6 Essential Google Analytics Features for Every Retailer

Google Analytics can help focus your business on its most profitable areas, and can also help attract more customers while spending less money in the process.
Here are six valuable features that Google Analytics can provide your online retail operations. With these tools, you can make your operations more cost effective, and spot new, lucrative opportunities.

Tracking Outbound Links

Understanding where your traffic comes from is one thing. But being able to see when — and where — it's going is another.
To track outbound links, first check the “Yes, an E-commerce site” button in Google Analytics. From there, install the necessary tracking code. There are excellent plugins for this for popular platforms and frameworks. You can install them on your site quickly and easily. If you need raw coding, Axllent.org has an excellent outbound tracking guide that provides the code, tells you what to do with it, and where to put it on your website. In short, if you can follow directions, you can start tracking your outbound links today.

Ecommerce Tracking

Google Analytics can actually track your sales. This is an incredibly useful tool because it puts all of your sales and conversion metrics in the same place, and lets you compare them alongside the rest of your data. But it doesn’t come easy — unless you’re using popular platforms like WordPress, Shopify, or Cart66, which all have plugins to simply copy and paste your tracking codes. For custom coding, you may need professional assistance. Ask your shopping cart provider about this.
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Clicking the option "Yes, an E-Commerce Site" in Google Analytics.

Goals

"Goals" are like Ecommerce Tracking, but more thorough. Goals are essentially conversion tracking, but you can identify many different things as conversions, instead of just basic purchases. If you’re aiming for visitors to sign up for your newsletter, click a link to an affiliate, or just follow a link to a special web page, you can create goals and then track.
Setting up goals is easy. Search Engine Land has an excellent primer for it. Just create a goal from a basic metric, like pages visited or time on page. You can also track specific conversion funnels, with the goal set at the final confirmation page after a purchase. For advanced goals, there is a little code to implement. But it’s not difficult, even for the technically challenged. Once you have goals set up, Google Analytics provides graphics to show your progress and help you see where you can improve.

Custom Campaign URLs

Do you wish you knew where your traffic was coming from, across all of your various promotions? Google Analytics can help you identify visitors that come from special promotions, and all other sources. Using Google’s URL Builder, you can customize links using URL extensions that won’t affect your website’s performance.
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Google Analytics' URL builder.
Though the finished URL looks complicated, the idea is simple: You’re giving each URL a special tag, or campaign code, that identifies it and separates it from the rest of your traffic. For example, when creating a link to your website that you want to share on Facebook, append something like “/?utmsource=facebook” to your URL. For email campaigns, the URL could be “/?utmsource=email” — and so on. Tagging your URLs will help you sort your traffic into logical groups, to understand where it's coming from so you can measure how effective your campaigns actually are.

Exclude Internal Traffic

To make sure your analytics aren’t skewed by your own repeated visits, there are a number of ways to keep your internal visits excluded from your own site’s metrics. Hallam Internet Limited offers simple directions to block your own IP address.
If you’re more technically savvy, you can give your computer a cookie from your website that includes a variable that tells Google Analytics to ignore your traffic no matter where you are. InfoTrust offers a good explanation of how to do this.

Advanced Segments

"Advanced Segments" is a powerful tool to separate your traffic into highly focused groups. You can track repeat traffic to learn more about what your loyal customers are doing, or keep tabs on related traffic sources to gauge your relative performance, or simply customize a report to show you more on whatever is helpful to you. The point is to find actionable data within specific key categories. I addressed this previously, in "Using Google Analytics Advanced Segments to Find Actionable Data."
Setting up an advanced segment is easy. Under "Standard Reporting," click the Advanced Segments button and you can start separating traffic by many different variables and traffic factors. Once you’ve found the factors to focus on, you can create a dynamic analytics segment to refer to any time, providing a more detailed look into how your visitors behave, where they comes from, and what they are up to.

by Jaime Brugueras

Facebook Marketing Apps Worth Your Attention

Facebook's modifications to fan pages — most importantly the shift to Timeline — has reduced the use of specialized, third-party marketing apps. However, that does not mean these apps have gone away. Many offer promotional opportunities not found within Facebook's native platform.
In this article, I share 13 new apps from 7 different companies that are worth your attention.

1. Lujure

Lujure has transitioned to a new brand called Heyo.
Lujure is one of the more popular Facebook Page marketing applications. However, the company recently made the most significant change in its history and transitioned from being solely a Facebook Page app provider to one that incorporates mobile apps and a website building tool. The company also changed its name from Lujure to Heyo.
Heyo Social
The fan page builder — now called Heyo Social — remains the heart of the new platform and provides the content for use in the mobile app and website.
Page owners can choose from template-driven or custom options. The company also offers over 30 widgets that can be incorporated into fan pages, including contests, buy buttons, and email opt-ins.
Heyo Mobile
Once a fan page is built, its content can be included in a mobile app with a single click. "Customers can call you through your phone widget, email you through your email widget, follow you through your twitter widget, or redeem a deal using your deal widget," states Heyo. Six mobile widgets are available in all.
Heyo Web
Lastly, Heyo offers a hosted, drag and drop website building platform. As with the mobile app, content that has already been created via Heyo Social can be used within the site.
Prices start at $3 per month and scale upward based on the number of fan pages, widgets, mobiles apps, and websites used.

2. North Social

North Social offers a suite of more than 20 Facebook Page apps.
Facebook Page app developer North Social offers a suite of more than 20 apps. Two of the newest include Holiday Advent Calendar and Trivia Contest.
Holiday Advent Calendar
This app allows merchants to set up a series of daily promotions that automatically run from midnight to midnight each day during Advent.
Types of promotions vary from deals, coupons, downloads, or sweepstakes. For example, the app enables page owners to run a week of deals, 12 days of coupons, and up to 24 days of holiday deals (in keeping with the Advent calendar).
Trivia Contest App
The Trivia Contest app is designed to provide page owners with a way to engage their fan base and help spread the word about their brands. Three contest options are included: True/False, Multiple Choice, and Personality Quiz.
Sharing is built in so that, after users complete a trivia challenge, they will be shown their results and prompted to share the application by challenging their friends to beat their score.
North Social offers tiered pricing, which starts at $1.00 per day, and is based on the number of fans a page has. All apps are included in the price.

3. Tabsite

Tabsite recently launched a series of "engagement" apps.
Facebook app provider Tabsite recently launched a series of "Engagement" apps. Three that I recommend are: Pin Deal, Share Deal, and Group Deal.
Pin Deal
This app integrates Pinterest into Facebook by giving page owners the ability to create a special offer or deal. However, to "unlock" the deal, fans must first pin it on Pinterest.
Share Deal
Similar to the Pin Deal app, to unlock a special deal on Facebook, the fan must first share it with others.
According to Tabsite, the Share Deal app is a "great tool for offering a special discount, an e-book download, savings code, or other promo that spreads because fans need to share the deal in order to get access themselves."
Group Deal
The Group Deal app picks up where Share Deal leaves off. In this case, just like using group deal sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial, fan page owners set how many times a deal must be shared in order for it to be unlocked.
Tabsite pricing starts at $15 per month for its most popular plan. A 14-day free trial is also offered. However, the apps listed above require the use of what Tabsite refers to as its Platinum plan, which costs $25 per month.
 

4. Blazon

Blazon is a newer player on the Facebook Page marketing scene.
A new player on the Facebook marketing scene is Blazon, which provides a social marketing suite built around promotional campaigns and contests.
Blazon positions itself as the "fastest way to convert impressions into sales leads," and does so using photo, text and video contests, as well as giveaways and sweepstakes.
Prices begin at just $5 per promotion and $0.99 per day. The most popular option starts at $19 and $2.49 per day. Promotions can be run for any period of time the user chooses.

