A blog of advice, discussion and resources to help Small Business Professionals increase their income through the internet

As Web 2.0 evolves to returns the internet to its social media roots, albeit with great advancements, interconnectedness and opportunity, it is useful to try to get an idea how well you are doing. After all, the first step towards improving is measurement.

Fortunately Google has a tool, wouldn’t you know it . Let’s begin reviewing what is called the Social Graph and how it tracks social media links. A Social Graph is a representation of internet based “relationships”. These relationships can be of any nature being presented through blogs and social networking websites presenting our information and presence. A social graph can then define your combined social networking “community” from the different social networking sites and blog you participate in. (This last part is why I am strong proponent of using a WordPress web/blogsite to act as a hub to help manage and improve the effectiveness of your Social Graph.)

Now to how Google can help. The Google Social Graph API makes information about the public connections between people more easily available Google engineer Brad Fitzpatrick gives an introduction to has an excellent short video over view explaining the workings of the Social Graph API.

Now lets use two simple forms provided by Google get some personal Social Graph measurements!

The first for site connectivity we will measure how your URLs for your websites and social network pages are connected. How many of your sites can be reached from each of your URLs?

And second, who are you connected to? The contacts you link to and the contacts that link to you.

Keep score, work to increase your social medial connections. It has been a constant for as long as we have had civilization … the more connections you have, the better opportunity you have for success.

• Can Microsoft ever get a commercial right? New Bng commercial just annoys. No wonder the ad budget needs to be so large #
• @ChrisBoulton RT "Dialog Website | The Agency at Think Like A Bride" (http://twitthis.com/weqw3r) in reply to ChrisBoulton #
• leaving "plan b" life, getting back to a "plan a" life #
• "Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted"? FIX – just increase the memory setting in the php.ini file from 32M to 64M #
• @copyblogger Just because Goldblum has a pulse doesn't mean he is not "dead" He's seemed dead since the Jurassic. in reply to copyblogger #
• The Thriller is gone. Michael Jackson passed away. Oh wow…. just 50. #
• RIP Farrah Fawcett. Sad. Only 62 #
• new macbook convertible? i want one! (if it comes back) http://bit.ly/dQVud #
• sometimes i feel like a "mom" – "awww, got a website boo boo? … here a little WordPress will make it all better" got to get another topic #
• SEO? Taking Bludomain Flash sites to the front of Google is easy, just replace the stupid Splash page with a sensible Main Landing page. #
• Don't waste money on SEO contract.The "old gray mare" of a website will never place in the Google Derby regardless of the SEO life support. #
• and jus sayin' … I would no more do the self-checkout at the Safeway than I would cross a picket line. #
• In heaven, dogs can eat all the chocolate they wish. So says my border collie Suzi. #
• Finishing up 3 new WP based web/blogsites for great Real Estate Brokers. Can't wait to show them off to everyone. #
• SEO You Can Believe In – our new website for TWESA.com has increased their ORGANIC search engine traffic FIVE FOLD in less than two weeks! #
• high summer in the Colorado Rockies … everything is twittering #
• @ZnaTrainer real love or romantic love …. need they be mutually exclusive? in reply to ZnaTrainer #
• Why did Father's Day become a day to tell Fathers how to be better Fathers? Did we use Mother's Day to tell Mothers how to be better? #
• Thinking twitterfeed's automation feeding third party items may wreck Twitter Feeding everyone else's Tweets indiscriminately, automatically #
• If the Flash portfolio websites for photographers SEO so well, why don't those portfolio website sellers use them for their own website? #
• Anybody want a non-Trollbeads website with integrated shopping cart? Pandora perhaps? #
• goos morning and HAPPY SUMMER to everybody #
• @Fast_50 I appreciate your interest. Website will be back up later today. in reply to Fast_50 #
• @HELENSStudio Thank you! in reply to HELENSStudio #
• New Trollbeads site is live! TrollbeadsTrail.com http://www.trollbeadstrail.com/ #
• good morning! and wp-db backup is a lifesaver! #
• @Trollbeadsgal Thank you Louise! You are one of the Trollbeads STARS that "mentors" me in navigating the site's development. in reply to Trollbeadsgal #
• New Trollbeads site with complete bead catalog going live tonight! It's all WordPress, even the catalog. Yep, every bead will be a blog post #
• Search marketing WEBSITE GUARANTEE – if I don't increase your site's marketing potential at least 33% – The WEBSITE IS FREE #
• yea! it almost feels like summer has fully arrived here in the Colorado Rockies … finally #
• still like Rescue Me and the Von Bondies intro song Come On Come On #
• Two new WP based shopping cart sites to go live this week! Imagine the SEO/SEM every item is separate blog post as well as a shopping cart #
• Starting to really like WP e-Commerce plugin. Amazing set of code. Strong SEO Great looking shopping cart, plus it saves about $50 a month #
• finally … the night sky is clear and the stars are brilliant! it has been weeks with no starlight #
• note to self: do not try to water the cactus in the dark #
• lovin the line numbers & code color in the new WP 2.8 editor! #
• The newly redone Tennessee Wedding Assoc website has more than doubled its organic search visitors in less than week! http://www.twesa.com #

