Google Is a Myth

It is always a myth how Google rank the sites. There is no black and white rules written on the board for you and me to follow as Google like to keep the secrets inside their magic box. And because of this, there are a lot of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) ‘professors’ out there teaching different SEO techniques and a lot of times they are saying things contradicting to one another. For example, some are saying the domain name is important and best to choose the domain name that is similar to the keywords you are targeting, i.e. if your target keyword phrase is ‘green living’, then you ought to go for something like GreenLiving.com or Green-Living.com etc. Some are saying the domain name is irrelevant to the keywords and Google do no give extra ‘points’ to the site having keywords in their domain name.

All we know is – Google is BIG… as in B-I-G big. Google have over 19 data centers in the United States and at least 17 more all over the world. And each of these data centers are sitting on a 500,000 square feet of land EACH, with a cost of around $600 MILLION each. YES- $600 MILLION!

You and me are adding a HUGE proportion to the web every second!

So people always thought Google is a very complex beast. Google have very big brain and No one really know or understand how Google rank the website. Sometimes just when you think you are getting close, they change their algorithm again. According to Google Chief Engineer- Matt Cutts, Google tweet their search algorithm around 1 time every day. So that explains why certain sites may drop from 1st page to the 3rd overnight! But there are certain things of course still remain unchanged. For example the importance of backlinks. Check out the video below (filmed recently) and listen to what Matt Cutts has to say:

Click here to view the embedded video.

How Google Work

Even though no one really knows in detail how Google rank the sites. And no one knows what has been changed in the search algorithm from day to day. But we do know how Google work. I found this very good image/flow chart from ppcblog.com. And I am sure it will fascinate you if you are really keen to learn SEO. It is a big image, so you may want to right click and save it onto your computer to read.

Image Source: PPCBlog.com

Go ahead and start at the top and follow it all the way down. This chart takes you from adding new content to the web to how pages are returned and ranked when a user searches Google for related terms and phrases.

Don’t be scared by me saying ‘No one really knows how Google rank the site’. If you read carefully, I also said that there are certain things which we know Google consider to be important. So if you want to be successful in your internet venture, spend some times learning SEO 

Authority Back Links

If you are keen to learn how to add some oomph and improve the ranking of your website in Google, you should consider using authority back links.  Before I go further, back links are links (your website url or domain name) from other people websites to your sites. You don’t need tons of these to move up the ranks, but having some authority back links will catch the attention of the search bots and make it easier for them to rank you, index you, and post you as being more relevant to the search engine.

Authority back links are links from sites that are older, established, of high page rank and are popular sources of information for searchers.  Some examples are  Ezine articles and Scribd, both of which are article directory sites that you can use to easily upload articles pertaining to your site for readers. I have attached herewith a list of  30 Article Directories recommended for your reference.You can click on the image below to download the  list.

Other examples of authority back links are sites such as Wikipedia or sites that end in .gov or .edu.  Wikipedia is considered to be something of an authority site because so many people use it.  Of course some sites are considered to be authority sites because they are older, they are made up of many people instead of just a few, and people use them for information all the time and trust their source. That is why Google like to Rank Wikipedia site on the 1st page.

Article Directories

The easiest way to start getting some authority back links on your site is to submit articles to directories such as Ezine and Scribd.  This is also one of the most efficient ways to get people to come to your site because the articles you write will be related to your website and will have your URL right in or at the bottom of the article (resource box).  Both of these sites are very easy to work with, so it’s a simple way to get some authority added to your website and they are free to submit to unless you want all the perks, in which case you’ll have to pay a subscription fee.  However, for use in one or two sites, they are ideal just the way they are.

In order to write for these sites, it’s important to stick close to the editorial guidelines-broadly speaking, you have to have articles that are original, do not overtly advertise any one thing, and have to fall within a range of word count; usually between 250 and 5000 words.  Be sure to stick with the guidelines and your articles will be posted that much faster which means more readers and more traffic to your site.

Squidoo

Squidoo is a blog and a community site rolled into one; it allows you to build ‘lens’  (article too) on whatever you are interested in or whatever your online business covers.  These lens are then seen by everyone else in the Squidoo community or online and can be read, commented on and used as a link to your business site. You can check out one of the lens I created here: Bamboo Charcoal Home Air Purifiers

Lens are one stop webpages of sorts that point readers to your blogs, websites, social media and so on; plus you can make a bit of money of them (via affiliates like Amazon, eBay etc) for yourself or your charity.  You can also use your lens to talk about yourself or your business.  It’s free to use and very easy to get started on, so it’s a good way to get some authority back links on your website.  Make sure to post new and fresh content regularly and keep your lens within the site guidelines (no X-rated material for example) and you’ll be able to use your lens to really promote your website.

Each of your lens should have at least three modules, plenty of content, pictures, relevant tags, and has unique content, not things that are lifted from other sites.  Modules are things like RSS, text content, photos, and a guestbook, to name a few things.  Keeping your lens updated is one of the best ways to become a lens expert and you can do this easiest by having an RSS module on your Lens so that when you update your blog, your Squidoo will be updated too.

Finally, make sure to update your biography with About you, a link to your website and a photo of yourself so that people really feel like they can get to you know you.

Keep in mind that your Lens has to be rated G or R; not adult content is supported through Squidoo anymore, so this is something to keep in mind if you have an adult oriented website that you want to promote.

HubPages

HubPages is a site where you can post articles, not blogs, related to your main keywords.  HubPages is a great way to be seen as an expert in your field and thus have more people interested in your business and your niche.  Just like Squidoo, HubPages are ‘mini webpages’ within the larger HubPages website. It’s important to use your main keywords in the things like the Hub URL and in your tags so that you can be properly ranked and optimized within HubPages and in the greater online picture. Again, please check out the Hubpages I created for Home Air Purifiers.

HubPages is much like Squidoo otherwise; you allow people to comment and rate your articles, post pictures, and have a biography where you can have a URL back to your main business.  Just like Squidoo no adult content is allowed, so again, if you have an adult website, go elsewhere.  Gambling is also prohibited, as is copying other articles.

Before you go tearing off to sign on with all of these sites-Ezine, Scrbd, Squidoo, HubPages and etc, take a moment to consider, honestly, how much you can do.  While it’s true that the more authority back links you have the better, you also have to keep up with all of the sites you’ve joined up.  All four of these sites demand original content that hasn’t been published on other article directories and Squidoo and HubPages demand that you do more than simply write; you also have to do things like have images, other media, links, and even advertisements to make a bit of money.  This means that you have to the time to pour into these sites to make your corner worth viewing.

If you’re a newbie, I would suggest to start on Ezines and HubPages-Ezines is the top rated in the article directories, and HubPages is relatively easy to use.

You can always try your luck at DMoz. Dmoz is the largest,  most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. You can submit your site  for approval. Sometimes it may take months for your site to get listed there. However, from my experience, it is not that easy to get listed there. So you just have to try your luck. Google likes Dmoz a lot and if you can have your site listed there, you can beat a site with 100s of back links from article directories!

My friend Cherry reminded me of the new release of New Top Level Domain (TLD)- .co on the 20th July. It’s the beginning of the .CO era! .CO is a new domain extension that offers a truly global recognizable and credible option for a Web address.