5. Woobox

Two of Woobox newest apps are Pinterest tab and Photo Contests.
Woobox offers a number of apps including group deals, polls, sweepstakes and coupons. Two of its newest, however, are Photo Contests and a Pinterest tab.
Photo Contests
The Photo Contests app, which works with both Facebook and Twitter, allows fan and followers to upload photos that others can vote on. Entrants provide captions for their photo that are shown on the voting screen. Users can also share their own photo entry or that of others.
Fan page owners can download all entry data including email addresses for use in follow-up marketing, which is a particular benefit to using this app.
Pinterest Tab
Though not tied to a contest or promotion, this app allows page owners to showcase their Pinterest boards and pins as a tab on a Facebook page. Users can be required to like the page before viewing the Pinterest tab.
Use of the Pinterest tab app is free. However, the Photo Contests app requires that users pay a monthly subscription fee of $29, which includes use of all Woobox apps.

6. FaceItPages

FaceItPages offers a promotional app to target relevant fans.
Like the other companies included in this list, FaceItPages provides several Facebook Page marketing options. However, there is one in particular that I want to mention. It's called +Promote, which helps page owners gain "targeted likes" to their Facebook pages.
"With targeted fans, you have a much better chance of turning your likes into leads. The more targeted fans you have, the better chance those fans will engage with your page which will also help your Facebook Page Edgerank," says FaceItPages.
The app promotes fan pages using Facebook ads that are targeted around the merchant's market and ideal customer. The company focuses on setting up targeted, low cost, yet high converting ads that produce, according to the company, an 80 percent click-to-like ratio.
The key benefit to using this app is that it places the emphasis on quality over quantity. In other words, it is not designed to get the most fans for the money, but the ones most likely to engage with the brand.
Pricing is $15 per month of the most popular plan, but is free for the first 30 days.

7. PageModo

Pagemodo offers a Facebook Cover creation tool.
Pagemodo also offers social apps. One that I like is the Timeline Cover Photo designer.
The process is simple. You choose a template, which can consist of up to eight images, select a background image (Pagemodo provides a background image maker), choose images either from your computer or from images provided by Pagemodo, then publish the cover to your fan page.
It is important to change cover images on a routine basis to add freshness to the page. This app makes that process easy, and even fun. It's also free to use. Pagemodo also offers a free level for use with a limited selection of its apps. Otherwise, plans start at $6.25 per month and scale up. (At the time of this writing, Pagemodo is running a pricing special, which cuts the monthly rate in half.)

Summary

Just because Facebook is offering its own marketing tools, primarily Promoted Posts, you can still use third-party applications such as those listed here. They contain a wealth of promotional opportunities that can lead to increased fan base growth, engagement and sales.

Read More

• Facebook Promoted Posts: Getting Started
• Facebook Launches Targeted Page Posts 

by  http://www.practicalecommerce.com

Increase Your Blog and Writing Income with Chitika

What is Chitika?

If you write online for your own blog, website, or revenue sharing site, you can increase your online passive income by placing Chitika advertisements along side your articles. Pronounced "CHIT-icka," Chitika ads are one alternative to Adsense, yet you can still place Chitika ads and Adsense units on the same page. This allows you to get the maximum use from your ad space. Chitika units have excellent click-through rates, and many writers and bloggers report that the click-through rates are better than Adsense. If you want to make more money writing online, here are some quick facts about Chitika and how to increase your revenue.

Which Writing Sites Allow Chitika?

Chitika is growing in popularity, and many article directories and croud-sourced revenue sharing sites are give writers the option to incorporate Chitika ads into their articles.
Revenue Sharing Sites:

• Infobarrel.com
• Seekyt.com

Blogging Platforms and CMSs (Content management systems):

• Blogger.com
• Wordpress.org (not Wordpress.com)
• Drupal.org
• Joomla.org
• Every other CMS that allows you to insert JavaScript

Basically, you can add Chitika units to any static or dynamic website that you own--that is, you have paid for the domain name and hosting. If you have a free domain and free hosting, your host may restrict your ability to place ads, so read the terms of your agreement carefully.

Chitika Ads are Seach-Targeted

Chitika advertising units are search-targeted; they only appear when someone finds your site through a search engine link. Unlike Google Adsense ads, they are not contextually based, so if someone visits your page through a backlink, the Chitika units will not display targeted ads based on the text of your website. You can specify what happens to the Chitika unit if someone finds your page through a non-search engine link.

• Show nothing. The Chitika space will collapse.
• Show Chitika backfill. Backfill is a set of unrelated ads that may have nothing to do with your page
• Show a different ad. You can configure the Chitika unit to show an Adsense unit with your Adsense code.

If you get a lot of traffic to your blog or articles through search engines, Chitika can help you increase your revenue dramatically. If you get traffic mainly through links, Chitika may not work for you.  Ultimately, you will have to test it for yourself.

Ways to Increase Your Chitika Revenue

The best way to increase your Chitika revenue is to make sure your pages show up high on search engine results pages (SERPs).  Using good SEO techniques will draw more traffic to your website via search engines.  Remember, Chitika ads don't display relevant ad links based on the text of your webpages, they only display ad links based on the terms people used to search for your site.  Using meta tags, updating your site frequently, and creating backlinks to your webpages will help your site rank higher in Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

Chitika Program Policies

Chitika's minimum payout is $10. The threshold is low so you can get payments more frequently than with Adsense.
Like Adsense, Chitika does not count fraudulent clicks, and if you click on your own ads, you will be removed from the program. Chitika ads are not allowed on pages with inappropriate content, such as porn or illegal drug use.

by  http://paxwill.hubpages.com

4 Tips to Improve your AdSense revenue

How many times have you seen an ad campaign running for “Google Adsense” that makes it sound so easy to make revenue by just copying and pasting their code onto your website? After all the research I have done on Google Adsense, I finally realized how it is not that easy just to copy and paste. There is much more beyond this that must be done in order to make Google Adsense revenue.
The following are techniques that must be implemented in order to really make money with Google Adsense:

1. Design a website that is Google Adsense friendly. In other words, make sure that your website has much content that is keyword rich and make sure your keyword density is decent. Make sure that you are using the most beneficial keywords for your niche. Try to choose keywords that cost more for pay per click. For example, if a keyword such as “dog training” cost $2.00 per click to run an ad campaign, you can be well assured that you will make around half of that per click. By choosing the top competitive keywords, you will increase your Adsense revenue considerably. Once indexed, Google will then be able to known what correct ads to place on your website.
2. Generate traffic to your website using a number of different techniques.
   • Writing articles By writing articles at least once a week and submitting them to article directories such as Ezine. The more article directories that you submit to, the more back links you are creating for your website. You can pay for article directory submission, which can cost as little as $80 every quarter.
   • Search Engine Directory Submissions By submitting your website URL to search engine friendly directories, you are creating back links back to your website. Make sure that you only submit to search engine directories with a Google page rank of four or higher.
   Just remember back links, back links, back links!
3. Google Adsense ads can be published and designed in a wide variety of formats. When displaying your ads, decide upon a size that would be best suitable for your website. There are different sizes to choose from. There are also different fonts and colors you can use to create your ads. Try to use a color that blends in well with your website. Also, although borders can be used, many web publisher's state on forums and blogs, that once they removed their borders, they had more clicks on their ads.
4. When displaying ads on your website, it is best to place them in a place where visitors can review them. One good place to display your ads is somewhere at the top of your website. A lot of web publishers use the top left corner for displaying Google Adsense. However, when you go to a website, what is one of the first things you look at? Could it be how the website is navigated by its menu? That is why another great place to display your ads could be near the navigation menu

by  http://www.wmtips.com

The Basics On How TO Start Making Money With Adsense

Adsense is considered as one of the most powerful tool in a website publishers arsenal. It enables a person to monetize their sites easily. If used properly, it can generate a very large and healthy income for them. However if you are not using them rightly and just maximizing the income you squeeze from it, you are actually leaving a lot of money on the table. Something all people hate doing.

