Promoting your business on the Internet doesn’t need to require a great deal of money in order to produce positive results. Simply spending a few minutes a day managing social networking profiles can yield great results and wouldn’t cost you a single dime out of pocket. Pinterest is one of those sites that can be greatly beneficial to promoting your business.

The interest in Pinterest has been growing steadily as more and more accounts are created. The site allows users to share imagery they have either found on the Internet or have developed themselves.

Like all social media websites, users are able to like and comment on an image or even “repin” it. This image is then displayed for all of those who are following that particular person. Theoretically, you would be able to reach a vast amount of people from a single well developed image for your business.

Here are six useful tips how to use Pinterest to promote your business:

1. Complete Your Pinterest Profile

Completing your Pinterest profile is very important for promoting your business. The profile is what most people will see first when visiting your Pinterest page. The more detailed this information is, the better are your chances of creating a visitor back to your main business website. Links and information regarding your business need to be posted here in order to help maximize the experience.

2. Connect with Facebook

Within the settings of your Pinterest account is the ability to use Facebook as your login method and an option to post to your Facebook timeline any changes you make to your Pinterest account. Why is this important? Because you are able to generate interest between both social sites from managing a single image. Any of your friends, family, and fans can witness what changes are made to your Pinterest account giving them the ability to visit the site. As long as your information is public, anyone viewing your Facebook timeline can see all of the additions you’ve made to Pinterest.

3. Pin Your Images Correctly

There are two ways you can add an image to your Pinterest account. You can either upload one yourself, or you can browse a website for an image you like. If you have good images saved on your business website, this could be a great way to “pin” them into your account.

The easiest way to start pinning is by clicking the “+” button in the top right of your account next to your image. Click the button and a pop-up window will be displayed with three options: Upload a Pin, Add from a website, and Recommended Pins.

Upload a Pin: Once you click the option for uploading a pin, you will need to navigate to where the image is located on your computer. Choose your image and select a proper board for it. If you don’t yet have a suitable board you can create one from here as well. Then, write a short description for your image; you are able to enter upto 500 characters for this.

The whole purpose of pinning images for business is that people can visit your website/blog/Facebook page etc. from your pins. Therefore you will need to make sure that you add your business URL to the pins. You should do this is two places: somewhere (preferably near the beginning) in the description box of your pin, and as a backlink from your image.

The first one easy enough, but in order to get the link on to your image you will have to go and “edit” your pin. For this go to the board where you uploaded the pin and click the edit -button at the top of your image. Add your business URL in the Source box.

Congratulations! You have now equipped your pin with two valuable links back to your business website and people can visit your site after seeing your pin.

Click here to see the funny educational pin used in this example and see how the two backlinks work in action.

Add From a Website:  You can also pin images direct from websites or blogs to your boards.  Choose this option and enter a website or a blog post URL into the box and click the “Find Images” button. Pinterest will then scan the website for pinnable images and videos. After a few moments, you are able to scroll through the available images and select the one you want to pin.

You are then able to add it to any image board you have created or, again, you can create a new one on the go. When the image is saved, a link from the pinned image to the original website location will be created automatically. The originating website can also be accessed though the Visit Website -button at the top and via the link at the bottom left of the pin.

You can use this to your advantage if you already produce unique and attractive imagery for your website or blog. If you don’t, it would be recommended that you’d start introducing “pinnable” images on your site; and use the Pin It -button for sharing them. (We will show you how it’s done in another article released shortly. Subscribe and stay tuned! Our subscription box in on the right near the top.)

You can also install a Pin It Bookmarklet which enables you to pin images and/or videos straight from your browser. This is a very handy and time saving widget if you are getting to be a serious Pinterest user.

4. Write Good Descriptions

The description area of your images can hold more information than simply what the image is about. Many business owners put prices of products and services within the description as well as discount codes and other marketable content. As long as you stay under that 500 character limit, there really isn’t a limit to what you can do with a Pinterest image.

If you are selling your goods through Pinterest, add the price into the description and Pinterest will show it in the top right hand corner of your image.

Creating boards will allow you to sort out and differentiate your image collections. This is a way that you can separate content accordingly. If you need extensive organisation of your imagery, the boards are the way to go about it.

Just like your images your boards need to be equipped with good descriptions. You can do that when creating the board or by clicking the Edit Board -button. Write a good description using your key words and also choose a proper Category for your board.

If your board presents material from a particular website you should also add its URL into the description. It will not be hotlinked but most people would be able to just copy and paste it into their browsers.

You can also choose to keep your board secret if you like.  Secret boards are only visible to you and to people you invite to pin on it. When you, or any of your “board members” add an image to the board it will not show up anywhere else on Pinterest and it will not be visible in the categories, search results or image feeds. As the main purpose here would be pinning and sharing your images for marketing purposes secret boards are not the way to go.