So what does .Co stand for?  It can be anything in this era, according to the Director of Marketing of CoInternet-  it can be “company”, “corporation,” or “commerce”. And of course in today’s world, that goes beyond “company”, to collaborate, content, and community.

Do you know that e.Co is sold for $81,000!!

The Launching of .Co

The standard process followed as the launching of other TLDs. The global launch of .CO is divided into three phases: Sunrise, Landrush, and General Availability.

Sunrise (April 26, 2010 – June 10, 2010): It is created for the pre-registration of domains in order to protect trademark holders and avoid abusive registrations. For example, if I own Google, I will have the right to apply for the Google.CO domain name corresponding to my company trademark before the registration of domain names opens to the general public. By using this phased approach, abuse can be prevented. The application fee is $240.00, and upon awarded, there will be an annual renewal fee of $39.90.

Landrush (already closed on the 16 July): This is a money making time for the .Co owner - CoInternet. Why is it called Landrush? My own simple explanation is everyone rushing for their own piece of land on internet. The Landrush phase is open to everyone and lets customers pay a premium to have a chance to secure high-commercial-value domains. The domains that get attention during the Landrush phase are normally short and memorable non-trademarked terms. For example, something like sushi.co would have high value to a sushi company. That domain has the potential to rank well in search engines and would be a fantastic addition to a company’s marketing and branding efforts.

General Availability (open to public starting 20th July): This is the final, broad-release period open to PUBLIC. You and me can go in now and grab whatever domain we want, as long as it is still available. Don’t be surprise that there are many good names still there! For example, I was playing around with the .Co domain registration just few minutes ago and found that LoseWeightExercise.Co, GoHoliday.Co etc are still available!! So if you want to grab a good name, please act now. You can register your own .Co domain  name at GoDaddy.

History (source: Domain Name Wire)
Lets dwell into the boring part- History. In fact, .Co is the country code domain for Colombia. For example, .my is for Malaysia, and .Sg is for Singapore. It was originally delegated to University of The Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. For many years, the University has run tight controls on the domain name. Registration was mostly limited to Colombian companies who could register their trade name or company name as an exact match at the third level, such as name.com.co. As a result, there are only about 28,000 .co domains registered.

About ten years ago, University of The Andes started to look at opening up registration of the domain name. Colombia’s Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications got involved, and went through a painstaking process of figuring out the best way to open up the domain. Arcelandia S.A. and domain registry Neustar formed a partnership to respond to Colombia’s RFP, and was awarded a contract to run the domain for 10 years.

Unlike the recent bungled re-launch of .cm, Colombia is clearly taking a different approach. “[Colombia] wanted to make sure this was done the right way,as it’s a real issue of national pride.”

As of now, the number of.Co web address registered is 154,576. And it is going Fast and Strong!!

Your Own Domain Name

Domain name? What is so important about it? I just chat on Facebook with a friend in London just now. She mentioned to me she has a blog but the blog is not making any money for her. She then showed me her blog. My immediate reaction after I saw the domain name with .tk is- why using the FREE domain and hosting when come to writing her own blog?

What’s a Domain Name and Why do You Need it?

A domain name is equivalent to a piece of land with your name on it for yourself online, e.g. addykho.com, alibaba.com etc.  It gives you the ground you need to build your blog, online store, or whatever else you want to do online.  It’s best to buy your domain outright because then you can sell it, transfer it, do whatever you want with it and be in control of protecting it.  This makes it much easier and less stressful to work with; besides, buying a domain and hosting it isn’t all that expensive anyway.

There is no doubt that my friend is a very good writer, lawyer and musician. But no matter how many blog posts she has written, at the end of the day, the blog still does not belong to her. It is owned by the free host! The blog may be deleted by the free host whenever they want to.

If you want someone to take your blog or business seriously, you will have to get yourself a domain name and a hosting package. If you are using a free host, how would one think about your business online? If one day, your blog or website is getting very popular and worth even up to million dollars, how can you sell your website to someone else if it does not owned by you?

So think long term and get yourself a domain name with professional hosting.  I have been using HostMonster so far and I am very happy with their professional service.

Choosing Your Own Domain Name

Choosing your own domain name means picking a name for your website or blog.  It’s a very important step and it’s very exciting because it means that all the content of your website will be sitting on a piece of internet land registered under the name you would like it to be remembered, otherwise known as your domain name.  So, put your thinking caps on and get excited because it’s time to stake out your claim to the internet. You have to be careful on this because once the name is chosen, you don’t want to keep changing it anymore. Example, if I have http://addykho.com for my blog, I do not want to change to Kho.com or Addy.com anymore because people already remember my blog as AddyKho.com.

How the heck do you name your domain in such a way that it will useful to you and memorable to others?  It’s a creative process, but a very important one, so have some guidelines is nice.

1.  Use your theme keyword in the selection of your domain and use .com, .net or .org, starting with the .com as it’s the most recognizable. If you are selling or blogging about guitar, then you may want to have the word “guitar” in the domain name. You can optimize your site for search engines because you can have the main keyphrase or keywords  right in the URL (it carries a little weight in SEO) and in the title of your site.

2.  Use hyphens if you have to. Sometimes the domain name you desire is taken by others, e.g. NoMoreDirtyRoofs.com. So instead, you can always try No-More-Dirty-Roofs.com. In fact, with hyphen, Google can understand it better that it is of four different words and give Google better idea what your site is about.

3. Register your domain for minimum 2 years. For some weird reason, Google loves domain registered for longer period. If everything being equal, then the website with longer domain ownership will rank better in the Google search results page.

4. Not your own name. This is one of the biggest mistake I ever made. If you want to ‘grow’ your website and probably sell it one day, then you should not register the domain as your own name, unless you want to keep it personal and not for making money purpose. I should have registered something like Online-Biz-Ideas.com since I am posting more on Online business. If one day I want to sell off this blog, then I will be selling off my very own Name- AddyKho.com. Of course I would not do that.

If you have a theme keyword in mind, you can easily automate this process by using some online tools such as www.domainsbot.com, which will check your domain name ideas and see if they already exist or if you have to do some tweaking.  If you get yourself a Hosting Package from HostMonster, you will be given a domain name free of charge. It is a real bargain. HostMonster is having a special promotion now- $5.95 per month for the hosting!

One more important tip to you -You want the ability to host unlimited domains on your hosting package. It is ridiculous if the hosting company allow you to have only 1 domain hosted in your package.  Once your register the hosting package with HostMonster, you can have unlimited domains parked under your package, and you still only have to pay $5.95 per month!

If you want to know how to set up your own blog or membership site within minutes with your very own domain name, check out the video I made before – How to Set Up Your Own Blog or Membership Site in 9 Mins.

How to Write For Ezine

EzineArticles.om the largest article directory on the internet as compared to others like GoArticles.com, ArticleCity.com, ArticlesFactory.com etc .  If you still remember, I tried to participate in the HAHD (Hundred Articles in Hundred Days) organised by Ezine few months ago and had been rewarded for completing the challenge in time.

Writing articles for Ezine is the quickest, easiest, and one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website with just a bit of work; however, you have to do a good job of it otherwise you’ll be ignored.

Let’s start by looking at your writing.