How you can start earning money with Adsense can be done easily and quickly. You will be amazed at the results you will be getting in such a short period of time.

Start by writing some quality content articles which are also keyword incorporated. There are a lot of people given the gift of being good with words. Writing comes easy for them. Why not make it work in such a way that you will be earning some extra cash in the process.

There are actually three steps to put into mind before you begin writing your ads and Keyword search. Find some popular subjects, keywords or phrase. Select the ones which you think has more people clicking through. This is actually a keyword selector and suggestion tool that some sites are offering to those who are just their Adsense business.

Writing articles. Start writing original content with keywords from the topics that you have achieved in your search. Take note that search engines are taking pride in the quality of their articles and what you will be writing should keep up with their demands.

Quality content site. Build a quality content site incorporated with Adsense ads that is targeting the subject and keywords of your articles and websites. This is where all that you’ve done initially will go to and this is also where they will prove their worth to you.

The proper positioning of your ads should be done with care. Try to position your ads where surfers are most likely to click on them. According to research, the one place that surfers look first when they visit a certain site is the top left. The reason behind this is not known. Maybe it is because some of the most useful search engine results are at the top of all other rankings. So visitors tend to look in that same place when browsing through other sites.

Some of those who are just starting at this business may think they are doing pretty well already and thinking that their clickthrough rates and CPM figures are quite healthy. However, there are more techniques and styles to generate more clicks to double your earnings. By knowing these techniques and working them to your advantage, you will realize that you will be getting three times more than other people who have been previously doing what they are doing.

Finally, Adsense has some excellent tracking statistics that allows webmasters and publishers to track their results across a number of site on a site by site, page by page, or any other basis you wanted. You should be aware oft his capability and make the most of it because it is one powerful tool that will help you find out which ads are performing best. This way, you can fine tune your Adsense ads and focus more on the ones being visited the most rather than those who are being ignored.

Another thing you should know. Banners and skyscrapers are dead. Ask the experts. So better forget about banners and skyscrapers. Surfers universally ignore these kinds of ad formats. The reason behind this is that they are recognized as an advert and advert are rarely of any interest that’s why people ignore them.

To really start making money with Adsense, you should have a definite focus on what you wanted to achieve and how you will go about achieving them. As with any other kind of business ventures, time is needed coupled with patience.

Do not just ignore your site and your Adsense once you have finished accomplishing them. Spare some time, even an hour, making adjustments to the Adsense ads on your sites to quickly trigger your Adsense income.

Give it a try and you would not regret having gotten into Adsense in the first place.

John Ugoshowa.(http://www.selfseo.com)

Getting Started with eBay

eBay is a global marketplace and an opportunity for online sellers, including businesses as small as garage-based, family operations — or as large as major ecommerce merchants.
In the second quarter of 2012, eBay's marketplace helped to sell approximately $3.1 billion in clothing, shoes, and accessories; $2.9 billion in electronics, including game consoles, mobile phones, and cameras; and some $2.6 billion in home and garden items.
Add in the dozens of other categories of products sold every day on eBay, and the marketplace facilitated $16.2 billion in transactions in just three months during the second quarter, according to eBay's own data. Put another way, a pair of shoes were sold on eBay every six seconds, an MP3 player sold every 25 seconds, and video game system sold every 24 seconds to name just a few examples.
There is little doubt that eBay is an important sales channel and a good opportunity for some sellers when one considers the massive gross merchandise values mentioned above. The only real question for online entrepreneurs is what to offer on the site. What follows are five suggestions for finding products to sell on Ebay (global marketplace).

Purchase from Existing Suppliers

If a would-be eBay seller already has an online store or a physical store, it may be possible to sell the very items currently in inventory on the eBay marketplace. Be sure to check any dealer agreements before posting to eBay, or any marketplace, as there could be some restrictions or manufacturer approved pricing requirements. Even suppliers that won't normally allow products to be sold on eBay will make exceptions for closeout or clearance products.
Sellers that are just getting started may also purchase items directly from manufacturers or distributors. To locate suppliers, try going directly to the manufacturers' or distributors' websites and searching for dealer information.
There are also many tradeshows for each industry every year, if a seller has the means, going to these shows is an excellent way to locate suppliers.
Finally, there are many sites that specialize in connecting wholesale buyers and sellers. One of the best is Alibaba.

Buy Product at Auctions

Auctions are an excellent source of products to sell on eBay. Storage lockers, estate sales, going out of business auctions, and government surplus auctions are just a few examples of the kinds of sales that eBay merchants should consider.
There are a number of excellent online auction or auction announcement sites. Some of the best of these include the following.

• Liquidation.com
• GoIndustry DoveBid
• Government Liquidation
• U.S. Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services
• GovSales
• U.S. Postal Service Auctions
• U.S. Marshals Service Asset Forfeiture Program
• GSA Auctions
• Shop Goodwill
• Heritage Auctions

Shop on Craigslist

Craigslist is the Internet's ubiquitous online classified's site. It has pages for many cities and each page lists hundreds of items for sale daily.
For example, entrepreneurs could purchase $1,000 worth of collectable comics from a guy in St. Louis, and make $10,000 selling the individual comics on eBay. Pick up used, but functional laptops from sellers in the Houston and Dallas, and resell them for twice the price on eBay. Get salt-glazed pottery from a grandma in Greensburg, PA, and sell it for a small fortune one item at a time on eBay.

Empty Out Garages

In warm weather, going to garage sales can also be a good way to find products to sell on eBay. An eBay entrepreneur might buy items one at a time, offer to take everything that's left at the end of the day, or even suggest selling some more expensive items on consignment.
A seller may also want to post ads, offering to buy certain kinds of items.

Make Something

eBay sellers may also find some success manufacturing items specifically to sell on the marketplace. These manufactured products may be simple crafts or some decidedly more complex items that have been designed and built via contract manufacturers. Contract manufacturers make items to a designer's specifications.

Summing Up

eBay represents a great opportunity for selling products new or used, and between suppliers, auctions, manufacturing items, shopping on Craigslist, or going to garage sales there is nearly an endless supplier of products to sell.

Read More

• How To Set Up Shop on Niche Online Marketplaces
• Back Office Complexities of Selling on Multiple Channel 

by http://www.practicalecommerce.com

How to Make Money Using Facebook

Facebook is a social online community that links everyone to everyone.Do you think that everyone use it for fun or do you think some guys and girls use it as a networking tool to sell stuff ? The obvious reason would be both. These methods don't require you to buy anything or pay someone to tell you the "secrets". As a matter of fact you can start making money with your Facebook right now without having to spend any money at all.There are no"secrets" for making money on Facebook. Simply some very basic methods that people use to make money elsewhere,but with a little work and patience you can apply the same methods to make money on Facebook.

Steps

1. 
   
   Decide how much,and how quickly you want to make the money. There are literally thousands of ways of how to make money with Facebook. Some businesses have their own product lines and they simply utilize Facebook to expose these products to their friends and their friends. Some guys use Facebook to market other people's products. The latter is the way that most individuals do it, from home earning six figure plus incomes, in a period of months.
2. 
   
   Consider using companies that provide you with specific products and websites to market. They also provide training and support on how to use Facebook to market your websites.
3. 
   
   Find a market. In this case the market would be Facebook friends. The more Facebook friends you have, the more chances you have of making more money. What if you don't have many Facebook friends? Fortunately it's very easy to create a massive market (friends for Facebook) simply by searching and inviting others to be your friend. But, if you want to take it to the next level and automate the finding and adding friends process, there are some software that can do just that.
4. 
   
   Show ads on Facebook. With all the Facebook applications that make it easy and a snap to start showing ads on your Facebook, there is no excuse for not taking advantage of this method, especially if you are popular amongst your Facebook friends, and have a big audience to show your ads to. Using AdSense, chitika and other PPC advertising companies you can easily setup your ads and customize it to your liking. Make sure to set it somehow that it serves ads related to product and services that you know your Facebook audience is interested in.
5. 
   