5. Be Imaginative

For greater impact on the community, your images should be tastefully completed. If you are having troubles coming up with an idea, base the image on what your company excels in. If you have a computer repair business, images containing computers, hammers, and screwdrivers can get someone’s attention. Of course, mayhem can drive a great deal of traffic. A picture of a railroad spike driven through a hard drive is sure to peak computer geek interest!

Social media sites can be a superb method of marketing your business providing you put the time into maintaining it. Pinterest is no different. A handful of well designed images may get a few people to show interest in your business, but a constant flow of visual candy can make a great impact on the community. Keep the images fresh and you will see a difference in your online presence.

6. Verify Your Account

One of the biggest reasons you want to verify your website account information is so that you can take advantage of Pinterest’s Analytics. Analytics can be helpful when determining the activity of your verified website. This can be found when expanding your account information using the new look of Pinterest.

Using the analytics tool, you can see how often your images are used throughout the community including how often your images were clicked in order to send traffic to your website. From a business standpoint, this can help you create an improved strategy of what images produce the best results and the content within them.

Verifying your account is a simple process of uploading a HTML file that is provided during the verification process. When you verify your account, Pinterest will offer a downloadable file that you can save to your computer. You then upload this file to your website in the directory you established when setting up your account – this is usually the root folder. After you upload the file, click on the button in your Pinterest settings and have the website verified. This will create a link to your site that others can see displayed within your profile. This creates a link for others to click as well as text information that can be crawled by search engines to further increase your website’s presence, if even slightly.

Should You Use Pinterest For Your Business?

OK, now that you know how to use Pinterest for business purposes should you be using it? Here’s a nice Infographic from Intuit that might help you answer that question.

Follow Us

As you might have guessed, Social Media Revolver is also on Pinterest. Please follow us here.

[Image credits- Main: Flickr, Creative Commons License; Infographic, Column Five Media]

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: How to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Business?.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been huge for years now and there have been millions of articles published about it. When you’re new and you don’t have any idea where to start it’s likely you have tried to search for tips you hope will give you great results. The only problem with this is that some of the articles you find will be very old and the techniques they describe won’t work anymore.

Lots of people follow advice that is out-of-date and they end up being penalized by the search engines. It’s not really your fault because how could you have known? This isn’t an excuse someone like Google will accept and just like many other people you could wake up with your site de-indexed.

Let’s have a look at some of the dangerous SEO techniques you must STOP using now

1. Keyword Stuffing

Everyone tries to find a keyword before they write an article because the goal is to eventually rank for it in the search engines. This sounds great when you think about it because they do need to know what you want to rank for, but in the past it went too far. People would stuff the keyword inside an article dozens of times and you just can’t do that anymore.

2. Mass Article Submissions

Writing an article can be a long process because you want it to be great, so everyone used to take something they had written and spin it thousands of times until they were left with a thousand copies of the same article. Because it had been spun the search engines wouldn’t know it was the same one when they submitted them to article directories, but that technique is long gone because the backlinks are worthless.

3. Anchor Text Overload

When you leave a backlink on another site you have to choose the anchor text. If this was a few years ago you would be able to make your anchor text the keyword you wanted to rank for. If you do this these days it’s obvious to the search engines that you’re manually building links to manipulate your rankings. You have to use a mixture of anchor text now, or you’ll be penalized.

4. Useless Content

You will rank much higher if you write content that people will find useful. Long gone are the days when you could hire someone to write you an article for a few bucks. As soon as a visitor started to read it they would click away in disgust. Not only do articles need to be written well, but they should also be longer; and that means at least 500 words in most cases.

5. Link Exchanges

This is what someone would ask you a few years ago and everyone would be linking to each other. When everyone is pointing to each other it’s not hard for Google to work out what is going on. They don’t take kindly to people trying to game the system and mess up the search engine results, so doing it could harm your site.

Matt Cutts On SEO Mistakes

Here’s an informative video from Google’s own, Matt Cutts talking about areas where webmasters make the most SEO mistakes.

That video really makes you think your next SEO move, doesn’t it?

More SEO?

If you are interested to read more on the exciting world of SEO have a look at our Extra Bullets SEO archives.

[Image credits: Flickr, Creative Commons Licence, MissRogue]

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: Stay Away From These 5 Dangerous SEO Techniques.

Not that long ago, the Internet was considered an unbelievable opportunity for businesses and others to reach vast new audiences. Thanks to today’s smartphones, those opportunities are even greater.

People use mobile devices to surf the Internet wherever they are, from the park to their living room couch. This has forced businesses to begin considering whether they need to develop a mobile version of their website in order to better serve mobile users. Some may consider it a passing fad, while others believe it is the wave of the future.

Why Your Business Should Have a Mobile Website

Here’s ten good reason why your business should have as mobile website.

