile allows you to show the different areas of your business and then lead prospects to the appropriate webpage to get even more information. The goal of a resume however, is to list accomplishments, achievements and jobs held. It simply lists your job descriptions, past and present. A resume does not mention the kind of person you are and why someone should connect with you. And, a resume doesn’t allow you to focus on the here and now and what you can provide your potential clients today like your LinkedIn profile should.

Reason #4: Resumes are usually limited to 1-2 pages while a LinkedIn profile is not.

While it’s usually not a good idea to submit a resume that is more than 2 pages long, you don’t have that kind of restriction with an online profile. You can include more information, more details, more accomplishments, more strengths and more keywords. The more information you include the more credibility you will gain, the more connected to your prospects you will become. Once you gain their trust, it will become much easier to sell your products, services or even the idea of joint venture relationship.

Reason #5: A LinkedIn profile enables you to brand yourself much better and much easier than a resume ever could.

Everything from yourself, your company to your products and services can be branded on your profile. For example, if you are the best at selling widgets, then make sure your profile clearly articulates that – and reinforce your brand throughout the profile. LinkedIn recently added some new sections that will further enhance your ability to sell yourself to potential clients. What resume will allow you to include postings about your publications, certifications or skills. Those sections usually get edited out due to space.

Now, do you think of your LinkedIn profile as your online resume?

Do you now realize the marketing potential LinkedIn gives you – if only you’d change your mindset?

Great! Now, I invite you to check out what other LinkedIn marketing mistakes you are making and opportunities you are missing.

LinkedIn Marketing Expert Kristina Jaramillo creates online marketplace opportunities for small business owners who want more website traffic, prospects and profits. Now, with her free special report, you can uncover how you can become “the trusted source for your industry on LinkedIn” fast plus learn how to avoid the top 14 mistakes. Get this information for free at: www.GetLinkedInHelp.com

Tags: linkedin, Resumes, social networking

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/03/25/linkedin-marketing-debate-should-you-think-of-your-linkedin-profile-as-a-resume/

With all the buzz about the latest Google algorithm change, dubbed the Google Farmer Algorithm by many, it is time to really take a serious look at the difference between having a dream and being a dreamer when it comes to creating success for your business online. Most of the content that has been the hardest hit is content created by dreamers. The difference between the two can be easily defined by your mindset.

The mindset of a person with a dream:

* You realize that having a dream is the same as having a goal.

* You can visualize yourself achieving your goals.

* You have taken the time to thoroughly research your market to ensure you will have a viable product or service that is in sufficient demand to generate enough profits to sustain your business and your needs.

* Along with your dream you have created an action plan that is structured, measurable and realistic with clear timelines that is designed to turn your dream into a reality one step at a time.

* You are passionate and focused on making every effort to push your business forward.

* You understand that in order to achieve success your efforts must equal the expected outcome. In other words, you know that you only get out of it what you put into it and you are prepared to work round the clock if necessary to make it happen.

* You realize that you must gather a team together to make up for your lack of knowledge or skills in certain areas or you must take the time to learn the technology and skills necessary for delivering your content and products to your market.

* You know that you must be able to provide your customers with quality and value in order to compete in your market.

* You are aware that it takes money to make money. While an internet based business may not carry the same costs as an offline business, there are still operating costs involved and you must be able to cover those fees until your business is paying for itself.

The mindset of a dreamer:

* You have a dream of what you wish your life could be like but deep down don’t really believe it is possible.

* You have unrealistically set a goal of $10,000 per month income (because the gurus tell you that is what you can make) but you have not created a structured road map to get yourself to that goal.

* You only have 4 hours per week to spend on your business but that is okay because you believe making money online is easy and takes almost no effort. You just need to find the right system or a guru who is willing to show you their secrets.

* You want to only use free services because you either do not have any money to invest in your business or you would rather spend your money elsewhere.

* You have bought every automated money making system available because you do not want to have to spend hours and hours working on building a solid business.

* You have, or want to have, hundreds of automated websites because the law of averages says that the more websites you have, the more your chances are of getting lucky and having one or two websites that will make you a few bucks.

* You don’t like to write content but that’s not a problem because you can get your website content by scraping other sites, spinning PLR articles or adding RSS feeds to your site so you never have to actually create original content yourself.

* You believe that every bit of help or service you need can be outsourced for $5 but you expect to get top notch service for that price!

* You have purchased every guru product under $47 but have not really put them to use because they involved too much time and effort to implement. You quickly demanded a refund because they did promise a 30 day money back guarantee, right?

Where do you see yourself in the above mindsets?

The Google Farmer algorithm was put in place to weed out the dreamers and to allow those with a dream to rise in the ranks. In my opinion it is a change for the better.