When starting a new domain name and related website I like to use a simple WordPress blog as the landing page. This makes the old style landing page more of a launch page. Often typical practice has been just to put up a single static HTML page announcing the coming website. In some situations is is even worse, just an image, a pretty image, but virtually un-indexable.

By putting up a simple WordPress blog launch page of 2-3 posts you can create a 1 page “launch page” to:

• announce the coming website and its purpose
• provide potential customers progress updates
• test your “60 second elevator presentation”
• evaluate your site design elements
• initiate strong search engine recognition
• attract RSS subscribers
• provide contact information
• share your Facebook and Twitter links

and perhaps even convert a few early prospects to customers.

When your website is ready to go live, just import any content from the launch page into your site. Replace the index page and setup any needed redirects.

It is even easier if you are creating a Bludomain type Flash website. Just update the WordPress based launch page to be your new website’s new Splash page. Keeping all your search recognition, and RSS subscribers.

Brad Frost also has a good blog post on the “launch page” approach and its benefits.

Put it into action and you will be pleased by the results.  If you want to put it into place on your new site, I would be pleased to assist.  Just send me an email.

Fortunately your website is not a relative, friend or family pet … it is just a business tool. Before spending time and/or money to try to keep it alive with SEO, SMO, SEM and social media, to try to get it to produce results … consider replacing it with a newer less expensive, easier to maintain and proven performance/results platform. We can do it for you in just days. No matter how much you might like that “old gray mare“, she will never place in the “Google Derby” and put you in the winners’ money.

The problem with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Marketing Optimization (SMO) is that it is so often employed to keep an obsolete poorly performing websites operating with at least the hop of some results. That, and it is expensive and ongoing. I keep seeing Search Engine Optimization and Search Marketing Optimization presented as “solutions” for poorly designed websites that are not very search engine “friendly”. Website owners are persuaded that they need to spend time or money employing a SEO specialist building “backlinks”, researching and using keywords, starting one or more Blogspot blogs (plus regular blog postings), create a Ning type forum, write and publish Squidoo articles and related internet press releases, get a 1,000 or more Twitter followers, build a Facebook profile and page and get many friends and fans, repeat with MySpace and other social networks. And do this all in addition to running their business and making a living. “Luckily” SEO consultants are available to do this for you … for a price of $200 to a $1000 a month, or more. And they will tell you it will take time and things could change in the search engines which will mean results could be uncertain.

It all starts to sound like a television medical drama … the patient (your website) is performing poorly … there are a lot of elaborate and expensive treatments available … that may take time to work … if at all. There are times perhaps it is best just to end it, pull the plug on the website created for an older era and replace it with a current website structure proven to perform by its self without expensive SEO “life support”.

You need to consider cost/benefit.

The TWESA website we just did (described in a post below), is an excellent study of the cost and results of applying SEO after the fact or having it built into a new website. The website that TWESA had before was representative of standard old style format and much like the majority of small businesses website. It was expensive to maintain requiring the web designer and special software to make changes and worse it did not show up very well in search results. So in addition to the site’s development cost TWESA paid about $200 a monthly for many months for SEO services. Getting at best mixed results. Recently TWESA decided to use us to create a modern website to replace their existing one, the one that had over $2,000 worth of SEO treatments, with our new website architecture with built-in SEO/SEM/SMM goodness. The TWESA online presence showed immediate increase in organic search traffic. A FIVE fold increase in search engine referral traffic in less than two weeks. All it took was a modern platform with the SEO, SMO and even social media built in. With no ongoing fees and all for less cost than the site it replaced.

Send me an email with your website address. I will be glad to review your website, share back my evaluation/measurements and suggestions. To “SEO it”, or to “pull the plug”.

Because it shows how important Facebook and Twitter are becoming to presenting your business/services on the internet I meant to get this published a few days ago. Sorry for the delay.

Even if you have already noted the article from TechCrunch sharing how Facebook continues to grow and is on the verge of eclipsing the mainstay destinations like Yahoo.com or MSN.com and even Google.com; it is still valuable to remember the value of Facebook’s unique successful cachet somehow merging social and business. Facebook is a powerful foundation for any social media marketing effort. another reason why we link our website designs into both Twitter and Facebook. It is important in your website’s internet marketing to keep your presence active through a managable “clockwork” integration approach, using your website to drive Facebook and Twitter activity.