• Ezine has fairly high standards so far as readability goes.  Make sure that your article is in English, is grammatically correct and spelling error free, and is well researched.  You won’t get far if you try to make stuff up, so check your statistics and facts.
• Make sure that your content is in some way relevant to your website.  If you’re selling clothing, write about clothing; if you’re selling books, write about books and so on.  You can of course write the very occasional article about something else, but if you want to make sure you’re driving the right people to your site (i.e. the traffic who will buy something) you have to make sure that your articles will appeal to those buyers.
• Your tone should be conversational and friendly, but not casual.  No texting language, no run-on sentences and limit the exclamation points.  However, feel free to use bullet points and headings-online readers love to read things that are in a compact form.

All right! Champing at the bit?  Wait up a minute! There are some things you should know first.

Ezine has four levels of membership: Basic, Basic plus, platinum and premium and all of them except Premium are free.  You’ll start out as a Basic writer.  Basic writers can only submit ten articles and it can take up to a week for an article to be approved by the Ezine staff who moderate all of the incoming articles and make sure that they are up to snuff.

You don’t want to stay a basic writer.  You want to upgrade to Basic Plus or Platinum by writing good quality articles.  Basic Plus is given if you’ve had ten good, but not great articles and none of your articles are ‘problem’ articles (that is, articles that are flagged as problematic for things like plagiarism, inappropriate content, or just poorly written).  Basic Plus lets you submit up to twenty five more articles, but you still may have to wait up to a week to have articles published.

Platinum is the gold if you want a free membership.  Platinum is granted if you’ve had at least ten high quality articles with no flagged articles at the time of review.  You get unlimited submissions and articles are reviewed and published within two work days instead of five or more.  Plus you get a neat little star beside your name.

Finally you have Premium membership status which you have to pay for.  Premium membership does give a few neat benefits such as being able to say when an article will be published which means you can let your readers know when to expect a new one.

So, before submitting that article, make sure that it’s well written, original, not a sales pitch or promotional, and that it’s all correct and gives information that would be useful to read.

Ok, got your writing cap on?  Next up: the daily routine!

Content is King in the internet business world and writing to Ezine is a great way to get your voice out there.  This means that you need a routine and a habit to get into so you keep up the content. Figure out what days of the week you want to write and how many articles per day you want to submit and STICK WITH IT!  If you really want to get into a habit rut, pick a time of day to start writing and stick with that too.  It’ll be hard for a week or so, but after a while it will be so ingrained that when you don’t do it for some reason, you’ll feel anxious.  Getting a routine down will make it much easier to do the work.

If you’re new to the writing game, just try to do one article a day.  Ezine articles have to be between two fifty and five thousand words and two hundred and fifty words isn’t much at all, so start with that and build up.  Once you get used to writing, you’ll be able to do more articles a day in less time.  The more articles you do, the more people will come and visit you and the more likely people will view your profile. From there you direct people to go to your website.

Finally, SUBMISSION!

Submitting your article is very easy-you’re going to be filling out a form.  The directory will ask you the following:

- Category and sub categories with drop menus.  This organizes your articles into the system for others to find.

- Title.  Make sure it’s a compelling title that encompasses your content!

- Excerpt/Description.  A short description of your article, around two to five sentences.  You can cut/paste bits of your article in here if you can’t think of anything to say. But it would be nice if you can be a bit teasing.

- Article.  The main body of your article.  Once you’re past basic membership, you’ll be able to clean up your article when you paste it.  This lets Ezine format it in the best way without you doing anything more than Pasting it into the pop-up box and hitting ‘Ok’.

- Keywords. Ezine will suggest what keywords are best suited for your article.  Click on the ones that seem suitable.  BUT BE CAREFUL!  Ezine has a limit to keyword density which is 2% and if you have more than that, you’ll have to remove some.  Fortunately, this will be flagged before the article goes to the editors, so you don’t have to worry about being red flagged.

Then agree to the Terms of Services and Conditions and hit Submit!

Presto!  You can track the progress of your article on your dashboard and you’ll be notified when it goes through and live.

Now, before you go dashing off expecting the world to come to you, here are some things to keep in mind:

• You may get thousands of readers and less than a hundred URL clicks.  Yeah, it sucks, doesn’t it?  Take it as a sign that a) you need to keep the writing up and b) you need to write more interesting things.  It’s a learning experience.  Also keep in mind that a lot of Ezine readers do it for research on something else, not just shopping around-you may be getting researchers, not buyers.
• Ezine is the biggest article directory out there, but it’s by no means the only way you should be advertising yourself.  It should be a piece of the pie, not the pie, so make sure you have your writing fingers in other places. Sometimes you can submit the same article to other article directories to build more links and traffic back to your website.
• If you have problem articles flagged, deal with them swiftly.  Sometimes they need editing, sometimes they need to be taken down.  Flagged articles that are left for too long look bad and they also teach you bad habits if you keep it up.  Fix it or take it down and clean up your dashboard!  If you have flags and you’re not platinum or premium, fix it because you’re damaging your chances of getting upgraded.

All right!  Writing for Ezine is a great way to make yourself known to the larger world of the internet and it’s very easy to do once you get used to it.  Writing articles is arguably one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site and once the articles are up, you don’t have to do anything else but write more, making them very efficient.

One Final Tip for you. At the bottom of every article, there are few comparisons:

1. Most Recent EzineArticles from the Category
2. More Related EzineArticles
3. Most Viewed EzineArticles in the Category
4. Most Published EzineArticles in the Category

You will see certain articles in Ezine having more readers than others in the same niche or category. If you want your articles to be popular as well, then try to write the same thing as what the most popular article is saying- similar content and title! There must be a reason why public like that particular article. So instead of creating your very own article with new title, why don’t write something similar that has been proven to be popular and most sought after by public.

Your Own Google Background Image

Google has stepped up its personalisation effort again. Now you can add a favorite photo or image to the  background of the Google homepage. You can choose a photo from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery hosted by Picasa which includes a selection of beautiful photos.

When you land on Google page, search for a link -Change Background Image, in the lower left-hand corner of Google.com. Upload the photo which you want to see on your very own Google page.

So now you can put up any picture you want. Whether you choose a photo of your baby, you loved one or your favourite celebrity , Google.com is now yours to customize. If you do not like your background image, you can remove it or change to another one anytime.

Check out my image and see who is the World Cup Winner picked by Paul the German Octopus!

Facebook is a great platform for meeting friends, creating a following for your hobby, service, or project, and for relaxing. There’s an app for every taste, and several of them are incredibly fun and addictive. These 101 tips will get you navigating Facebook like a pro in no time.

Before you read on, if you want to have a copy of the 101 Facebook Tips in eBook and Poster, please feel free to check out the FREE Stuff in this blog.

Part 1 – finding friends and influencing people Depending on why you join Facebook, you may find it easy to make friends, or may only have it to stay in touch with friends in distant parts of the world. No matter what you do, signing up can be a process that will take up to a couple of hours (including your profile).

1. Signing up
Your own name You should use your own name or your nickname if people use it more commonly, to sign up. It’s important to ensure that your friends, family and colleagues can find you easily.

2. Your email Facebook sends out a lot of notifications once you start signing up with various groups and fan pages, apps and even comments. But people can also find you by your email, so you should probably use a personal email account. Check it frequently for friend requests and more. It has to be real though, because Facebook uses it and sometimes your mobile number to verify who you are.

3. Read the terms and conditions
You should always read the terms and conditions on any site, and Facebook is no exception, though, it should be noted that Facebook frequently updates it’s TOS causing a lot of outrage in the community. Know where your rights are and read their documentation.