10. Speed – Mobile websites are optimized for faster download speeds because most smartphone users do not want to wait more than four seconds for web page to load. Designers accomplish this by limiting the amount of text on the pages and reducing the size of images. This also forces the business to focus on what message it is truly trying to convey.

9. Google wants it – The leading search engine has been making a push toward more mobile websites because it believes this is what smartphone users want. Google wants to continue to look good to those using its search capabilities. Websites designed for a personal computer do not look good on a smartphone. Google is hoping to avoid frustrated web surfers by providing the Internet experience they want. If it’s good enough for Google, it should be good enough for your business.

8. Your competitors are doing it – Given the fact Google wants more mobile websites, more businesses will start moving that way. You don’t want your company to fall behind the competition.

7. Your customers want it – In a recent survey, half of mobile device users surveyed said even if they like a business, they would visit its website less often if it didn’t work well with their smartphone.

6. Customer retention – About 66 percent of those smartphone users surveyed said a good mobile site would make them more likely to make a purchase, while 74 percent said they would be more likely to return to that site.

5. Targeted search – Having a mobile website allows the business another chance to provide original content that can help rank its websites, traditional and mobile, higher on Google’s lists. Even though the keywords may be the same on both sites, mobile users may choose slightly different phrasing. By being active on social media sites, and providing links to the mobile site, there could be even more activity coming your way. If those links get reposted, it can help increase the site’s ranking.

4. Constant opportunity – Computer users are locked into surfing the Internet from their home. Smartphone users, on the other hand, have the opportunity to come knocking any time, even if they are out and about.

3. Integration – A mobile website may be designed with different factors in mind, but it should serve as a compliment to the desktop version. The two can play off each other to ensure as many customers as possible have a good experience from your business. The main website should be able to detect when it has been contacted by a smartphone and automatically send that user to the mobile website. On the other hand, mobile users should be given the opportunity to return to the desktop site if that’s what they prefer. They should provide the same basic information about the business, though it might be delivered in different ways. Desktop websites have more room and people do not mind scrolling. Mobile sites needs to be more focused, but both represent the business.

2. Incredible growth – Smartphones allow users to shop, read, search for information and discover local pizza shops when they are in a new area. Industry experts estimate the mobile web is growing eight times faster than did the original wave of online desktop sites. Google estimates smartphone users are rarely more than three feet from their device.

1. It is just starting – As fast as the mobile web is growing, it’s still really just getting started. In a recent survey, 72 percent of mobile users surveyed responded that a mobile-friendly website is important to them, but 96 percent of them also said they have visited sites that are not mobile-friendly. Now is the time to reach out to that growing audience and grab them before the competition figures out how to successfully design a mobile site.

Smartphone use is skyrocketing and this is providing businesses with a plethora of opportunities to gain new customers. Mobile device users want websites that work well on their smartphones, and businesses that can provide that will have a definite advantage over their competitors.

[Image: Flickr - Eric Skiff, Creative Commons Licence]

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: 10 Reasons To Get A Mobile Website For Your Business.

Images are an important part of any website and will in fact have the biggest impact of all on anyone who decides to go online and load up your site. However despite this, and despite the fact that an image is reportedly worth a thousand words, many webmasters will nevertheless overlook the importance of them and will be happy to just look on Google for an image that fits their purposes and slap it on their site. This is not only bad for the appearance of their site, but can also have some legal considerations for website owners.

Having the correct images on your site will make your pages pop and draw the eye, it will make your links stand out more on social networks, and it will give you more authority and respect from the viewer.

Here we will have closer look at some quick tips for using the best images for your website or blog.

1. Consider Your Color Scheme

When someone first looks at your website, they will get a general overall feel for the page rather than looking at each individual detail. You need to ensure that all your colors blend nicely together and compliment each other. You can accomplish this in Paint or Gimp by just altering the color levels to bring out a little more green or a little less red. Have a look at the Web section of Colourlovers for guidance and inspiration.

2. Choose High Definition

You should always make sure that the images you use are high definition. If they look grainy or surrounded by noise they will make your site look unprofessional and/or very old. This will mean that people are less likely to stick around.

3. Choose Small File Sizes

You should always choose small file sizes when you upload your images. This means choosing the correct file format and making them no bigger than they need to be. You shouldn’t think about sacrificing quality though, but you shouldn’t have a gigantic 5000×5000 image either if you are going to set the image height and width to 50×50 in your HTML.

Bother to resize the images and make multiple versions if necessary, and choose PNG or JPG over BMP as the file format. Your bandwidth and your site’s loading times will thank you. Picresize and Resize Your Image are handy and free tools for this purpose.

4. Be Original

Wherever possible make sure that the images you use are unique and original. If you know someone who is a photographer or a graphics designer then it’s worth getting images made specifically for the site. People will be able to tell, and your website or blog will look 100 times more professional as a result.