   Use affiliate marketing on Facebook. It's the same idea as showing ads, but in a more direct way. Register for free with affiliate networking sites such as ClickBank, Maxbounty, etc., and pick a product relevant to your Facebook audience interest to promote. You will be provided a simple code which is a link with your affiliate id embedded in it. Whenever someone clicks on that link and buys the product or service, you make money by getting a commission.
6. 
   
   Create an entirely new Facebook for that product and start promoting it there. You can sell multiple products and create multiple accounts for each one. Write short posts about the product and post it on your Facebook with your affiliate link in it. You can make a couple of hundred dollars a month doing this. I know it's not much, but for something that doesn't cost you a dime and takes about 30 minutes to set up, and takes about 20 minutes or so a day to run, I don't think it's a bad deal.
7. 
   
   Write a Facebook book How To. Facebook is attracting more and more members every day. And lets face it, not all of these people are Facebook savvy. And even though getting started with Facebook might be simple and quick for some, many people have problem with the basic things. Write a small and to the point e-book about Facebook and how to use it. Maybe a simple step by step instruction for getting started with Facebook. Or an e-book about how to use different application to make Facebook experience a better one. There are many possibilities. With the huge amount of Facebook apps and all the new ones that are added daily, this can be quite big. You don't even have to pay to promote your e-book, simply use your own Facebook or better yet create one for your e-book and start promoting it.
8. 
   
   Blog about Facebook. There are already some people doing it. But there is always room for new voices. Get a free blog over at blogger and use Google AdSense (which is already integrated in blogger, so even if you don't know how to show ads on your blog, you can set it up with couple clicks) to show ads on your blog and make money that way.
9. 
   
   Get sponsorship. When you have established yourself as an authority and a trusted person for anything related to Facebook, you can get some sponsor and maybe use affiliate networking sites to find and promote Facebook related product.
10. 
    
    Create and sell a Facebook application. If you are savvy enough and know your way around, why not use your skills to make a Facebook app of your own and sell it to Facebook users? Again, once you made it, you can use the same strategies mentioned above (blog or a Facebook page for the app) to promote your app.

 by  http://www.wikihow.com

7 Steps to Better Ecommerce Marketing

Effective marketing rarely happens accidentally. Successful campaigns are most often the result of good planning and execution.
Planning a marketing campaign can provide an excellent opportunity to focus on a business's unique marketing problems or challenges and the proper actions required to address those very problems or challenges.

Regarding Marketing Planning

Unfortunately, some entrepreneurs simply don't know what a marketing plan is or how it should look. Is there a form one can download and fill out to ensure complete success? Not really. Are there marketing recipes to follow that include search engine marketing combined with pay-per-click ads and a blog post or two? Not exactly.
Instead marketing planning varies greatly from organization to organization or even campaign to campaign. What follows are seven steps that may help ecommerce merchants make better marketing plans. Apply these steps as they make sense in the context of a particular campaign.

1. Know Where the Business Is

Marketing is frequently thought of as "those activities involved in the process of selling products or services to customers." But another possible definition — or perhaps restatement of the definition — might be "those actions required to move a business from its current state to a desired state."
For example, imagine an online store that sells $10,000 worth of digital widgets each month. That store would, however like to sell $20,000 worth of widgets. The store's current state is "sales of $10,000," and its desired state is "sales of $20,000."

Marketing represents those actions required to move a business from its current state to a desired state.
In the example, it is marketing that moves the retailer from its current state to its desired state — i.e., to double sales.
In application, a good marketing plan should begin with a thorough understanding of the business's current state. What are current sales and inventory levels? Are new products available? What is the business's cash flow or available marketing budget?

2. Know What the Opportunity Is

In marketing textbooks, one will often find the term "total available market" or "TAM." The TAM references the revenue opportunity for a particular product or service. It describes the value of the entire market.
It is unlikely that a single business will have the ability to sell to the entire market. That business will, instead, have some share of the available market. An increase in revenue or sales frequently represents an increase in that market share.
When developing a marketing plan, consider what kind of opportunity may exist. Is the TAM for a particular product or segment growing? Are there opportunities to gain market share.
Knowing how large or small an opportunity is will help with goal setting later.

3. Know Who the Customer Is

Recently, a major clothing manufacturer specializing in work wear and outerwear profiled its typical customers. This manufacturer aggregated information about the customers' ages, occupations, locations, hobbies, and favorite places to shop. Similar customers were grouped together and represented by personas with names like Mike, Matt, and Mary.
The manufacturer then shared this data with many of its retailers, including brick-and-mortar stores, pure-play ecommerce merchants, and multi-channel retailers. This kind of customer information can be very useful.
The Mike persona, which was a 40-year-old, blue collar worker earning around $65,000, was the only customer type shopping at relatively small specialty stores. This fact helped the marketers at those specialty stores do two very different things with their marketing plans. First, they aimed at strengthening relationships with Mike persona customers. Second, they looked at other similar personas, which were not currently shopping at specialty retailers and sought ways to win them over.

4. Have S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Once a marketer has taken stock of a business's current state, studied the market to understand the available opportunity, and researched customers, it is time to define the desired state or the goals that marketing is supposed to achieve.
There is an acronym, S.M.A.R.T., that can help a marketer set good marketing goals. I've addressed S.M.A.R.T. previously, in "Setting SMART Goals and Measuring Success."
Put simply, marketing goals should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

5. Choose Reasonable Tactics

Once a S.M.A.R.T. goal has been created, it is time to select the specific tactics or actions that will move a business from its current state to its goal or desired state. These tactics will be things like creating a special landing page, sending emails, posting on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, publishing content, or purchasing pay-per-click ads on Google, Bing, or similar networks.
Each tactic selected should be responsible for achieving some part of the goal. As an example, if the goal is to get $10,000 in new monthly revenue, pay-per-click ads might be made responsible for producing $2,000 in new sales while a multi-part email tactic might be responsible for another $2,000. Other tactics would need to make up the remaining $6,000 in new sales to meet the goal.
Reasonable tactics are those actions or advertisements that help achieve the goal while remaining within budget or time constraints.

6. Create a Schedule or Calendar

Every tactic in the marketing plan and every goal milestone should be laid out on a schedule or calendar. This schedule will first help to coordinate tactics avoiding overlap or other potential issues.
Second, the schedule will help with execution and measurement, since the marketer will know ahead of time which tactics are coming up and, presumably, what must be done to execute those tactics.

7. Build in Room for Change

A good marketing plan also should assume that some tactics will change during the course of execution and accommodate those likely changes.
This does not mean that the planner should seek to figure out possible changes in advance or be unwilling to commit to some tactics. It suggests, instead, having some margin or room in the plan for change.
The plan should spread marketing investments out so that there will still be room in the budget — in terms of money and time — if new opportunities arise or if some tactics underperform.

Affiliate Marketing: Using Product Data Feeds

A common error that merchants make when launching an affiliate program is not providing enough marketing support for their affiliates. Merchants sometimes assume that all they need to do is provide a few banner ads to their affiliates, who would place them on their sites.
But many savvy affiliate marketers are moving beyond banner ads. They have evolved their marketing efforts to drive conversions. This often includes contextual advertising, where affiliates work your products into the actual content of their sites.

Beyond Banner Ads

For example, some sites might embed affiliate links within product reviews. Or they might monetize user-generated content in an online forum with affiliate links. Other affiliates build product-focused sites that position your inventory in a slightly different way to attract a different consumer. An affiliate may build a site targeting fishing gear and equipment, and only promote the fishing-gear portion of your inventory. Both of these approaches — contextual links and product-focused sites — are effective at driving incremental value because they get your brand in front of consumers when they’re researching a purchase, or browsing for something specific.