4. Search your email
In some cases when you sign up for Facebook, especially if you use a ‘free’ email system such as hotmail or Gmail, Facebook can search your email addresses and see if anyone in your address book is already on Facebook.

5. Profile information – school, university, company
The first piece of profile information Facebook asks for is your School (leaving year), University (leaving year) and Company – this starts the first basic groups links so you can find Alumni and colleagues from work – if you don’t want to find anyone there, leave it empty and click skip.

6. Profile information – picture
Your photo or avatar doesn’t need to be of you, but it’s usually a good idea to use a shot of yourself so that people that aren’t sure they’ve found you can add you. Many people change their profile photos weekly though, so you can use just about any image you hold copyright to.

7. Profile information – basic information
Once you’ve gotten into Facebook, you can fill in any or all personal information on the basic information box, and depending on your security settings, people will be able to see this – it’s sometimes the difference between knowing whether it’s you or another person that they’ll friend, so this information can be useful.

8. Profile information – is Facebook a dating site?
One of the core pieces of information that Facebook asks about on signup is what you’re ‘looking’ for on the site, along with your religious standing. Don’t be afraid to mark ‘friendship’ in that box, even if you are actively seeking a relationship – it makes little difference to people adding you. Facebook is not a dating site, though there are groups on there for finding partners.

9. Profile information – personal information
Many people don’t list all of their hobbies- instead list the ones you’re interested in attracting friends for. If you’ve got a ‘guilty pleasure’ remember that people may be able to access your information, even before you add them, so you may not want to publish that. The boxes in this section are entirely optional.

10.Contact information
One of the boxes you can fill in is ‘contact information’. Be aware that depending on your security settings (see security and privacy) you may then place your ID out in the ‘open’ which can open you up to spam or bot contact.

11. Profile information – Network
If you’re interested in chatting with, or meeting up with people in your region, you can add where you life and join that ‘uber-group’. Some require email addresses or other information that ‘proves’ affiliation, but Facebook has recently improved that interface, so it works very well. Your network affiliation is listed on your profile, unless you change the security settings (see security and privacy)

12.Profile information – friends
As we’ll explain later, you can keep those that you’ve added from appearing in your search, but your friends list is always visible. Be careful when adding ‘controversial’ people in your life, as it’s very easy for other friends to use your list to find others to add – the only exception to this is if you add someone with extremely tight security settings

13. Profile information – relationships
Facebook allows the listing of relationships in your profile – but until the person you’re in a relationship confirms it; you will only be listed as in a relationship. Otherwise you will be tagged as ‘in a relationship’ but not with whom.

14. Fill as much of it in as possible
Remember, you can always come back and add, or subtract information. It’s usually something people don’t do often though, so spending those extra few minutes at sign up to create a proper profile is well worth it.

15. Security from the outset
We talk more about security later, but some people join Facebook simply to keep up with a tiny group of friends – if you’re one of these people, then you will want to ensure your security is as tight as can be (see security and privacy)

16. Finding friends, colleagues and ‘fan’ pages
Facebook has made it fairly easy to find people and add them, but in the mix with the people you can find are fan pages – which are like mini profiles (we talk about these more in section) and groups. It’s important to remember that people, such as authors or local personalities may have multiple listings in search results, so you may need to contact them and ask which to add. You also have to take one extra step to make sure people can find you. You can currently have 5,000 friends total.

17. Searches
Searching by name may bring back dozens of results, so if you know the person well enough, find out what email they use and add them via that. Adding people via email is often easier than searches too because it means you’re certain you’ve got the right person, without opening yourself up to unwanted attention. If you add someone that isn’t actually the person you wanted to add, they can see your profile.

18. Adding people via friends
If you’re a close knit group of friends, or a new group that met through University or similar pursuit, it’s normally ok to go through another friend’s list and find those that you know, but don’t abuse this – adding everyone from every friend’s list can get you flagged as a spammer by
Facebook.

19.More than one profile?
Be careful not to create more than one Facebook page – it’s against their TOS and can lead to confusion when people add you. It is possible to create a main account and make the rest of your ‘accounts’ as pages, but again be careful – Facebook has a policy about fake pages, fake names or abusing that facility.

20.Fan pages too much for you?
You can hide fan page (and app, and even ‘friend’ updates) from view easily by setting your feed up (we talk more about this in the feed management section). Hiding fan pages, even temporarily, can let you get your Facebook reading back under control, and let you decide whether you want to follow them long term.

21.Removing friends, or pages
Removing friends is easy – you just go into your friends list and click the x beside their name. You can find your friend list by looking at the left column of your main feed based Facebook page. Or you can go to ‘Account’ and then ‘edit Friends’

You can remove pages in a similar way, in ‘Edit friends’ then scrolling down to around the middle of the page and clicking on ‘pages’ (it has an orange flag next to it).

22. Using friends lists to organize your reading
Facebook introduced a concept called ‘friends lists’ recently, allowing people to sort their friends into groups, sorting them onto groups of your choosing. Have workmates, best friends, limited profile – the choice is yours. You can also edit en masse by selecting ‘Account’ then ‘edit friends’ – your whole list will appear there with drop down arrow lists, including your pages. Simply filter them onto a list you’re comfortable with and then you can control your feed.

Posting using groups – Your friends list doesn’t just allow you to filter your reading – these groups can simply control what you’re reading or allow you to customize who sees what. If you don’t want your Granny seeing your wild nights out, simply filter her into a group and then, when you post, click on the little light blue padlock. Enter your level of access, and exclude using the bottom box. You can set this as your ‘custom’ privacy build for your posts, or a one off. (see more in security and privacy)

23. Been Blocked?
Facebook is hard to contact in case of problems, but you can sometimes email them at whatever published email contact they currently have, and ask them to review your case – if you’ve done nothing wrong you should be reinstated. If you were hacked, you should contact support urgently and follow their instructions to regain control and become unblocked.

24. Got badge?
One of Facebook’s nicest widgets is the ability to create badges and display them on your webpage or site. If you’ve got a reasonably public profile, you can use these easily – if your profile is highly protected and privacy locked, you may want to consider whether you want to use it at all.

25. Looking for more?
If you have just recently joined Facebook, instead of searching for everyone by name, go to another friend’s profile and find the people you’re looking for by checking their ‘friends’ box, on the left hand side, below information. Be careful not to add too many people though – it can be seen as spamming and may be picked up by Facebook.

26. Security and privacy There’s a lot of options in Facebook that you have to pay attention to, especially if you don’t want to put your information in public. There are options to protect everything that you have on Facebook, creating a stripped out, bare public profile, but you DO need to change your settings, it’s not automatic on creation.

27. Use fine grained controls
Don’t want your family accessing your photos – lock them out. Want to only allow reading access to your status updates to people closest to you? You can do that too (though remember, apps use your default posting, which is your overall status posting setting). Go to ‘Account’ then ‘privacy settings and explore your options there.

28.The tightest locks
If you put everything in your security to ‘friends’ and remove yourself from search engine results, and then start using Facebook, you’ll have to add people, and they’ll never be able to do it themselves. If you don’t want people knowing you’re on Facebook, this is an ideal solution

29. Know your settings!
Understanding what the different settings mean for privacy and posting is what makes or breaks your Facebook usage. There are four settings – ‘Everyone’, ‘Friends of friends’, friends only and custom. Friends of friends means that any information you share on your profile can be visible by anyone that has friend any of your friends, opening your profile up to a lot more exposure.