5. Face In

Apparently in the best online pictures the subject will always face in towards the text rather than out and away from it. So if you have a picture of a person on the right hand side of a block of text, they should be looking left ie. looking at the text.

Bonus Tip

[Bonus tip from the Editor] We use lots of Creative Commons-licensed images here at Social Media Revolver and there’s one place where you can find them easily. Flickr is one of the primary image sharing websites in the world and they have a huge collection of copyrighted as well as free images available.

The trick here is to use a custom search in order to find the free ones. Once you are logged on to your Flickr account go to the search area and click the Advanced Search -hotlink. This will take you to a page with lots of different search criteria you can use. One of them is labelled Creative Commons. Tick all the boxes there and hit the Search -button. You will get a huge collection of cool images that you can use in your web projects. Remember to credit the photographer though.

[Image: iStockPhoto]

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: Five Quick Tips On Choosing And Creating Images For Your Website Or Blog.

Internet memes [mēm] are often silly ephemeral fads, absurdist one-hit wonders that burn brightly for an instant, then fade from the popular consciousness as quickly as they arrived. Many of them have little value beyond a 2-second chuckle, flashing across short attention spans and disappearing from browser tabs in the blink of an eye.

From the Dancing Baby, to the hoard of Lolcats, from Double Rainbow through to Forever Alone, memes have become part of the Internet lexicon, be they images, animated GIFs, full-blown videos or merely turns of speech.

Broken down to their most basic elements, memes are infectious ideas and, as such, are the perfect vehicle for marketing messages and audience engagement. If they’re done right, that is. What separates the ones that explode across the internet from those that lurk in obscurity? Let’s discover the secret to crafting killer memes…

What Makes a Meme Popular?

Some people may say that the inner-workings of memes simply can’t be understood; people just get lucky sometimes, and the popularity of a meme is just a random occurrence. But that would be like saying that writing a great hit song is just dumb luck – try telling that to Paul McCartney, Max Martin or the Red Hot Chilli Peppers!

The fact is, there are patterns to popular memes that can be studied, understood and repeated. While it may not be an exact science, there are some commonly agreed upon components of a meme you can use to increase its chances of becoming popular:

• Easy to grasp (It can be understood or summarized quickly and easily)
• Shareable (There is little to no friction in the sharing process)
• Easy to replicate (It can be parodied and/or remixed easily)
• Resonates with a community (Linked to or referencing common themes)

Vintage Meme – Dancing Baby

Dancing Baby is one of the earliest Internet memes, becoming a phenomenon in the late 90′s. The famous viral animation began life as a demonstration of the animation software ‘Character Studio’ (3D Studio Max), but soon spread across the internet and entered the mainstream when it was featured in the hit show Ally McBeal.

Popular Meme Types

There are several types of memes (Text-based memes, Image Macros, Rage Comics, Animated GIFs, Supercuts and other Video memes) each with their own level of complexity. Some of them can be created in minutes, while others can take weeks. Ironically, text-based memes are the simplest format, yet the most difficult to create deliberately – they are generally spontaneous moments or esoteric references to subcultures that catch on.

On the other hand, Supercuts can take weeks of editing, but when done well, will almost always find an audience of thousands. Following is a perfect example of a successful Supercut meme. I guarantee you can’t watch the full 2 minutes and 9 seconds without laughing!

Getting Started Crafting Your Own Killer Memes

Since the process of creating a completely original meme can be hit and miss (and very much dependent on context) a less risky way of creating killer memes can be to reuse popular examples and apply them to your industry.

There is also the practice called ‘Snowcloning‘ – using a phrasal template that can be reused in a variety of situations (X is the new Y, I’m not an X but I play one on TV, etc). You can remix popular image memes using an image editor or an online meme generator such as Mememaker or Diylol.

I recommend doing it yourself so you won’t have to worry about watermarks or embedded codes. You can even take it one step further by using image subscription services like Fotolia, Shutterstock or iStockPhoto in order to find unique images for new memes.

You probably won’t create the next killer meme overnight, and that’s OK. Begin by making your own version of the most current memes and make them relevant to your industry. Share them with your colleagues or on your personal social media accounts and measure the responses that you’re getting.

There’s no need to be afraid of ‘failing’ – no one needs to know that you’re the one creating the memes at the moment!

How To Make Sure You Get The Backlinks

While you should be sharing your newly created memes on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon etc, these can gain you attention but no backlinks. If you’re just looking for engagement with your audience that might be enough, but if you’re looking for backlinks with some SEO effects then you’ll want to submit a link to your meme on Reddit and/or create a Tumblr blog.

If you begin by creating video memes, then add them to YouTube and Daily Motion, as you can add no-follows in your profile and still drive traffic to your web property.

Internet Memes Explained Through Hipster Ariel

Here is a great little SlideShare presentation explaining the inner workings of a meme.