When I started marketing my first website 12 years ago, the goal was to become an authority within my market. I knew that if I could reach that status, the income would automatically follow. I knew this was not realistically going to happen overnight. I threw myself into building a solid online business. I worked my offline business 8 hours per day and then worked my online business 8 hours per day when I got home. My initial goal was to add $250 per week to my bottom line through online sales.

When it took only a few months to achieve that goal, I was in heaven! I pushed onward and within a year or so my online business surpassed my offline business. When the recession hit and my offline business saw a drastic reduction in sales, I was able to still prosper and grow because I had taken that time to really build a solid business online.

For those of you reading this article who really dream of building a solid business online, the best advice I can give you is to follow your dream. Learn what you need to learn, do the work you need to do, surround yourself with an experienced team and get advice from those you can trust who have achieved what you hope to achieve. (Not self-proclaimed gurus.)

For those who only want to make easy money online, I advise you to just go get a part-time job. You will save money by not buying anymore hyped up info-products and systems and at least you will be bringing in a few bucks.

Cathy Henry is a seasoned online business veteran with 12 years of online business success. She now focuses much of her time helping other business owners achieve online success. http://cathyhenry.com

Tags: Business Mindset, Dreamer, online business owner

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/03/23/internet-business-mindset-do-you-have-a-dream-or-are-you-a-dreamer-a-spn-exclusive-article/

It is essential that you take time to understand the effectiveness of correctly undertaken search engine optimization for your online marketing strategy as this will be the foundation on which you can attract a flood of targeted traffic to your website. As with everything, there are right and wrongs ways of doing this but if you are willing to take on the challenge, the results will be worth it.

Link building should form the basis for making your website popular in the eyes of the search engines. When other websites link to your website, the search engines take that as a vote for the relevancy, and more importantly, the quality of the content that it contains. But don’t be tempted to take shortcuts, using unethical means to increase the number of links back to your website too quickly. You could run the risk of being blacklisted by the search engines, thus wasting the time and effort that you put in to developing your online business.

Never forget that relevancy is very important when placing links. The value of a link is greatly enhanced if it is on a page containing content that is relevant to your website. When adding a link, always ensure you are placing it within the content of a page. A great example of this is a high ranking relevant forum within your niche. Make a comment on a thread or start a new one and ensure there is a link back to a specific page within your website where perhaps the reader can source further information. Note that the link should take the reader to more content and should not just be a link to a product.

Another simple SEO tip is to ensure that the link back to your website is from a site that is trusted, high ranking and complements your offering. So how do you do this? The wrong way is to ask “will you share a link with me?”. The answer will most likely be “no” but, if you offer original, exclusive and relevant content, then the other website owner may at least consider your request. Just remember, there is always a high demand for quality content from other website and blog owners and their sites can be a great source of targeted traffic for you.

Now here is a little comment about page rank. Why go to all the bother of undertaking this online business strategy if you are just wanting to get links from any website? The key point that you must focus on is to target websites that have a high page rank for particular keywords or keyword phrases. If you can get just one link pointing back from a high ranking website, then this will be far more valuable than having one hundred links back from a variety of websites that are of dubious value and quality. So the next time you see an offer to get thousands of links back to your website, ask yourself the question of where these links will be placed and what relevancy and value will
they bring to your website.

A fourth SEO tip for your online business strategy is the use of anchor text. This is where you pick a keyword from the content that you have written related to the content subject and create a hyperlink back to your website or blog that includes that keyword. This link should be identified by the color blue and, when clicked on, take the reader to the page on your website that contains more relevant content. From there you can inform and educate further and perhaps provide a solution to the visitor in the form of a product or service.

The anchor text that you use should always appear natural in that it should flow when being read. There is nothing worse than well written content being interrupted by wrongly placed anchor text that has been squeezed in and which detracts from the natural reading flow. One point to note is that you should avoid using the same anchor text again and again because the search engines could well penalize you. An article you have written can be very well optimized if it has, say, no more than two anchor texts that read naturally with two similar but not exact keywords or phrases being used.

The four SEO backlink tips noted above should give you a competitive edge over the vast majority of other website owners in your niche. It may take some time and effort to implement them, but the rewards will be recognizable in terms of increased targeted traffic and a higher page ranking for your website or blog. The search engines will recognize the relevancy of your site for the keywords and phrases that you choose and this will be backed up by the valuable links, or votes, that are pointing back to yor site from other high ranking and relevant websites.

Who else wants to work from home online and have a successful internet business? Then start where Michael T started. Don’t miss out on the key knowledge to grow your niche online business to make profits. You will be shown exactly what and how to do it. Start now and claim your free Internet Marketing Insider’s Report today at www.infomarketingforyou.com/insidersreport.html

Tags: Back Link Tips, backlinks, online marketing strategy, seo, SEO Backlink tips

Article source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2011/03/18/top-back-link-tips-for-your-online-marketing-strategy-a-spn-exclusive-article/