30. Your name, date of birth, address and other information
Keeping as much of your information private as you can means that you can protect yourself against identity fraud – this also means not adding random people and practicing safe login and logout practices. Facebook is rife with mistakes that have opened people up to identity fraud, but knowing your way around security settings will stop this.

31. Privacy – profile information
In ‘Account’, Privacy Settings, you can choose to set your different parts of your profile and information to one of several settings – you can also customize them so that only your own lists of friends get to see certain things. This extra layer of security is incredibly powerful and worth the time it takes to set up.

32. Being harassed by a colleague that you just don’t want to add?
Sometimes people don’t take no for an answer – if you find that someone is continually asking you for an ‘add’ go to their profile page, scroll down to the bottom and then hit ‘Report/Block this person’. Blocking them will stop any unwanted advances – they won’t be able to see you at all (or you, them)

33.Apps getting you down?
Did an app you added suddenly change its posting policies? Are you finding that some apps are more invasive than you wanted? Go to ‘Account’, then ‘Application settings’. There, you can remove any you no longer want to use, change posting policies (in some cases) and more. Since Facebook changed how apps notify people, their ‘notification’ feeds have been a lot less cluttered, but notifications now appear in the left side bar, which confuses some people.

34. Don’t let Google see you
If Google using what little of your profile is visible after you’ve adjusted your security settings to your perfect level of privacy makes you nervous, you can tell all search engines that you don’t want them to view your profile by going to ‘Account, privacy settings, search and search engines’ and unchecking the box beside ‘public search engine’. If you’ve got good security settings and are happy for your name and photo to appear, have a look at the preview before checking it. There is very little on the average profile, including no updates.

35. Hacked? Sometimes, people lose control of their Facebook account – this could be because of a virus, or worse. You can regain control by following the instructions by following Facebook’s own guidelines. It’s important to do a virus scan as soon as you discover you’ve been hacked – just in case – do that before returning to the site to reclaim your profile.

36. Photos and videos – don’t appear where you don’t want to
Along with all other privacy settings – be especially careful about your movie and photo settings. It’s important that you keep your video and photo settings as private as you can – if you’re tagged in either, it displays them to the ‘world’ at large based on your settings. If you lock your video and photo options to minimum, friends only, you can be sure that embarrassing items will be kept to just your circle, rather than any Google Cache.

Part 2 – Access, API and Apps offsite
Off Facebook access
It’s important to take advantage of any software or apps that you can use, simply because Facebook can become time consuming if you only access it at a primary terminal. Using apps to speed up your access will mean in most cases, your time won’t be devoured by social networking (until you get into games)

37. The best phone app?
There is no one ‘best’ app for Facebook on each mobile platform, so look around and see if you can find a highly recommended one – sometimes phones come with bundled apps, or built in API access – which, if you’re a social animal your phone can be a lifesaver. Be aware that most apps are limited, as are most phone based browsers.

38. Tweetdeck?
Tweetdeck is a twitter poster that has expanded to take in other places like Facebook, and comes highly recommended on any PC or laptop. It has a tiny memory footprint and gives you unparalleled access to a lot of feeds at once. Beware its API call on twitter though (at 150 an hour). Facebook currently has no limitations.

39. Automatic posting?
Some people use automatic posting to allow them to post information at set times, though Facebook’s TOS seems to be a little grey about this. Being careful and only posting relevant information will allow you to connect and network in a way it was designed to allow.

40. Facebook connect
Facebook connect is a handy extension of the Facebook login and API, tying various things back to your profile, or allowing you to interact with other sites, or programs using your Facebook credentials. This can be a good and a bad thing – if the interaction causes constant posting to your feed, people may find it annoying, but it also means you’ve got a centralized login.

41. Lifestreaming
Lifestreaming allows you to pull all of your feeds into one place and Facebook offers several widgets based on what you need for your site – go to Facebook’s widget page – or search the internet for information on how to use your feeds in interesting ways offsite.

Part 3 – The basics of the site
Facebook’s basics are easy to master, but if you skip learning them, it can slow you down massively – there are several functions on the site that most people don’t use, and could, to get more out of their networking, and sharing with friends

42. Posting updates
The main basis of Facebook is the ability to post short (420 character) updates – you can tag friends in these by going @ (name) or simply tell people what you’re up to. Some people take part in mini games in these too – the choice is only limited by character length.

43. Auto subscribing
Commenting or liking someone’s status or notes or anything else in their feed will automatically ‘subscribe’ you to notifications about any future activity. You can reply to this however, from your email, which means you don’t need to log into the site constantly.

44. The notification bar
At the top of the page, there is a blue bar with four icons – this is your quick overview of any activity aimed at you. This includes anything you’ve subscribed to by participating in it.

45. Your newsfeed
Your news feed comes with several options – you can read the most ‘important’ stuff (based on Facebook’s algorithm), or the most recent posts. Missing friends? Scroll to the bottom and click ‘edit options’. Put 5000 in the bottom box – it’ll remove all limitations on your feed.

46. Not interested in a friend’s updates right now?
If for whatever reason, you don’t want to see a friend’s update (for example, their updates are only about games you don’t play) you can hover over their update, and a box will appear saying ‘hide’ – you’ll get different options based on what sort of update you’ve hovered over.

47. Walls
You can have a public discussion by posting something on someone’s wall. This appears in your feed and there, so is great for congratulating someone, or wishing them a happy birthday. Walls are public though, based on the person’s settings.

48. Boxes and tabs
Various apps will allow you to add boxes and tabs to your
profile. Boxes appear on a page, and are small – tabs are headings much like a filing cabinet. These can give you the ability to display key information on your pages, or in separate ‘sub pages’ but can also clutter your profile page – be careful what you place and where.

49. A box on your profile
There is a box on your profile, (when you click view profile) which can be readily edited and contains some key information that you choose. Some people use it to show others their calendar; others display a quote or some mini information. Use this as best you see fit to give your friends and new adds something interesting to read.

50. Left hand side – your profile Your profile has several key areas to interact with – the middle where your feed is, your left hand side, to access your stuff) and the right hand side which has suggestions, your gifts and other items from apps, and some other things, such as pokes.

51. Messages – your messages are your internal email inbox.
This gives you the opportunity to message people without writing on their wall (see the previous tip) or start a discussion between friends – if you’re doing this frequently see our tips on pages and groups.

52. Events
You can set up events – a bit like a calendar, people can RSVP and you can use it to invite friends to anything you’re doing, from a birthday party at your place, to a gaming party or Guild event in your favorite MMORPG. Use it to organize social events without worrying about lost emails.

53. Removing events you can’t attend
Once you have declined an event, you can then remove it from your events list – simply open up the event, optionally leave a note apologizing for not attending then directly below the image on the right hand side, there is an option ‘remove from my events’.

54. Photos and videos
Your photos and videos list item will let you access any photos that are tagged of you (remembering your privacy settings) and review them. You can also remove tags at any time – which means even though you are in the photo, it won’t list in your stream.

55. Applications
All of your applications are accessible from this tab – it will take you through to a list of most used and when, and will also give you options to access others. This is a great tab to review what apps you do – and don’t – use and remove them to save them cluttering your feed, or visit them and check what’s new. You can also search for new apps from there.