Warning: Handle Memes With Care

The most popular memes tend to originate on forums and message boards like Reddit and 4Chan where they are ‘battle-tested’ by the ‘heavy users’ before being spread throughout the rest of the Internet.

Popular memes have a life-cycle, and trying to jump on the bandwagon too late can actually have a negative effect (just think of mainstream ads that started to use rap music in the 90’s).

In the context of social media and small-to-medium sized brands, the trick is to catch the wave early on – by the time it’s circulating on Facebook or being mentioned on popular TV shows, it’s too late.

To make sure that you’re not late to the party, it’s worthwhile keeping track of some of the major sources of new memes (the aforementioned Reddit and 4Chan for instance) to see what’s being created and shared. Make sure that you look at some of the dialogue surrounding the memes to ensure that you’re using it in the right way – the only thing worse than using a meme 3 months too late is using a meme in the wrong context.

Classic Video Meme – Hitler’s Downfall

Hitler’s Downfall meme video series has become a classic on YouTube. There are literally hundreds of different versions in several languages. These video memes are all based on the 2004 German movie, Der Untergang (Downfall) directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, depicting the final ten days of Adolf Hitler’s reign of Nazi Germany in 1945.

The Hitler Downfall meme is applied to a wide variety of situations where a mistake has been made, a product pulled or a loss incurred – the funny part is that Hitler becomes enraged by petty topics and trivial gossip. Here is a good example:

If you feel creative and want to make your very own Hitler video meme, you can do that here: http://downfall.jfedor.org/create/

Get Your Meme On

The best way to start crafting killer memes is to get going and start practising. Don’t worry about creating the next Hipster Ariel, Dancing Baby or Boromir Simply meme, just have fun and think about ways that you can apply popular memes to your industry. Soon enough you’ll have a few hits on your hand and have your competitors shouting Ermahgerd!

Have You Delved Into The World Of Memes With Your Social Media Campaigns?

Do you have any success stories to share? Let us know your experiences in the comments section, we’d love to hear from you!

[Credits: Arial SlideShare by clearfx87 , What Supercut by Chris Zabriskie]

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: The Secret To Crafting Killer Memes.

Not long ago, Google teamed up with the brand Intuit to dish out a special offering for those who reside in Georgia. This particular offering is a google free website for a business, which comes packed with a free website builder to help those who are inexperienced at building websites.

Now, this all sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? You are absolutely right. The offering itself has some major flaws and we’re going to investigate them right now.

Your Friendly Local Web Host?

The very first thing that struck me as odd was the fact that the business Intuit isn’t even located in Georgia. Their corporate headquarters are located in California. This suggests that Intuit is in need of some new customers and striking up a deal with Google would help them out a bit.

This does not address the fact that for some reason Google did not choose a business located within the state of Georgia to carry out this offering with. It would make much more sense and most importantly, those who are unsure about signing up to this offer would most likely be swayed over.

3 Pages for 1 Year

But hey, I can’t be so judgemental unless I test out their services and give a fair review, can I? The sign-up process was routine and simple. I was given a summary of what I was being offered and prompted to choose a domain name.

The service, as I’m aware, gives you a free domain for the life of your account, but this isn’t much of a bargaining chip, as you are only given this website free for only one year. You are then required to pay $4.99 per month thereafter.

The summary also told me that I was able to create a mere three pages. I shook my head upon reading this as I have never seen a service offer a limited amount of pages since the mid 2000′s. This type of play was abandoned in the past however it still seems “some” companies try to squander more cash out of their “valued” customers.

This is an incredibly cheap ploy from Intuit and a downright disadvantage from using their services.

Unlimited Limitations

I know what you’re thinking though:

Wrong!

I found the amount of disk space and bandwidth offered in this deal were nothing but laughable. They give you 25 megabytes of disk space, and 5 gigabytes of bandwidth. The bandwidth is less-than-adequate for a growing business and the tiny amount of disk space is a slap in the face of every new customer gained from this offering.

1990′s Calling

Intuit’s site builder offers a wide array of templates for most professions, which is definitely a good thing, but what about the quality of the templates themselves? Are they up to par with today’s web trends and web-language requirements? Are they aesthetically pleasing and bound to generate traffic and income? I doubt it.

After having a skim through the vast amounts of templates they had to offer, they all seemed to follow the same format; horizontal navigation bar, one large header image, one content area and a form. This was the general layout of the homepage on most templates and didn’t much vary otherwise.

The builder itself was generally sleek and could well be a useful tool if executed correctly. However, the customizability wasn’t brilliant. The general consensus of the builder was you could drag items to a position of your choosing, change various colours, and edit content. For a very inexperienced user, it’s a dream come true. However, for those with a little bit of coding experience, there was no code editor to be found. This greatly limits what you can do with your website.