From TechCrunch, please read the entire article –

Web analytics firm Compete has released its data for the month of May, and as Justin Smith over at InsideFacebook has already pointed out, US traffic to Facebook.com has increased by nearly 8% to 82.9 million unique visitors last month, with Facebook Connect sites generating an additional 65 million uniques. That means that, according to Compete, a total of 113 million people in the U.S. interacted with the Facebook service. The data also shows MySpace is (still) steadily decreasing compared to the beginning of the year, while Twitter growth seems to have flattened all of the sudden. …

For comparison, Compete pegs Google to have received a total of 145.5 million unique visitors in May, ahead of Yahoo (135.5 million) and MSN.com (97.5 million), which means Facebook has already overtaken the MSN website and is nearing the former two. It’s important to note that all four sites show a significant increase in U.S. traffic since the beginning of this year, but Facebook is definitely on the steepest growth curve here. In January 2009, total traffic to Facebook was somewhere around 68.5 million uniques, which means the May number of 113 million represents a 61% jump, mostly thanks to the successful spread of the Facebook Connect service.

There is no doubt that Bludoman provides a beautiful platform for showcasing your photography on the web. Unfortunately they are not good websites for internet marketing. Bludomain describes their websites as “portfolio websites”. Heck, even Bludomain’s own website isn’t Flash. So they are great websites for portfolio galleries, but bad for internet marketing.

How to improve? The key is to keep the strength of your Bludomain portfolio website, and add to it making an even stronger site … replacing the Bludomain splash page with a custom landing page, new html based information pages for contact, about and rate info, together with an embedded WordPress blog. All in an easily managed configuration hosted on the same server with your Bludomain site, using the same domain name you have established and made recognized. And it is then, a very search engine friendly website.

Recently we did this for Ambiance Studios Photography in Wisconsin. They have had a Bludomain website that was all but ignored by search engines. Wisely, they wanted to keep the Flash site portfolio galleries, but recognized that they needed better search results ranking. To accomplish this we installed and customized our new Kertesz II WordPress based template using the existing Bludomain style backgrounds for continuity. We replaced the Bludomain splash page with our much improved landing page allowing better focus on their services, unlimited menu options, multiple dynamic links to recent blog posts, links to social media like Twitter and Facebook and even a large interactive Flash banner. Other additions included new; about, investment and contact pages as well as importing their Xanga blog into self hosted WordPress.

But what about the results? The day we replaced the Bludoman splash page with our new landing page the website’s search marketing score went from just 23 (typical for Bludomain sites even with a large number of link backs) on their basic Bludomain website to a score of 69 with our new Kertesz II template combined with the Bludomain website. A full 300% increase, almost instantly. And that’s a large enough increase to make a difference in just days! That is SYNERGY!

Kertesz II is based on WordPress so it allows the site owner to use the full featured WordPress administration interface to make all site changes and additions. Kertesz II is fully WordPress 2.8 compatible supporting threaded comments plus other great new features and is even SEO optimized.

And here is how their site it looks now -

Ambiance Studios with Kertesz II landing page

Before -

Old Bludomain splash page

You can add Kertesz II to your Bludomain website for as little as $347 installed on your hosting account and configured by me ready for you to customize and add content, or for just $997 we will fully customize the template images and content for you, matching your Bludomain site … also fully installed and configured. Just send me an email (or use the contact form to the right) to begin making the best internet marketing decision for your Bludomain Flash website and your business.

While we were working on the new TrollbeadsTrail website, the store owner was also contemplating making changes to the website for her long time southwestern jewelry and accessories shop … Santa Fe Trail Jewelry. Once she saw how good the Trollbeads site looked and started adding content to it … experiencing its ease of use, she instantly wanted the same features for her other website. So out went the old Front Page and Publisher based website and in came WordPress and a premium themes.

The new Santa Fe Trail Jewelry website went live last night and there is still some work to do, but every one likes the new look better. And the search marketing potential measured more than a FIVE fold increase over the legacy site.

Here is new fresh look -

New Santa Fe Trail Jewelry website

And this was the old site -

old website

Smart small business professionals see the opportunity of being able to market and sell on the internet. Your business can have a dialog with current and potential customers 24/7/365. Of course the challenge is being noticed with all the competition on the web today. Having your website rank high enough with general search terms to actually get traffic that will convert to customers is a challenge. And if your website does not place well in organic search your website investment and monthly site costs can be sunk. The big retailers have entire IT departments to constantly do that, but what chance do small businesses have?