Enter Product Data Feeds

To help affiliates with contextual links and product-focused sites, provide them with a product data feed. A data feed can be visualized as a spreadsheet of all your products, where each row represents a single product, and each column represents one characteristic of that product. Characteristics can include product name, landing page, price, image and source URL. If you use shopping comparison sites, you likely have a data feed that you could adapt to affiliate network needs.
Each affiliate network will have different data feed requirements in terms of which fields to include and what format to provide it in. Once you’ve formatted the data feed to meet the network specifications, you upload it into your affiliate account. The network will convert all your landing page URLs into affiliate tracking links, so that when affiliates access the data feed, they will pull down tracking links associated with each product.
Data feeds are also used to power merchandising tools used by affiliates. These tools enable affiliates to quickly build sites using those feeds. For example, Yoga-Blocks.co is an affiliate site using a WordPress template in combination with Datafeedr, which allows affiliates to build and embed storefronts from multiple product data feeds. Other, similar merchandising tools include GoldenCan, PopShops, and WebMerge.
Enlarge This Image
Yoga-Blocks.co is an affiliate site using data feeds from 14 different retailers.

Creating Data Feeds

Eric Busch is co-founder of Datafeedr. He offers the following suggestions for creating data feeds.

• Check URL links. This includes the affiliate links as well as the image and thumbnail URLs. Too often affiliate links go to the merchant's home page, to 404 pages, or to the wrong product pages. This decreases conversions for the affiliate.
• Provide two product images. If the affiliate network has fields for both large images and small thumbnails, use both of them for product images. When only one image is supplied, it's often either too small for a shopper to see the product's details, or it's too large and takes too long to load.
• Keep prices up to date. This includes adding and updating sale prices when applicable. It's much harder for an affiliate to promote products when they do not have accurate pricing information.
• Provide good product descriptions. Affiliate marketers don't want to write the product descriptions. They want to use the merchants' descriptions. Be sure to supply nicely formatted descriptions of each product in your data feed.
• Keep out-of-stock products out of the data feed. Only include products in the data feed that are actually in stock. It's a waste of everyone's time when a shopper clicks to buy an out-of-stock product.
• Keep duplicate products out of the data feed. Merchants typically provide a record for every size or color of a product that they have in stock. A shoe merchant will likely provide a product record for every size of a specific shoe. So instead of having just one record in the data feed for a pair of "Crocs," there will be, say, ten records, one for each size. This drastically increases the size of the data feed, making it difficult to manipulate. It also forces the affiliate to manually parse the feed to remove the duplicate products.
• Use unique product IDs. Many affiliate marketers rely on unique product IDs to track a product from one data feed update to another — to perform database updates, add additional information, or filter specific products to their websites. If unique IDs are not provided, it's nearly impossible to add value to, or extract value from, those products.

Provide Complete Data

Provide affiliates with as much data as possible. “Fill in as many fields of the data feed as possible,” Busch recommends. “It might take a little extra work, but the more comprehensively you've filled out the data feed, the more appealing your data feed will be to affiliate marketers.”
If you aren’t certain about what data to include or about proper formatting, ask your affiliate network support staff. Most networks are eager to assist in providing a data feed because those programs are likely to have better conversion rates and drive more revenue.
Last, but not least, update your data feed regularly. “Often we find data feeds that haven't been updated in months, even years. There's a good chance that data in those feeds is inaccurate,” Busch says. “It's a risk for affiliate marketers to promote products in those feeds, as there's a good chance the data is incorrect or, worse yet, the affiliate links don't work.”
Carolyn Kmet's 

Read More

• Understanding Affiliate Marketing
• How to Set Affiliate Marketing Commissions

9 Blogging Lessons for Ecommerce Merchants

Blogging is a combination of science and art. The science part requires that bloggers use the latest search-engine-optimization tactics. The art is to hone writing and editing skills.
But it doesn't have to be as difficult as that may sound. As a longtime blogger and journalist, I've learned what works for me, and what does not. Based on my experience, here are nine suggestions to help you become a better business blogger.

1. Make It Personal

What makes a blog unique has less to do with technology and more to do with personality.
What sets blogging apart is that it gives the author a platform from which to inform, instruct, inspire or incite. Not only that, the reader forms a relationship with that person, albeit a virtual one.
Even if you are writing on a company blog, identify yourself as the blogger by name, not as the "admin." If possible, include your photo to make it even more personal.

2. Make It Practical

The best blogs are those that are written with the reader in mind.
There is a fine line between blogging on topics about which you are passionate and writing for your audience. Arguments could be made for both. After all, if you write feverishly about a topic of great interest to you, chances are you will build an audience of those who share that same interest.
Still, I believe bloggers have a responsibility to use their voices responsibly, emphasizing the needs of readers.

• Write to educate and serve. Make sure to inform readers more than just the products. Include industry news and trends as it relates to your customers, which will build trust.
• Focus on your audience. The purpose of your blog is to provide potential customers with information they need about a product. It's one of the few places on your website that is actually for web visitors and not for the company.

The types of posts that make great educational content include "how-tos," or list-style posts such as "10 things you need to know..." or "Five secrets to..." These types of posts are popular with readers because they are educational.

3. Make It Topical

If you are using a blog for marketing purposes, especially for search engine optimization, it's best to focus on an individual topic.
My favorite example of this principle is a blog about single-serve coffee. If you use Google, search the term “single serve coffee.” Chances are that the top result is SingleServeCoffee.com, which is a blog that talks exclusively about single serve coffee, coffee makers, and other items related to that topic.

The Single Serve Coffee blog focuses on that narrow topic. It's highly ranked in search engines.
In addition, do not try to do much with a single post, such as optimize for multiple keywords or cover several different topics at once. Keep each post to one topic, and one keyword. Search engines are more likely to highly rank blog posts that go in-depth on one topic, and provide authoritative content to web visitors.

4. Make It Fit the Platform

Choosing the right blogging platform is important. Let me explain.
Twitter is commonly referred to as a "micro-blog" in that its posts are limited to 140 characters. Conversely, WordPress, Typepad, and other blog platforms are well suited to long-form blogging.
But, what if you want to write posts that retain the anecdotal character of Twitter, but not be constrained by character limits? You might consider Tumblr, in that case. It is a blogging platform that has carved a niche for itself in micro-blogging — but not in the Twitter sense.

5. Make It Noteworthy

Don’t write a blog post just to keep up a quota. Make the content noteworthy and worth the reader’s time and attention.

6. Make It Promotable

If you use email for marketing, put a sign-up form for your email newsletter on the blog. Conversely, link to and promote your blog in the newsletter. Maximize the synergy that exists between the two, to foster the prospect of gaining even more attention from the reader than you could through one channel alone. In addition, spread blog post content to your target audience on social networks.

7. Make It Original

Do not duplicate content from another blog or website as that may be considered to be plagiarism. Also, don’t post the same blog post in several places.

8. Make It Routine

Something that many bloggers struggle with is publishing on a schedule. No matter your role in your company, blogging is likely not your full-time job.
Consistent publishing takes discipline and time. The first can be learned, but the second has to be found. One way to address time is to remain at least one post ahead. If you publish weekly, make sure next week’s post is written before you publish this week’s. This is more difficult if your posts draw on current news, but this is a good reason to have a variety of post types.
If you are using a blog for marketing purposes, you should be blogging no less than two times per week. If you can blog more frequently, and still maintain a high quality in every single piece you write, do it. The reason business blogging needs to be frequent is because it keeps readers — and search engines — coming back. No one is going to come back to a blog that only publishes once a month or every other week.

9. Make It Engaging

If you write compelling content that brings your audience back for more, they are likely to leave comments and link to your post from their own blog or social networking sites.
Continue these conversations in the comments. Every real comment should get a real response. It makes a difference to readers to see the post authors responding in the comments. And when you find your content shared by your readers elsewhere, thank them and continue the discussion over there. Being appreciative of comments goes a long way.