56. Games
Much like the applications menu option, the games option shows you when you’ve played, whether your friends play (and how many) and allows you to explore popular games amongst your friends and the wider Facebook population that you may not have seen yet.

57. Ads and pages
We talk more about ads and pages in their own section (Part 5 – ads and pages) but this is how you access them quickly, and if you choose to advertise them, set up Adsense like adverts.

58. Groups
Your groups’ menu item is actually the access to your pages and groups, two columned lists with each showing recent activity and more. You can easily view the things you may have missed simply by checking the recent activity on these pages.

59. Notes
Notes are a bit like mini blogs, or can be used by you to import RSS feeds and automatically post. Its Facebook’s own solution to lifestreaming, but only allows you to import one RSS feed at time. You could build a Yahoo pipe of everything you wanted to import and use that as your ‘uber feed’ if you had a lot of blogs though, so it works out well.

60. Links
Your links menu option is a lot like Del.icio.us – every time you post a link, it’s added to this list, and you can view what your friends have been posting recently, or just keep track of your own stuff.

61. Right hand side
The right hand side of your page contains any application items (such as gifts – be aware that these build up really fast), friend suggestions, information on inactive friends, pokes and event listings (that you’ve accepted).

62. Gifts and application notices
Facebook has suggested that eventually these will all be incorporated into the left bar of the site, where your games are listed, but for now you will still get listings of any gifts, invites to games or any other requests (including friend requests) in that top right corner. You should keep on top of them – 20 invites a day leads to 140 at the end of a week and it can be time consuming to prune them weekly.

63. Application notices out of control
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try your application lists will get out of control. You can either dedicate time to fixing them, or quit from the app in question – by clicking ‘ignore app’. You can also ignore a friend’s invites, but not the friend themselves… Reload the page and any you’ve ignored should be gone.

64. Suggestions
Facebook has an algorithm that chooses information to show you – when people friend other people, sometimes you will have suggestions – as they do with pages and groups. These suggestions and they can’t see your profile (and until they add you, you won’t see their whole profile). Suggestions can be hidden or ignored.

65. Poking
Poking allows a person to see your profile (even if they aren’t their friend). If they are your friend, it will give them a message the next time they log into their Facebook in the right hand bar of their page. Any pokes you’ve received will be here too for you to respond to.

66. Events
You will see a list of any events you’re confirmed to attend in your sidebar – this is a great feature because you can simply align your diary by reading that area and booking it into your time management system of choice. You can also click through and turn down events, or see who else is attending.

67. Ads
If you have used Facebook to place an ad, you will find that they appear in the right hand bar. If you keep seeing an ad, you can report it so Facebook can fix their algorithm for showing them, or hide them entirely from you.

Part 3 – Clicking on a friend’s profile
When you view a friend’s profile, there are a couple of neat things you can do to interact with them, or see what they’ve posted and you may have missed.

68. Under the picture
You can view their profile by clicking on their picture in your feed. Once there, you can poke them, view videos and photos of them, or send them a message. Below that is information that they’ve made available to friends lists, including relationship status. It’s a good way to catch up with someone you haven’t seen in a while, then reach out and contact them.

69. Commenting on their wall
You can leave people public messages on their walls – as they can do on yours – just click in the status box and write what you’d like them to see – remember though, it also posts in your feed, so be careful what you say.

70. Adding apps or boxes your friend has
If you see something really interesting that your friend has, click through – and add the app they’re using by following the instructions. If you’ve seen a Facebook page that is exactly how you’d like yours to be, click through and create items as you can.

71. Commenting
You can comment from your own feed, or if you’ve gone over to a friend’s profile (which is a good idea just in case they’ve been bumped out of your algorithm based feed) and comment there. Comments have a length limit, but you can split it over several boxes and it will stack correctly.

72. Tagging
You can tag a friend, or yourself in most photos you have access to – be aware that some people dislike being tagged in photos, so if your friend frequently removes tags of him or herself, maybe you shouldn’t tag them. Any tags of people in videos or photos or notes will appear in their stream.

Part 4– Your own page, or groups
In addition to having your own profile, Facebook allows you to keep basic groups and pages, for fan purposes, or you can set up a group to talk about your passions, your interests or both. You can also join others – some places suggest there is a limit to the amount of pages and groups you can add.

73. Group or page? A page is basically a mini profile – a group has a more group centric feel to its ‘front’ page, but there’s very little difference between them in reality. There are no current accurate figures posted on limits to pages and groups, so there may not be any – but be careful to join an ‘official’ group or fan page belonging to the official entity – there are many unofficial fans and groups on Facebook, and it’s not highly policed at present.

74. Pages and apps
Some apps can post to pages as if they were profiles – much like fully fledged Facebook profiles, pages can have most of the features of a ‘real’ profile, so adding apps to them may be a possibility, depending on the app in question. Explore your options carefully though, because if an app is posting to your main profile, and your page, people following both will get duplicate content.

75. Groups
Groups are like clubs offline – you choose who can join and how wide its access is. Much like other parts of Facebook, it has its own wall, which everyone can post to. Pages have two – one for the owner to post to, one for fans to post to, and then it all feeds into one amalgamated stream.

76. Running both
Many people consider Facebook to be a place for allegiances – groups would then represent (casual) memberships and interaction in clubs, pages could be considered a greater endorsement or badge of interest, so running both isn’t a bad thing.

77. Causes
There are specific apps for causes on Facebook, but if you’re passionate about something, starting a group, or page is a great way to go – remember to make others admin (in edit membership on the group or page’s main page) so you’re not the only one in charge.

78. Ads
You can place your own ads on Facebook – and they run a lot like Adsense ads in most cases. You’ll need to condense whatever message you want to ‘send’ into very short sentences, but these ads are targetable and very powerful.

Part 5 – The best ways to play
There are a myriad of apps on Facebook that make it, not just a social networking site, but a hub where you can share games with your friends and family. Everything from Farmville to Bejeweled currently runs on Facebook’s app system – here are a few tips to jumpstart your play in some of the most popular games.

79. Farmville
Farmville is one of the most popular game apps on Facebook and allows you to run your own farm, grow your own (virtual) crops, tend animals and more. Its simplistic interface allows anyone to play easily. A similar game is Farm Town, but the mechanics are only slightly different.

80. Crops
Try to think about how often you check your Facebook – if you’re planting crops, make sure you’ll be able to come online to harvest them, or they are a waste of space and coins. As the more crops you harvest and the more crops you plant has a relation to your level, planning your crops carefully will allow you to maximize your game play, and afford items you may need.

81. Harvesting When you harvest your crops in Farmville they sell automatically – the same can be said for animals or trees. Farm town stores all of your harvests in a box and you can go to market and sell them.

82. Vehicles and storage
As soon as you can, get a harvester, seeder and tractor – they will allow you to manage much larger farms, but require fuel. You can save up coins to buy them instead of paying real money for Farmville cash. The same thing can be said for buildings – some are limited edition though, so can only be bought with cash.

83. Fuel
Fuel is used to run vehicles – but it’s finite and rechargeable. You can also buy fuel using cash, but larger farms use up fuel before you’ve finished your harvesting, plowing and planting, so remember that whatever you choose to do, you’ll have to still do some ‘manual’ work.