Overall, the builder had a nostalgia factor and took me back to the days when I was building MySpace and Piczo templates. It just doesn’t feel professional. It may be a simple-to-use editor, but it definitely didn’t offer a lot and is in dire need of improvement.

“Make My Website Look Good” and Other Addons

Let’s move forward and take a look at what add-ons Intuit has to offer.

Add-ons are extra products you can purchase to enhance your experience with a product, but will this really help Intuits case? The first add-on on the list is titled “Get More Customers“. Within this add-on, you receive features such as Traffic Booster, WebListings, SEO and Search Advertiser. These are all pretty much the same thing. Each part of this add-on just displays a screenshot of a typical Google search page, yet highlighting different parts, such as the top links, advertising headers and so on.

Apparently, by purchasing this add-on, you’ll have your business listed on the web, be high up in the ranks, and gain a ton more customers. Honestly, I feel sorry for anyone who has fallen victim to such a stupid service who blatantly misinforms customers like this. Getting your website on Google is terribly easy, with the exception of gaining higher ranks, which is where SEO itself comes in.

The second add-on they sport is called “Make My Website Look Good“. This is where you can purchase the services of their ‘design experts’ and have a one-of-a-kind unique website. They have a small content slider showcasing their work, which is quite frankly very distasteful. The templates look worse than the free HTML templates you get off any old template marketplace. They are so terribly basic, and look astonishingly old, therefore it boggles the mind why anyone would consider purchasing this add-on.

The following two add-ons relate to setting up an e-commerce store and accepting payments online. This could be promising for customers who own a growing business and would like to sell online. However, it seems Intuit use their own branded e-commerce system and I can only question how reliable and user-friendly could be, and judging from their previous add-ons, I can only expect so much.

The final add-on allows customers to customize their website by purchasing plans to give them access to more features, such as more disk space, bandwidth, pages, and sites and so on. You can upgrade to the 20 dollar per month package which gives you 5GB of disk space and 100GB of bandwidth and 2 more sites, but 20 dollars for that? This kind of package is available from hundreds of web-hosting providers for a quarter of that price. Way to milk your customers even more, Intuit!

Here’s the real kicker though: 50 dollars per month for 10GB disk space and 500GB bandwidth? That is extremely overpriced, considering the amount of unlimited web-hosts who offer similar packages for as cheap as chips, but also the fact that you can get a low-medium end VPS for the exact same price. Intuit, you’re not exactly making the best case for yourself.

Google Free Website Final Verdict

For my final words, all I can say is that I’m astonished.

I am astonished that a business like Intuit is still running; most likely off the hard earned cash from gullible customers who won’t know any better and are unfortunately being taken advantage of. Intuit is a textbook example of milking customers of their cash for an extremely low-end product that utilizes old technology and structures that don’t see the light of day from other reputable companies.

If you’re thinking of signing up with Intuit for the promotion, I wouldn’t. There are MANY web-hosting companies out there that offer great speeds, features and customer support for such minimal costs. If you’re looking to start up a website, take a look at our reviews and we will point you in the right direction of a reputable host that knows how to treat its customer’s right.

[Image credits - Main: Flickr, Alexbrn, Creative Commons Licence. All others: author owned]

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: Why The Google Free Website Is A Bad Idea.

Ah, Facebook!

What started out as a plain old directory for Harvard undergrads and alumni from Mark Zuckerberg and the gang suddenly exploded into a social media network used by almost anyone with access to the internet. Be in front of a computer at work or at home, or even when people are outside and on the go, there’s no denying that a large majority of the online population makes use of the leading social network out there.

Facebook Causes Relationship Issues

Recent studies have shown that Facebook may not be as fun as we think. For starters, it’s been shown that Facebook causes relationship issues not only between “friends”, but among romantic partners as well. As socially positive as the site sets itself to be, these studies only go to show that the social axe can swing both ways as well.

On a more personal note, Facebook has also been seen to cause internal anxieties particularly among young adults, where studies have shown that those who were more active on the popular social network were more likely to develop a susceptibility to depression. Add to this the obvious distraction from schoolwork that Facebook causes and we can see how Facebook can actually also be a tool that could cause problems to the average young adult.

Facebook Ruining Our Lives -Infographic

This infographic from Who Is Hosting This sheds a little more light on the subject to further detail how exactly the leading online pastime can be causing more problems than we’d like to think.

After seeing what the infographic had to say, perhaps you yourself would want to rethink the amount of time you spend online to keep updated on your friends and tend to virtual crops and so on. Better yet,..

Is Facebook Ruining Your Life?

Have you noticed if Facebook, or any other social network, has had a negative impact on your life lately? How many hours a day do you actually spend on social networks?

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: Is Facebook Ruining Our Lives? Infographic.