SEO: 3 Ways to Grow Links to Your Ecommerce Site

Search engine optimization relies in large part on relevant content and authoritative links from other sites. As the search engines develop ever-more stringent algorithms around relevance and authority, it becomes harder to acquire links that will actually matter to your site’s SEO efforts. Fortunately, your business is likely already doing some things that can be tweaked to encourage sites to link to your site for SEO benefit.
These days, links need to be earned organically from relevant and authoritative sites rather than built or submitted as they could be even five years ago. The best links will come from sites that manufacture, write about, or sell the same types of products that your ecommerce site sells. In addition, sites that have themselves achieved a level of authority and links from other relevant sites will have the most link authority to pass on to your site.

Public Relations

Working with the press is one of the best ways to attract links from relevant sites. Even the name of the activity is perfectly suited to what we’re looking for to earn links: public “relations.” The focus is on forming relationships with influential and relevant media outlets to extol the company’s achievements and messages. SEO needs that same relevance and influence to successfully earn links.
Forget about the old tactic of seeding press releases with over-optimized anchor text links. In the past, these optimized press releases would generate links when they were reposted by sites that survive on scraping PR content. The more scrapers, the more links. Unfortunately, the types of sites that specialized in reposting press releases didn’t have any of their own authority to pass on, and were usually only minimally topically relevant.
Modern SEO integration with PR involves cooperation on outreach and an expansion of the traditional definition of media. Sure, we’d all like to get a link in The New York Times, but a link in an article from an influential blogger in your industry could actually provide more value in terms of topical relevance and authority.
Work with PR to identify a list of the most influential bloggers and social media mavens in your area of expertise. The line between social media, SEO, and PR is very blurry here, but if all of the players come to the table and divide up the research, messaging, and outreach responsibilities then all three of the channels can benefit from the cooperative effort.
In addition, give the writers you’re pitching something compelling to link to. They’re extremely unlikely to just link to your highest-profit category page, but they may get excited about a video, a comparison of specifications, and customer research.

Executive Leadership

An executive in your business is likely passionate about the industry you’re in. In the best case, that person will also be eloquent and willing to share that passion with others. Trainings and speakerships can be great ways to earn high-value links.
Look for opportunities with groups or schools that overlap with your industry. Don’t wait for them to fall into your lap. Research relevant groups and schools in your area and pitch your executive to them. Consider local business organizations, industry conferences, vendor shindigs, and business schools.
Speaking doesn’t have to require mountains of preparation and collateral. For example, a college professor in fashion design may be thrilled to have an executive from a local ecommerce site that sells shoes come in to discuss shoe trends, where the industry is going, and what sells in the real world. To promote the seminar, the professor would naturally want to send out email blasts to students, post the information on the school’s fashion design department website, and tweet about it.
If your executive isn’t willing to speak, perhaps she’d write. Guest blogging can be even more effective then speaking at generating links. The blog that hosts the guest post typically links to the author’s company as part of the attribution. And assuming the blog has been chosen because it’s one of the topically relevant and authoritative sites on your new PR list, that link could be very valuable.
In addition to the attribution link, that blog will have its own audience of readers and usually social media followers as well. Some of them are bound to find the guest post compelling enough to share or blog about themselves. Others will be intrigued about the author’s company and will click through to your ecommerce site and become customers. There are a lot of ways to win in the guest blogging scenario.
As with press relations links, though, the guest blog post will only be as successful to your SEO efforts as the content is compelling. A poorly written or obviously self-serving post probably won’t even be published if the blog is reputable. And even if it is published, it won’t inspire readers to share, link to or visit the site.

Marketing Promotions

When your marketing team is planning promotions to generate traffic and sales, remember that some of those plans could benefit SEO as well — if you can intercept them in the creative stage before development begins.
Let’s say plans include video content showing the products in use from all angles. Where the content is hosted, how it’s coded, and what textual content accompanies the videos can all have an impact on organic search. Optimizing these aspects in the planning stage means less rework later, and consequently less cost, as well as increased traffic to the feature.
Depending on how innovative the site feature or marketing campaign is, different types of media may be interested in stories about the feature itself. When the campaign or feature is successful, consider doing a case study with the agency or vendor, or on your own and pitching it to ecommerce publications. Or the campaign may involve people, characters or products that niche communities love to write about, creating even more opportunity to approach media and bloggers in that niche.

Summary

Hopefully these three common areas of business will give you some ideas for earning links naturally through the programs you already run and with the people you already have. Focus on topical relevance and seek out sites to work with who have the authority you’d like your own site to have. Look for sites whose audiences could also be your customers. Links from those quality sites will help your SEO program naturally while they increase your brand recognition and leadership in the space.

Read More

• SEO: Build Relationships, Not Links
• 5 SEO Shortcuts to Avoid
• Understanding Google’s Algorithm Updates

Preparing for Television Commerce; 4 Steps

A recent survey found that almost half of American television viewers were interested in making purchases directly from their television sets, using remote controls or companion devices. Given that consumers may spend five times as many hours a week watching television as they do browsing the web, so-called television commerce could be huge for retailers.
PayPal, which entered a payment processing agreement with Comcast cable and TiVo in June 2012, surveyed television watchers in October 2011, finding that 30 percent of them would use PayPal to make television-based purchases if they could and that 49 percent wanted the opportunity to make television-based or so-called "t-commerce" purchases.

Alternate Views of T-commerce

On the surface, this sort of data and reports from Nielsen, the measurement firm, stating that the typical consumer watches 5.1 hours a day of television and spends one a fifth of that time — one hour a day — on the Internet seem to indicate that t-commerce could be a huge boon for retailers.
Unfortunately, it is not yet clear what form t-commerce might take and whether or not consumers really want to shop while watching episodes of Dancing with the Stars.
Some believe that t-commerce will evolve to focus on commercials or product placement in shows. In this view, consumers will have the opportunity to purchase either the items shown during commercials or items used by performers in the show. For example, a new generation of remote control could have a "Buy Now" button included. When a television viewer sees a commercial for, say, a set of kitchen knives, that consumer could click the button, instantly consummating a purchase. Similarly, a tablet app might offer clothing, furniture, and even cars in real time as those items are appearing in a television episode. With this form of t-commerce, merchants would need to purchase advertising time from a network or television streaming service.
An alternate view of t-commerce’s future imagines that the television set will become a second screen for tablets, smartphones, or even coffee table computers — or an Internet-enabled device in its own right. In this potential t-commerce model, shoppers would use applications or simply surf using a standard browser — the X-Box 360, for example, just gave users access to Internet Explorer on their televisions. T-commerce would be very similar to ecommerce or even mobile commerce.

Preparing for T-commerce

Regardless of which of these t-commerce visions emerge — or even if both emerge — there are some things that retailers can start doing now to begin to offer shoppers the opportunity to find and purchase products from televisions.
This includes adding additional sales channels, creating applications, building responsive websites, and investing in mobile commerce.

Tip 1: Sell on eBay, Amazon, Marketplaces

eBay, which is one of the leading online marketplaces for both new and used products, is already participating in t-commerce. The company has a “Watch with eBay” application for iPad that searches the eBay marketplace for items related to the show a consumer is watching.
Large marketplaces, like eBay or Amazon, have the capital and the engineering resources to enter t-commerce before small retailers. To take advantage of this, retailers simply need to list their products on these marketplaces.
To be prepared for t-commerce, sell on forward-looking marketplaces now.

Tip 2: Create Television Apps

Several of the leading set-top box makers offer software development kits and the opportunity to build t-commerce enabled applications. Retailers will need to contract with or hire a capable app developer, but there is the opportunity to have applications on TiVo, Google TV, Roku, and similar.
These television-based applications could be extensions of an online catalog, some sort of social sharing experience, product introduction videos, other kinds of video-content marketing, or even games that somehow introduce users to a retailer's products.
To be prepared for t-commerce, investigate t-commerce applications now.