84. Is Farmville cash worth it?
Depending on many factors, including how competitive you are, and whether you want exclusive items, any app that allows you to buy special credits can be worth it. Don’t buy them if you’re a casual player though.

85. Collectables, and projects
Farmville has a mechanism to build things like stables – your friends list has to send you component parts, and then you can build a stable, or expand your storage. This can be frustrating however if they need a lot of pieces. Patience will get you there, and until then keep posting about it every few days by clicking on the building and sharing via that box.
Bejeweled
Bejeweled is a tactical game of destroying gems. There is no ‘right way’ to play, but a couple of tips include:

86. iPhone app
Bejeweled’s iPhone app links with the game on Facebook (via connect) and allows you to post your score to Facebook. It is well worth the money, giving you four mini games in one – and another way to play while you’re waiting somewhere without computer access.

87. Sign up for the competition
Bejeweled offers a free competition and includes the scores from your iPhone app in the updates on site – which allows you to simply join in on the draw, even when you’re not on Facebook.

88. Two different styles of game Bejeweled onsite recently introduced special bonus crystals and more, giving another variation to the one minute blitz style game. Using the ones that fit with your play style can maximize your score. Bejeweled on the iPhone hasn’t had these introduced yet.

89. Bejeweled posts
Bejeweled will post to your profile whenever you reach a points target – sometimes you’ll post a lot in a row, which can be annoying. If you’re planning on playing for a while, you can cancel posting (as you can with any other app) and post the last one. Your friends will appreciate this.

90. Mafia Wars/Vampire Wars
Both Mafia Wars and Vampire wars are basically the same game, with some minor variations – again, like Farmville, you can buy cash or credits to use in special parts of the game, but unlike Farmville, you don’t ‘grow’ crops or care for animals.

91. Finish jobs even if you’re leveled up
Mafia wars and vampire wars allow you to move onto another level (set) of quests, but you should stay on the lower level ones and complete them if you can – it’s a long process in most cases, but it does mean that you get extra skill points, and sometimes, in game cash. Maxing out the completion also gives you cool titles and other stuff that you can’t otherwise earn.
In VampireWars, you need to create minions to feed your powers – these powers can be bought and upgraded to do better things once a day (though it takes several days to increase them to each level). Keeping your minions to at almost three times the amount you need to pay, as when you get into fights, you will lose blood.
In Mafia wars, there’s a similar mechanism – you need to buy properties, and support your illegal items. When you fight, you lose money. In Mafiawars you have to stop back and collect your take – in VampireWars it’s automatic.
Once you’ve completed the jobs/missions, you should always try to fight – be careful to pick someone near your level, or you will most probably lose – beating people of your level and slightly lower will let you level up and win more cash/blood to level with.
Limited edition items are available in VampireWars by playing Akem’s Gamble and with Mandy’s wheel – both are either free or cost a little blood and have a cool down. In Mafiawars there is a daily lottery, and collections. Collections give bonuses and work a bit like talents – they drop every so often when completing jobs.

Other games
There are a myriad of other games that you can play, each based around the things that you like to do best – there are various designs of games, but most allow you to send gifts, and add friends to exchange ‘stuff’.

92. Adding friends
It’s important to remember that not everyone wants to play these games, so if you invite people, don’t do it constantly. If you’re new to Facebook, and your friends are inviting you, look out for those that play, and ask them to add you, or sign up and invite them.

93. Gifts
Sending gifts or elements from a game will also invite people to the game – so be careful who you send gifts to – they may have either blocked the game, or will remove you as a connection. Similarly, you can only send one a day, so choose wisely – if a friend is completing a collection go for that.

94. Posting your achievements
Most games allow you to post your achievements, levels, or important milestones – if that’s all that makes up your feed, you may find that your friends complain – or don’t read anything you post at all.

95. Removing games
Like every other app, you can remove any apps that are interfering with your profile, or posting too often – you may find that your friends complain if it posts too often – if that happens, you can simply change the app’s posting privileges, or if you’re not playing at all, remove it by going to Account, application settings and hitting the X beside the game name.

Part 6 – An app for all seasons
Apps aren’t just games – there’s a tonne of functions that you can find in some great apps that you can use to add functionality to your new social media hub. We’ve featured a couple here.

96. Networked blogs lets you share your blog
Did you know that Networked Blogs also allows you to post to your own page (we talk about pages in Section 3)? Be careful though – those that have you as a friend and have fanned you will get more double updates from your blogs.

97. Network blogs also allows you to follow other blogs
Including your friends and some of the biggest blogs on the web. If you have a list of friends that you like to read, consider following them on Facebook – if they’re there, their blogs will be inserted into your feeds easily.

98. Networked Blogs or importing notes?
(See 2nd section for more information on notes) Notes are a great way of simply posting a lot of content to your feed, while Networked Blogs has features that blend importing RSS with a group – you can have people fan and rate your blog, have a discussions area and more. It all depends on your community needs.

99. Integrating other networks
Facebook has a lot of ‘bridge’ applications, which allow you to integrate external social networking sites, such as Flikr and twitter into your feeds. These powerful tools can take a while to set up, but are well worth it if you regularly use the sites you’re linking up.

100. Horoscopes and more
Like everywhere else on the web, Facebook has facilities to post horoscopes and more – if you’re interested in that sort of thing, find one that your friends use and post it.

101. Developing your own
Facebook has a powerful API that allows you to develop just about anything based on a framework – so developing something that you think other people might like to play is easy. It’s also good advertising for the ‘cause’ or company of choice.

Have fun
While all these tips cover the mechanics of networking and beyond, it’s important to remember that you should always try to enjoy yourself. Facebook is a social site – be social and enjoy everything it has to offer!

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E-commerce Success Know How

You can make money online selling digital or physical products, software or services. A lot of internet marketers are building their business empire based on affiliate marketing. However, having your own e-commerce business will give you full control of your business destiny and giving you sustainable online income. Therefore e-commerce should not be left out in your Make Money Online portfolio.

There is no difference between selling online and offline. Basically there are 2 stages- PREselling and  Post Selling.

PREselling:

(1)Traffic:

If you are selling offline, you would prefer to open your shop at busy and crowded street, mall or housing area. This will guarantee you lots of walk-in customers by default. The same preference applied to selling online.

If you have a physically product to sell online, on top of having your very own e-commerce website, you should consider selling the same product at market places like eBay, Amazon, Overstock, eCrater,  uBid where you will be getting free traffics which are ready there for you. You will also increase your income by many folds when you sell at several market places. Imaging if you are getting USD500 of sale from eBay every month, by having your products at Amazon, Overstock, uBid etc will easily multiply your income by several folds.

For your own e-commerce site, you may consider PPC, Google organic ranking, links or refer by other sites, directory listing, email marketing, article marketing, social media etc to generate traffic to your site. It will take some efforts in generating traffic to your e-commerce site.

(2)Convincing Sales Pitch:

Nowadays, having traffic to your sites just isn’t enough.

If you open a shop in a shopping mall where competition is fierce, you will have to stand out from the crowd to win your sale. You may want to employ a very good and decent looking sales person who can talk a bird down from the tree, or you are selling at a competitive price with very good customer service and impressive deco.