If you run a website or a blog and you’re serious about making it a success, then you need to treat it like a real business. It’s no good just making the site however you like, without thinking about any of the legal or business aspects and hoping it will be a success. Either it will plummet, or you’ll end up getting into trouble.

Treating your website like a real business means looking into the law surrounding it and your business model – and that means using a lawyer, or at least doing your own due diligence.

But what could you possibly have to consider? It’s just a website after all.

Wrong. Read on to find out why your website can get you into trouble and why you need to have legal protection.

Copyright & Image Use

The first, and most important thing to consider when you create your website is copyright, and here you have two important jobs:

• avoiding infringing on other creators and getting into trouble as a result, and
• protecting your own creations from being stolen and used against your will.

Many site owners or bloggers won’t realise that they can’t just use images they find on Google Images to populate their website or blog. Of course doing so is essentially stealing and translates into making a profit on the back of someone else’s hard work.

[Note from Editor: By default the copyright to an image belongs to the person who originally created the image, whether it's a photograph, line drawing or a painting.]

If you aren’t able to create your own professional looking images then your options are to pay a designer, to use a free stock images site, or to contact the copyright owner and ask for permission. If you do decide to use some elements that you aren’t sure about, then you need to include a notice to enable the owners to contact you and ask them to be removed and this is something a lawyer can help you with.

For protecting your own content and images the first and most important thing is to be aware of the law and your rights. Once you know this, you will know when you are entitled to step in, and here you can then use the help of a lawyer to conduct a proper removal notice.

Taxes

Another consideration you need to take into account is your taxes. If you are earning over a certain amount from your website/blog, then you need to declare that income so that you can pay tax on it. If you don’t, you will find yourself in a lot of trouble. This can be scary and intimidating for those who aren’t used to working for themselves, but with the help of an accountant and a little experience it’s actually not all that bad.

It’s also worth looking into what you can and can’t claim back on your tax to make sure that you save money without getting into trouble again.

Legal Protection

If you have a website that gives any kind of “information” then you can potentially set yourself up for attack. If someone follows your advice and it leads to injury or even death you might end up being taken to court.

Likewise, if you write something libellous or defamatory you can find yourself at the receiving end of a court order. In this case any of the laws that apply to print magazines can apply to your website as well.

Make sure you take steps to avoid getting into trouble this way by researching your facts thoroughly and including all important disclaimers. In any case, be prepared to defend yourself if necessary.

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: Some Legal Considerations For Website Owners And Bloggers.

In November of last year, Pinterest announced its new terms for business and indicated that more businesses features are on the way—a strong signal that the massive digital bulletin board is indeed becoming more business-friendly. With several big name retailers already on board and droves more following suit, agencies and brands from all types of industries are taking a closer look at this channel.

If you’ve given Pinterest a once over and came away confused, you’re certainly not alone. The truth is that in many ways, Pinterest should be approached like any other media channel—social or otherwise. Here’s what I mean.

This Should Sound Familiar

Chances are pretty good that as you read this, some agency specialist who refers to himself as a “digital ninja” is writing a buzzword-stuffed numbered list that promises to reveal the secrets of Pinterest marketing. These lists, when boiled down to their essence, generally hit on what should be some very familiar themes:

• Focus On Quality
• Connect With And Relate To Your Target Audience
• Engage With Your Industry Influencers
• Apply Analytics

The same things can and have been said about your blog, your Facebook page, your Twitter account, your YouTube channel, your Google+ account, your LinkedIn company page, and… you get the point. In fact, these things have also been said about traditional media channels for years. They’re all good tips – they’re just not unique to Pinterest.

If you understand the strategy for harnessing a channel to successfully market a business, than you understand more than you give yourself credit for when it comes to Pinterest marketing. After all, your market is your market, and sound strategy is sound strategy.

It’s All About Telling a Compelling Story

I know—the medium is the message. I’m not implying that Pinterest is identical to Twitter is identical to TV advertising; the differences between channels shouldn’t be ignored, and there are unique nuances to approaching the strategy of each. That said, the goals among marketing channels are essentially the same (at least they should be). Whether you’re posting a promotion on Facebook, running infomercials or writing a press release, what you’re really hoping to do is to tell a compelling story that will ultimately move your audience to take a desired action.

If your business has anything to do with, say, furry animals, food, fashion, or personal beauty, this will obviously be a smoother road to social engagement than if you’re a waste management consultant. If you don’t sell visually appealing products, there may still be ways to make Pinterest work by finding clever angles and using things like infographics and other design-heavy content. But, there’s also a chance that it’s just not a good fit. Which leads me to my next point…

Don’t Ignore The Obvious

For our hypothetical waste management consultancy, Pinterest is pretty obviously not a good fit—unless they happen to sell wedding cakes on the side. Assuming they don’t, those in charge of their marketing might still be swayed by their big shiny numbers. It’s true, Pinterest has seen remarkable growth and it may even overtake Twitter as the second biggest social network. This doesn’t mean your business therefore MUST be using it as a marketing channel.