Tip 3: Take Responsive Design in a New Direction

Recent emphasis on mobile devices has rightfully focused a lot of attention on responsive design.
Responsive design is a site building philosophy and technique focused on giving users the best possible experience relative to their device — be it a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer. Because smartphones and tablets have driven this trend, most of the discussion and application of responsive design has focused on offering smaller, narrower versions of a site.
But responsive design, however can be extended to include large, high-resolution television screens, too. Using the same techniques that make sites look and work better on a smartphone, designers and developers can also optimize a site for television viewing
To prepare for t-commerce, have designers and developers take responsive design in a new, larger direction.

Tip 4: Invest in Tablet and Smartphone App and Platforms

The technologies underlying mobile devices — think Linux or the Java language — also tend to underlie television set-top box technology, too. Some platforms, like Google TV, will actually run modified versions of Android applications, so that mobile apps may be adapted with relative ease for the television-viewing environment.
Put simply, to prepare for t-commerce, invest in mobile apps and lay the foundation for future TV apps.

Read More

• Getting Started with Responsive Web Design
• SEO Benefits of Responsive Web Design

10 best (and real) work-at-home jobs

By Melissa Ezarik • Bankrate.com
Searching for jobs you can do from home used to be a matter of scanning the Sunday classifieds for offers to get rich quick by stuffing envelopes.
Now, exposure to at-home employment opportunities has exploded, and a wide range of job ads are just a mouse click away. But so are the scams.
Two years ago, when The Rat Race Rebellion began tracking at-home jobs, there were 30 scams for every legitimate opportunity. Now, with 4,500 to 5,000 work-at-home job ads screened weekly, the Web site finds 57 phonies for every one that's for real, says Christine Durst, CEO of The Rat Race Rebellion.
Nevertheless, there's no shortage of people who dream of beating the odds and earning a living from home.
Durst, who is also CEO of Connecticut-based Staffcentrix, which develops home-based and virtual career training programs, says people interested in work-at-home jobs primarily are:

• Parents who say they want to spend more time with their children.
• Trailing military spouses who, according to Durst, by virtue of their spouse's career need to pick up and move every few years.
• Retirees needing supplemental income.
• People with disabilities.

It's difficult to be a good parent and simultaneously work well at home, says Durst, because most jobs require blocks of uninterrupted time to accomplish tasks, and children's schedules are less than predictable. For those who do choose to walk the tightrope between paid work and parenting, consider deadline-oriented work. Durst says it's generally better for those with younger children than schedule-oriented hourly work.

10 good stay-at-home careers

1. Virtual assistant.
2. Medical transcriptionist.
3. Translator.
4. Web developer/designer.
5. Call center representative.
6. Tech support specialist.
7. Travel agent.
8. Teacher.
9. Writer/editor.
10. Franchise owner.

Steven Rothberg, president and founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, says "an increasing minority" of entry-level workers, are attracted to these gigs. He says he believes social introverts make good candidates. "They like working with people (but) they like interacting by e-mail and by being on the phone. They dislike working in person with a lot of others," he says, due to meetings and other "time-sucking problems" at an office.
Self-motivation, discipline, job skills and independence are key characteristics for at-home workers, says Stephanie Foster of Poway, Calif., a former medical transcriptionist who runs the Web site Homewiththekids.com.
A growing number of employers appear to believe telecommuting is a good deal for them as well. It reduces overhead expenses, allows access to talented workers who may not be available locally, provides off-hours support and helps retain employees, says Sara Sutton Fell, CEO of FlexJobs.com, a Web site that aggregates hand-screened telecommuting/work-at-home jobs. "We've seen a real broadening of the audience of both employers and job seekers."
Consider these 10 jobs -- some rather traditional and others unexpected -- for interesting at-home work and good (if competitive) prospects.

Read more: 10 best (and real) work-at-home jobs http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/10-best-and-real-work-at-home-jobs-1.aspx#ixzz2BdpgsCTi

Facebook Business Strategies

Many small- to midsized businesses today shy away from using Facebook. That's a mistake, say technology experts. Sure, there's the risk of negative comments getting posted on your wall for the whole world to see, but here's the reality: If you're not on Facebook, your competition is.
So instead of avoiding of this powerful social tool, embrace it -- and use it to boost your reputation on the Internet. Here's how.
1. Get your employees to contribute
Creating a successful Facebook page simply requires posting frequently and answering comments. Make it a team effort, and the process will be easier -- not to mention, you'll have a more competitive page, thanks to continuous engagement.
"Fourteen members of our staff have admin status on our Facebook page and are encouraged to share and engage with our fan base," says community manager Dayna Winter of GelaSkins, a Toronto-based company that sells decorative covers for gadgets. Because of the manageable number of employees with Facebook authorization and two people whose job is to actively monitor all comments, Winter says the opportunities outweigh the risks of putting yourself out there.
But if you still want more control, try setting a stricter approval policy. "Some companies have a fairly restrictive creation-approval-post process whereby no official content ever leaves the company without proper approval," says Chenxi Wang, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. "The approval process can be manual and similar to how you would control outbound content for press and media today."
2. Engage your fans with multimedia content
The ultimate goal of your Facebook page is to promote your brand and connect directly with your customers. So post things that update and engage your users so they'll come back to you and have a conversation. At GelaSkins, for example, employees post a good mix of content, including photos (GelaSkins-related skins), new art announcements and conversation-provoking questions.
You can also take the conversation beyond just what your company is doing and include links and pop culture topics. Or, try to poll your audience on various topics to get them to interact.
3. Use negative comments to your benefit
Comments from unhappy customers can actually be a boon to your business image: They're opportunities to display your exceptional customer service. "Resolving the issues directly in this public forum shows transparency," says Winter, "which goes a long way -- and forces us to address these concerns quickly."
And sometimes, customers can help answer questions too. Winter cites a recent example of a Spanish-speaking customer helping out another. "This is very useful for companies that do business worldwide but who may not have the resources to translate or respond in other languages," he explains. So reward your most engaged fans, advises Winter; they'll do a little legwork for you.
4. Mend a bad reputation
Technology experts agree that social media can help your business, as long as you know how to manage the flow of information. "Be aware of what social media content out there is associated with your company's brand," advises Wang.
This goes beyond just what your company is posting on Facebook to include content from third-party sources -- customer and competitor comments, general reviews, community boards and more. Wang suggests MarkMonitor, which can help you understand what content out there is relevant to your brand and reputation. And if you don't like what you discover, try services like Reputation.com and Cyveillance to correct a bad reputation or inaccurate content.
5. Resolve bigger issues offline
Don't let it get ugly on Facebook. Most of the time, you can manage the two-way information flow easily online. But in some situations, the conversation should be temporarily taken off the social platform to find a resolution.
"Generally, we discuss as a team some of the more sticky situations and how we handle," says Winter. "Many times, a customer who has posted negative comments has contacted us via email already and is looking for a more immediate outlet. It's important that our messaging is consistent before we publicly or privately post a reply."
GelaSkins uses iChat internally, so employees can check in with each other before they post, which could work for similar companies too, advises Winter.

income for beginners

If you're interested in starting an online business or want to take your current business to new heights but don't want to spend a fortune, there is a new site you should check out called http://www.income4beginners.com . It is designed for people who either want to start online businesses or want to grow the businesses they have. It is also good for webmasters or bloggers who have something to offer free in exchange of fresh leads to develop their business.
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Anyway, the best part is it's FREE. Go check it out...
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E-Commerce Magazines