There is no difference in selling online. You need a good sales pitch and decent web design to at least attract people to stay long enough on your sites to buy. It is even better if the potential customers hear something good about your products before they arrive at your sites. For example, your product is recommended by someone they trust via newsletter or friends in Facebook. Remember, whatever we are selling, we are providing solution to people’s needs. The copywriting has to be spot on.

Money back guarantee, feedbacks and call-to-action are important features to show on your site. They not only help to increase the conversion rate but also help in your SEO campaign. Google gives you extra points for that. You may also consider building your shipping cost onto your product cost and give FREE shipping on your sites. It is the nature of human being to take advantage of FREE offer.

Post Selling

(1)More Products:

Have you ever noticed that there is always a convenient shop at the petrol station? A lot of times people would drop by the shop after paying for the petrol. Or very often in a retail shop, after making your payment for your purchase, you still have to walk past some shelves with interesting products and then find another cashier counter at the end before you can physically leave the shop. All these are just another up-selling tactic of the businesses.

When come to online, if you ever purchased digital products from some Gurus, you may remember that after your first payment, there was another OTO (One time offer) popping up trying to sell you another product? So the same up-selling tactic being applied to both offline and online businesses. When you shop in Amazon, I am sure you have seen this before- “ Customers viewed this item also view…”. So the idea here is, trying to get the most out of your buying customers. The saying is always right- “Those who buy will keep on buying”.

(2)Contacts:

If someone asks you to fill in the survey form or personal details to win prizes in the shop, you are giving away your contact details for their future communication with you. The shop will send you their promotion or new catalogues in post.

We shall do the same online. And we need the help of GetResponse to collect email addresses of our customers online. For all the internet marketers, it is an undeniable truth that Money is in the List. You should always give out something for free as bait in exchange for your customer email address. Your opt in form should be seen on your e-commerce site, and also in the page where the customer is directed to after successful payment. For example, if you are purchasing a home air purifier product online and you are offered a FREE ebook on How to Stay Healthy, would you give away your email for the free ebook that will help to improve the health of your family? Most likely the answer is YES.

I am sure by now you can see how to integrates your e-commerce business with affiliate marketing with the leads collected- more sales in the future. To grow your business I mean long term business), you should now starting to capture leads (email address) of your customers. Check out GetResponse as it is one of the best email marketing software in the market.

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How to Have Nicer Twitter Background with No Cost

Twitter gains it fame since the US election back in year 2009.

I have my own Twitter account and I always wanted to have a nice background for my twitter account.  But I just never took action to improve it. Before I came across Twilk, this is how my Twitter Background looks like – with me standing next to a Porsche. It really looks unprofessional and not catchy.

Now with Twilk, I can take advantage of the ‘professional’ background that they provide.

Twilk takes your Twitter followers’ profile photos and puts them on your Twitter background. You can choose between people you follow and/or your followers. The more you interact with someone, the more prominently they are positioned. Those whom you mention more about user name in your tweeter feed will appear on the first two columns on the left, from top to bottom, left, right, left, right.

How does the name of Twilk come around?

The name Twilk is a combination of Twitter and milk. Milk has nothing to do with the service other than the creator of Twilk really likes milk. It helps that the domain name is short, and was available.

SO instead of getting a designer to come out with nice background for your tweeter account, you can always go for Twilk. It is free to use. But you can always upgrade to paid account and  enjoy special features like:

• No Twilk Ad: the Twilk logo won’t show up on your background
• Daily Auto-Updates: save time by letting us update your background for you
• Upload Custom Logo: to have your background stand out and look more professional
• Exclude People: if you don’t want competitors showing up
• Feature People: to show how much they mean to you

But for me (a layman in  graphic design), as long as the background looks nice to me, I am happy to go for the free package. And that is how my Tweeter Page looks like now:

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Do Your Own Due Diligence Online Always!

There are plenty of news on internet lover or love letter scams these days. And it never came to my mind that I would be the target of internet debt collector scam! Even though internet debt collector scam is no more new to many, but I still think it is worth to provide a consolidated resource of information, warnings, personal experience and info collected online which will hopefully minimize the damage that these con artists can cause to others.

Here goes the story:

1. First I receive an email from a lady called Anita Khan:

Dear Sir/Madam

My name is Anita Khan living in Ontario Canada i am sending you
this Request for a possible Representation in my Organization i
serve as a Representative of Asia Pacific Microsystems Inc. in
Canada/USA Region i act as their Collective Agent here i.e i
recieve payment from delinquent customers.

The Reason why i am writing you this email is to seek your counsel
and know if you will be able to take up this job as i am on holiday
and will not be returning till the next 3months.

Here are the Benefits if you wish to take this Job

1. $3,500 Every month as your Salary.
2. 10% of every debt you collect from any delinquent customer and
then the Company will instruct you on how to send the rest balance
to their End.

If Accepted kindly contact Mr John Change of (APM) he will advice
you of Next step to Follow.

His Details are as follows.
Full Name: John Chang (Mr)
Phone Number: Tel (General):    +886-3-6661188
Fax (General):   +886 2 6601 2030
Email:  mrjohn@asia.com

Position At Work:  Vice Chairman/Administration / Asia Pacific
Microsystems, Inc.

Do contact him by email and advice him of the following details
from you

FIRST NAME:
LAST NAME:
OCCUPATION:
CONTACT ADDRESS :
HOME PHONE NUMBER :
CELL PHONE NUMBER:

Thank you and do have a lovely day

Mrs Khan
anita_khan@techie.com
+1-647-219-6051

2. After reading the email, QUESTION MARK ? started to pop up in my head. Why would one, especially the big company would send out email to individual for debt collector position. And I decided to play long and got back to them for more detail.

3. Their reply as follow:

Dear Addy

We are a Company that manufactures and sells MEMS foundry materials
and was established in 2001. We request your representation to enable
us collect a debt owed to us by a delinquent customer. We do
appreciate your time in reviewing our request and. we are willing to
work with you to achieve our goal, as the importance of your services
cannot be over emphasized.APM thank you very much for your prompt
response, I would have the opportunity to talk to you sometime but
thought you should know what we are looking for by email which enables
me present/express my case better than telephone due to my accent and
English but that we are very optimistic that this relationship will be
beneficial to both parties. Below are the areas we would require your
expertise.
2, Receive the said funds of past due account and keep in a trust
account on our behalf until the funds are required by our company
and also maintain the running of your expenses.

3. A Salary of $3,500 will be Assign to you from the day your Approval
was granted as a Bonafide Rep of APM in your local Region.

4 10% of any Successful payment you recieve from our past due account. 

5, 80% of payments from that region is used for the purchase of raw
material for production and outstanding payments due our suppliers,
you will be instructed on how and when to disburse, at the end of the
month you shall supply us with details of how much was collected and
disburse for us to reconcile our accounts.

Please Kindly forward the Following Details to us for Verification

Full Name: 
Mailing Address.
Cell phone Numbers:
Home Phone Numbers:
Occupation:
Brief Description about your self or your Position at work:

Once this details has been recieved by us it will be assign to the
verification department and if your name came out as a Bonafide Rep
of APM we will notify you within two days.

Awaiting your response
John Chang
Vice Chairman/Administration
Asia Pacific Microsystems, Inc.
#2. R&D Rd. VI
Science-based Industrial Park
Hsinchu, Taiwan 300, R.O.C.
Tel (General):    +886-3-6661188
Fax (General):   +886 2 6601 2030
http://www.apmsinc.com