This image can be shared by rolling over with your mouse and clicking on the Pinterest -button top right.

Before spending time and resources on this channel, think about what ‘Visual Stories’ are going to be compelling to your target audience. Can your business contribute these types of stories in a way that will create positive visibility for you? Are you nodding YES  just because you recently read that 15% of adults now use Pinterest? Again, don’t ignore the obvious.

Of course, Pinterest comes with its own set of rules and tactics and its own methods of engaging with users, optimising boards, repinning and so on.  But, if you can look past the platform-specific nuances of this channel and focus on engaging the interests of your market, you should avoid any major missteps.

[Update from Editor 21.3.2013]

Pinterest Changes (Infographic)

Pinterest has been introducing their new design during this week. The changes are quite subtle so if you’re not a heavy user (yet) you might have missed them. Some of the updates include eliminating the useless white space between the pins, streamlined nav. options and removing the hashtags.

Here’s a funky Infographic from Avalaunch that explains the changes in more detail.

[Image: Flick-pinksherbet, Creative Commons Licence, Infographic: Avalaunch]

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: Why Marketing With Pinterest Isn’t As Complicated As You Might Think.

Starting a new blog is an exciting time. For those who plan on blogging for profit however, it can also be a pretty stressful one. Writing posts and building backlinks takes time and unfortunately, not everyone gets paid for their efforts.

Should you find yourself starting a new blog for the first time, there are a number of important things that you need to get right. Fail to do so and your odds of turning a profit decrease dramatically. Here are eight things not to do when starting a new blog.

1. Starting The Wrong Blog

The biggest mistake that a blogger can make is to dive into the wrong niche. Content might be king but your content isn’t going to mean much if you’re blogging about rocks. Think long and hard about the kind of blog that you want to create. Choose something that you can monetize, something that you can compete in and even more importantly, something that you’re passionate about.

2. Starting a Blog For The Wrong Reasons

There are two things that all bloggers should know before they start out.

• Blogs are rarely very profitable during their first year. Fail to accept this fact and you’re unlikely to make it to year two.
• Don’t start a blog exclusively for money. Passionate bloggers make money, everyone else makes pocket change.

3. Failing to Introduce Yourself

When somebody visits your blog for the first time, they’re not going to know anything about you. If they like your posts, they’re going to become curious and they’re going to visit your About Page. What your About Page says will determine whether or not they return.

Take the time to tweak your About -page, it’s arguably the most important page on your blog. In the very least, it should include the following:

• Who you are (preferably including a photo).
• What your blog is about.
• What makes you qualified to write such a blog.
• What people can expect in the future.

4. Copying Old News

One of the reasons that passion is so important when choosing a blog topic is that it’s opinions that make a blog, not facts. And if you’re not passionate about what you’re writing about, those opinions are going to be pretty hard to come by.

If you think that you can rehash everyone else’s ideas and turn a profit, think again. Regardless of what you’re writing about, you must strive to say something new.

Fail to do so and you’ll just be one more copycat trying to make money from old news.

5. Talking to Yourself

A blog is supposed to be a two way conversation. This means that a blog needs a comment section and it needs a blogger that responds to those comments. Fail to do this and you are essentially just talking to yourself. Nobody likes that guy.

Encourage comments by both asking for them and responding to them. Moderate your comment sections carefully both manually and using the appropriate plug-ins.

6. Posting When You Feel Like It

A lack of updates can kill just about any blog, let alone a new one. Whether you post daily or weekly is irrelevant, what matter’s is that you decide on a schedule and that you stick to it.

When somebody visits your blog, they must know when to expect the next post. Otherwise, why would they return?

7. Expecting The Audience To Come To You

One of the biggest challenges of starting a new blog is actually getting noticed. If you don’t actively promote your blog, you’re going to be waiting a hell of a long time. The easiest way to promote a new blog is to find people interested in the niche and simply talk to them.

In other words, find the most popular blogs in your niche and start commenting on them. Find the most popular forums in your niche and start contributing to the conversation.

8. Underestimating/Overestimating The Importance Of Search Engine Optimisation

For every profitable niche, there’s a hundred bloggers trying to make a living from it. And because they all use SEO, you’re going to have to use SEO too. Fail to employ basic SEO techniques and you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle from day one.

On the other side of the coin, we have the bloggers that devote all of their efforts into SEO and none of their efforts into creating quality content. Such bloggers might make money in the short term but they’re just a single Google update from losing everything. Optimise your posts for Google but write your posts for your readers.

[Image credits: Flickr-music2work2 , antkriz, Creative Commons Licence]

READ THE ORIGINAL POST HERE: Eight Things NOT To Do When Starting A New Blog.