Facebook is a social networking giant.
In recent years, Facebook has become a major force in the social networking world. People of all ages are utilizing the site and its features to keep in touch with friends and family, share photos online, and search for long lost classmates or coworkers. While Facebook is clearly a convenient way to keep up with personal contacts, can a business benefit from this powerhouse as well?
Most experts say yes. Having a presence online via a website isn’t enough anymore. We now know it is just as important to promote your site and be diligent in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), allowing your site to easily show up in the search engines. Not only that, but Facebook has over 125 million users worldwide. Utilizing the site’s visibility
is certainly an advantage any business can benefit from.
Deciding if Facebook Is Right For Your Business.
One of the best ways to figure out is Facebook is the right choice is to follow the blog of Mari Smith, the guru of Facebook for Business. She wrote 10 Reasons to Use Facebook for Business, which provides some compelling reasons for adding Facebook to your company’s social media plan.
How Can I Create An Effective Business Page?
Once you’ve created a page for your business on Facebook, there are ways to optimize your visibility so that your page gets traffic. Just having a page on Facebook is the first step, but making sure your page is accessible and populated with content is also important. Here are some helpful tips in getting your business page going, and making it effective.
Creating a business page on Facebook ensures that the millions of Facebook users have access to your business in a relevant and convenient way. Exposure of that kind could prove to be an invaluable tool for you and your business!
One of the easiest ways to help you get on page 1 of Google is to get your company listed in the Google Business Directory. When people are searching for services in a specific city, the Google Business Directory will make suggestions right at the top of page 1.
For Landau Design we found listing our company in the directory brought us to the top of page 1 when people searched for design services in our area (type in joomla design "los angeles" and see where we come up). This happened almost overnight, and we saw the increase in our website traffic and potential client phone calls.
Create your listing
To create a Google Business Directory listing you need to create a Google account. The person who creates the directory listing owns the edit rights, so the company owner should make sure it is attached to his/her profile. When filling in the listing use as much detail as possible, especially in the categories section. Make sure your company description includes the most important keywords for your company. In the categories section put keywords and keyword phrases that clients use to find you.
Follow your reports
After you've created your listing you can come back and visit it by going to the Local Business Center link in your Google account panel. From here you can see reports that tell you how often your site came up in searches, whether people clicked on your links and what keywords they used to find you. Use this information to refine your company profile and assist in helping clients find you.
Advertising on your blog is a popular way to make some extra dollars. But how does one approach the concept of advertising? The following steps will help you determine what to charge and how to implement your advertising venture:
1) Determine if you should have advertising on your blog.
You need to consider if advertising is right for your blog. Will your readers be okay with it? Do you have space for it? Would people even pay for it? If your blog is new, it may not be something that you could sell, and instead you might want to use Google AdSense, which means you only get paid when people click on the ads. If you aren't at a place where you could sell ads, consider trading ads with another blog that is complimentary to your own.
2) Determine the value of an ad on your blog.
To determine the value of an ad you have to attempt to quantify the value of your blog. This means you have to come up with a cost per click or cost per impression value based on who visits your blog, how often they visit and how long they stay there. It's a somewhat ambiguous process to figure this out, but ProBlogger expert Daniel Scocco has written an excellent tutorial to help you determine how much to charge for advertising on your blog. If you're still stumped, you might try running through the My Blog Value calculator. While the creators claim it's just for fun, it does help give you an idea of where to begin.
2) Decide if you want to use a service to manage the advertising.
You can manually accept and place ads on your blogs and keep an Excel file to track expiration dates and due dates for payment. But there are companies that will manage the placement and payment for you. Of course they take a percentage, but they will also promote your blog in their directories so you might find other advertisers you may not have otherwise connected with. I have not used one of these services, but these are ones I have seen on popular blogs:
4) Decide where the place the ads
Decide how much space on your blog you are willing to give up to advertising. Advertisers will not be happy if the ads are pushed way down, so usually somewhere near the top, in the sidebar, is optimum positioning. If you are going to push ads below the fold, you might consider charging a reduced rate for this less-than-premium placement.
Hopefully this will help you decide whether to have ads and how much to charge from them. Making money from blog advertising is a common and easy way to generate revenue for something you are already doing. It's worth serious consideration as a means of generating some passive income.