Business 2.0
Magazine providing daily business, technology and e-commerce news, as well as investing, marketing, research, company news and information.
CIO.com
In-depth information for IT executives, including CIO magazine articles, technology insights and analysis. Topics include ERP, CRM, outsourcing, knowledge management, e-commerce, security.
ClickZ
Expert advice about Internet marketing, email, brand and affiliate marketing. Read the latest Internet advertising news, e-commerce market research, Internet statistics and more.
CRM Daily
Customer relationship management news and analysis for the e-commerce industry.
E-Commerce Times
Everything you need to know about doing business on the Internet. Information for C-Level executives and small-to-mid-sized business managers. Provides e-commerce news, opinion, feature articles, and special reports.
eCommNewz
eCommerce development tutorials and articles for eBusiness professionals.
Electronic Commerce Guide
Provides ecommerce business owners with e-commerce news, hardware and software reviews and tutorials, and technology solutions.
eWeek
Magazine providing the latest high-tech news including hardware, security, networking, and software reviews and research. Focuses on e-commerce, communications and Internet-based architecture.
Fast Company
Magazine dedicated to covering the latest cutting-edge developments in the business world. Reports on innovation, digital media, technology, change management, leadership, design and social responsibility.
Internet Retailer
Industry strategies for online merchants. Provides daily news, articles and research.
Line56.com
Source of global news and analysis on e-commerce technology and strategy. Covers customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), procurement and e-marketplaces.
MarketingVOX
For professionals concerned with internet marketing, strategy and media. Provides a daily commentary and discussion on internet marketing and ecommerce.
Practical eCommerce
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Internet Scams

As you know there are many websites on the Internet which are basically built to promote money making programs. Not all of them are true programs. Most of them, as I experienced are fake. Of course many factors involved to spot a true and honest business from the fake ones. If you are new to such a niche and plan to join a home based making money program, try first to consult with someone who is familiar with online business or do some research on the Internet about the program otherwise you may lose money.

A good source to get information about scams and scammers is http://www.scambusters.org which helps people protect themselves from clever Internet scams, identity theft and urban legends since 1994.

So as you see I am so serious in this regard, that is the cost of most Internet home business ideas and you may be about to give your hard-earned dollars to some Internet scammers because he might have convinced you that he could tell you how to make a lot of money starting a new kind of home business on the Internet.

This is a very bad phenomenon taking place these days on the Internet as it spoils morality and confidence among people. It also prevents, or at least makes it so difficult, for honest people to do business on the Internet. Therefore, it would be a nice thing to reveal their inhumane tips and tricks to make some restriction for them and fight against them in any way.

Anyway, you must beware! Here is the deal. Almost most of making money online schemes are scams. If you want to join such a program, you will encounter with them. I have seen many of them. They show you scanned check photos, account reports, and daily revenues and promise you a lot of desirable things including but not limited to mansions, fast cars, pools, and leer jets claiming that you would get them in a very short time so easily!

Of course there are some programs which may lead you to get a good life but not in a short time and easily. In case of joining such programs, you need to work hard and take endeavors, i.e. No Pain, No Gain.

Anyway, they will tell you "Send me just the low one-time fee of $39, $49 (less or more), and I'll show you how you can make $100s every day working only 2 hours a day!"

However, you needn't be discouraged. You really can learn how to make money on the Internet but not with fake ones. My primary goal to build this website is to help you to find honest and effective home business ideas.

In this regard, the first step is to find an answer to this question: "Which online home business opportunities are scams and which ones are not?"

If you are like some people who are new to this business, you may not know and the reason is certainly because these webmasters are so slick with their sales pitches.

On the other hand, you may also know that people are making money and some great living every day from home with online businesses. You may probably even know some of these people personally. Being careful and doing some research, there is no reason why you can't create a profitable Internet business yourself and that is what you are searching for right now.

Maybe you have considered the main problem if you have been looking for an online home-based business that the scammers out there mess everything up for you. You might probably suspect that. And you are absolutely right about that. According to my experience more than 85% of them are basically designed to take your money and leave you with nothing.

The reason that 85% of them are scams is because online business scamming is terribly successful. All over the world, over 500,000 people who are just like you and me search the Internet every day for a way to make more money online. And there are hundreds of greedy or fraudulent webmasters out there ready to catch us with flashy websites and fool us to buy their fake or scam home-based business.

Being deceived many times by them during my endeavors to find a right way to earn some extra cash to afford necessary things in my life, I have been trying to do something about it since the last time I was ripped off.

For this reason I decided to help those who are in a situation as I was several years ago and who are about to start an online business hoping to find what they are looking for. I just help people to join such programs that I have already joined myself and tested them.

I have been doing researches since several years ago to find some applied methods to spot scam businesses. I have now the ability to spot them. I love God and I love what He created. Hence, I also love humanity. I am fully aware of the morals and the intelligence behind creation of the universe. I know the value of helping others. Anyway, I have helped literally many people to find just the right work at home solution for themselves. I know, if not completely but relatively, which business models work on the Internet and which ones do not.

By the way, I have been testing, trying, and evaluating online home business models for several years. I am telling you with total honesty, that at least 85% of get rich schemes are scams. At least! But you do not have to fall into their traps. Before you buy an online business opportunity, you owe it to yourself to find out the truth.

And the last point is crucial. It is obvious you don't have the time to waste. You could spend your money, for instance, $39 on that home business eBook, but you will never get back the time it took you to read it and figure out that it wasn't going to work. That is the time, for example, you could have spent with your family or doing a useful task or you could have invested in getting a program that would work. You don't have that time to waste.

Becoming a Powerful Internet Marketer

Today I have some very exciting news for you. Through one of my internet connections, I have been introduced Bogdan Fiedur, the owner of Adlandpro. Bogdan runs one of the most successful online ad networks and he has been helping businesses make money for many, many years. Over the past 3 years, a community of business people has been growing steadily and it is now one of the top Business Communities on the web. With this post comes your invitation to join as well as take advantage of an exclusive special offer.

I care about the people and I am extremely careful about what I send you because my reputation is at stake here. This means that I won't offer anything to you unless I was 100% certain it was an excellent value. The Adlander is Adlandpro Community's premium membership and it packs some serious bang for your buck. You'll get:

• Notification that a personal message you sent on the community to another member was opened so you don't waste any time waiting for replies.
  
• Detailed tracking of visits to your profile like clicks to profile tabs, ads, forums, and more. Knowing who's interested before hand shows professionalism and gives you the edge.
  
• The tools to send Email directly to a friend's email inbox from the community to respond quickly to questions.
  
• An announcement send to all Community members on a monthly basis which you can broadcast to everyone. Get your message out to all 42,000 community members at once each and every month.
  
• The ability to display ads on the community to your down-line which will be your ads only. No other advertising will be displayed so you have no competition for your customers.
  
• Priority Exposure - Your offers and Requests are refreshed to keep them at the top of the results each hour.
  
• The ability to create private discussions available only to you and those you invite to discuss matters without interference.
  
• A button to disable all forum messages sent by a specific friend without alerting that friend.
  
• Search for members in several different ways so you can find markets you may not have accessed before.
  
• Commissions and credits for people you refer to the Adlandpro Community.

Because we're all in marketing, you know as well as I do that sending a message to 42,000 people at once will cost you HUGE anywhere else and you don't even get anywhere near the amount of extras you get as an Adlander.

Here, you get an opportunity to network in a vibrant active community full of people, build a friend's list plus you have a chance to send a message out to all of them every month.

Just wanted to let you know that we are now Adlander upgraded, and will continue to use the tools here at Adland to grow our network of friends and services. I waited nearly 20 minute to be the first to lock in the discounted membership, as it was truly one of the best advertising deals on the web.

They are nearing pre-launch of the new program, and as soon as all Adlander features are up and going we will be putting the system to the test, as this amazing set of webtools Bogdan has created can only aid our online business.

Take Advantage of this Offer Now!

After spending hours of my own time researching these types of services on the Internet, I have found that similar companies and websites don't even come close to touching the services you get with the Adlander but they charge just as much if not more. You can become an Adlander for only $1.00 for the first month.

It's fast and easy if you use your credit card with the link below:

http://www.adlandpro.com

Here's to growing our online businesses.