Ninja Web Strategies for Entrepreneurs

Encourage Visitors to Share Your Web Page

You are placing "Share This" buttons on your web pages, aren't you? If you care about the power of Social Networking—and you should—then these buttons will encourage your visitors to quickly and easily share your web page with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and Delicious.

What 'Share This' Buttons Are

'Share This' Buttons are buttons or a button toolbar that have one or more icons that a visitor can click on to share your page with a social networking site. For example, a 'Facebook' icon, when clicked on, will allow the visitor to quickly add a link to your web page onto their Facebook Wall so that their Facebook friends can see the link and view your web page.

This is, in effect, free word-of-mouth advertising!

Oh. Did I mention they're free?

How to Add 'Share This' Buttons to Your Web Page

It's easy to add these buttons to your web pages. You will, however, have to be able to edit the html code of your web page and then upload the new web page to your web site host. If you are uncomfortable with this, then your web developer can do it. The whole process takes about 15 minutes.

1. Go to one of the 'Share This' web sites below, choose which button configuration you want, and copy the JavaScript code.
2. Open up your web page for editing and simply paste the JavaScript code where you want the buttons to appear.
3. Upload your new web page to your hosting server.

That's it!

Where to get the Buttons

Here are three of the most popular 'Share This' button generator sites:

AddThis

ShareThis

AddToAny

Have fun!

Use Google AdWords to Drive Traffic to your Web Site

By implementing a Google's AdWords pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign, you can drive additional traffic to your web site when your potential customers use Google to search for your products or services.

It is true that if your web site is well-optimized using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, you should be generating traffic to your site naturally (or organically, like SEO experts like to say...) However, even a well-optimized web page doesn't always appear on the first page of the search results. Also, it can take a few months for a new web site to appear in search results.

AdWords have the advantage of instantly placing your web site ad or link prominently on the search results page, either on top (if a link) or on the side (if an ad).

How AdWords Work

You determine one or more keywords or key phrases that will be associated with your link or ad that, if clicked, will direct the search engine user to your web site landing page. If the user conducts a search on keywords that matches yours, Google will place your link or ad prominently in the search results. If the user clicks on your link, you pay Google a fee for that click.

 

How much does an AdWords campaign cost?

There are two factors involved in determining the cost of an AdWords campaign:

1. Cost of Keywords.

   Some keywords are more popular than others. Therefore, web site owners are willing to pay more per click to use the more popular keywords. Based on this, Google sets a minimum amount of cost-per-click that they are willing to accept. This minimum can be from a few cents per click to over $10.00 per click (Yikes!). The good news is that the minimum cost-per-click for most keywords is less than 25 cents.
   
   You get to set the maximum cost-per-click that you are willing to pay for a given keyword or phrase. The higher your maximum, the more likely and often your link or ad will appear in the search results. If another web site owner is willing to pay Google a higher cost-per-click, Google will display their link more often and more prominently than yours. In other words, you are bidding against other web site owners for placement. Google will tell you what the current average bid for keywords is when you are setting up your campaign

2. Your Budget.

   You tell Google how much money you are willing to pay for entire campaign and when this money is used up, Google stops the campaign. This means that you can run a Google AdWords campaign for as little as $25.00 without having to commit large sums of money.
   
   

Your AdWords Campaign Strategy

1. Start off small. In the beginning, only commit a small amount of money to each campaign. This will allow you to try out the effectiveness of various keywords without wasting too much money. Once you find the keywords that work well, then you can better determine your Return On Investment (ROI) and have confidence in committing more money.
   
   
2. It is often better to use multiple less frequently searched, low bid keywords and phrases rather than paying more for the higher costing popular keywords. You'll get more bang for the buck this way.
   
   
3. As a rule of thumb, stay away from keywords and phrases that cost more than 25 cents per click. Any more than this, and the campaign can become expensive, and there had better be a solid return on investment to justify the high cost.

Check out the Google AdWords web page to learn more about using Adwords. Google has a great tutorial.

Have you Claimed your Google Places?

If your target market is local (as opposed to Amazon.com's target market which is everywhere on the planet...), then you owe it yourself to list your business in Google Places so that potential local customers can better find you when they are using Google to search for your products or services.

The good news is that this service is free and you don't even need to have a website.

What is Google Places?

Google understands that people use Google to search for businesses, so Google created Google Places which is basically a local business directory. This allows your potential customers to search specifically the Google Places listings so that all their entire search results are local businesses that offer what they are looking for.

A Google Places listing gives standard information about your business including contact and location information, business hours, a description of your products and services, any related pictures or video you've uploaded, etc.

What will Google Places do for me?

• Steer targeted local customers that are looking for your products or services to your Google Places listing.
• Show a Google Places icon under your listing:

• The icon will indicate the location of your business on a nearby Google Map:

• Sometimes, Google will aggregate a listing of local businesses matching the user's search criteria at the top of the search results page. This is displayed above the standard search results.
• The more information Google knows about your business, the better your Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rankings will be with Google.

How do I get started?

You will need the following:

• The physical address of your business. (If you are working from your home, you have the option to not display your address.)
• A phone number that customers can use to contact you.
• A Google account. (A Google account is free and can be established here: www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount).

Create your Google Places listing here: www.google.com/local/add

After you submit your Google Place information, you will need to verify your business to Google before they will list your business in the directory:

1. Google will immediately call the business phone number you gave with an automated message that will give you a numerical code. Write this code down.
2. Enter in this code in the code verification box and submit it.

It will take at least 24 hours after verification before your business will be listed in Google Places.