A very good chance with the right platform. We know that blogs can get powerful search attention, so I use WordPress as the right platform for an entire website. Amazon or Walmart and other big retail business can’t, but WordPress scales just right for small business owners. Due to their underlying program structure blogs are well recognized by search engines, so my approach has become to use a blog’s program structure for an entire website … with outstanding search marketing results.

Such was the direction a few weeks ago when I was asked to develop a new website for a jewelry and gift shop owner who has been a Trollbeads retailer for over a year with strong store sales. She wanted a site that she could manage and easily add content to, that would meet the requirements of the US Trollbeads distributor, have a complete online shopping cart system and most importantly would have a good chance of high search engine rank and resulting sales increase. Well yesterday the site was approved by the Trollbeads distributor and the site owner was able to make it live on the internet. Introducing … TrollbeadsTrail, the newest of Trollbeads retailer websites.

TrollbeadsTrail is an all WordPress website, even the catalog shopping cart system. I had used ZenCart in the past but wanted a catalog that would share all the theme elements of the website, so I used WP e-Commerce. In addition to shopping cart, dynamic page features, a blog with threaded comments and the rest of the features expected of a Web 2.0 website, it also includes two way Twitter account integration and more social media incorporation. All on one domain, on the same host. The operationg cost of the website with the cart is less than $25.00 a month Much less than the price of third party shopping carts like GoDaddy’s low cost shopping cart.

Plus it looks good! Please take a look and leave a comment if you wish. Anyone else want a website with a complete integrated shopping cart and excellent search page placement? The low cost could surprise you. Particularly in relationship to the great returns,

The email quoted below was forwarded to me by a client wondering if it was legitimate. He asked how a company could guarantee front page search page results placement.

There are some ways it can be done, and you can do any of them yourself if you want to.

1) Bid high enough on the Adwords keywords that you will be in the top five. For some businesses and keywords this is an affordable (based on probable return on investment). But for many, if not most, businesses the cost is prohibitive. Some keywords cost $5 or more per click through and the typical good or service converts less than 5%.

2) Put yourself on the Google business map listing. This is free and only takes a few minutes. To do this, just go to Google Local Business (www.google.com/local/add) and go through the steps. Some of the offerings like the one below charge up to $50 a month for this … at least until the website owner get smart.

3) Another way they can promise front page search results placement is to convince you that a particular three or more word search term is valuable and/or use your business name or proper name. Using business or personal names is what I call the white pages technique. If someone is going to search on your name … is that really a search or just a look-up, and how many of you are there in the white pages. If it is a look-up you already reached them.

Relatedly, three or more word search phrases become so specific that they are not really very search marketing productive. Plus with three or more words, the exact word order can make a big difference in search results.

Rather than pay, do the steps above for yourself and even better … base your website on a very semantically correct structure (for search engines) and then regularly add new content about your business and services.

Regardless just beware of scams like this -

***********************************
* Our Company GUARANTEES to put your website on the front page of GOOGL*
*YAHOO, AND MSN as well as drive targeted traffic your site evey month.*
***********************************

{{{{{{ ATTENTION WEDDIING PHOTOGRAPHERS,LIMOUSINES COMPANIES AND WEDDING PLANNERS }}}}}}

***********************************
{{{We GUARANTEE you FRONT PAGE placement on GOOGLE, Yahoo and MSN and 100 new qualified prospects each month}}}
***********************************

Aggressive search engine marketing is critical for the success of your website and ultimately your business. We have a fixed price performance based model that guarantees new business sent directly to your company.

* If someone Google’s “Wedding Photographer, lIMOUSINE COMPANY OR WEDDING PLANNER” in your area and you do not come up on the first page then you need our help fast.

* Marketing Sherpa— An independent online survey organization shows that 76% of couples throughout the United States found their wedding photographer on one of the three major search engines GOOGLE, YAHOO, AND and MSN.

* Aggressive search engine marketing is critical for the success of your website and ultimately your business. Without it, you are losing money to your competitors that have already realized the importance of being on the FRONT PAGE OF page of GOOGLE, YAHOO, AND MSN.

* Strategically placing your marketing message in front of your target market at the exact moment they are looking for your service is something businesses have been trying to accomplish since the beginning of commerce.

* Keyword Marketing places your business in front of your customers at the exact moment they are looking to do business with you.

Our company:

1. Has formed a strategic alliance and partnership with Google.

2. Is publicly traded on the Nasdaq Exchange.

3. Has been in business since 1995.

4. Has been significantly more profitable each month for the last two years in a down economy.

Our packages include:

1. THE MOST AGGRESSIVE SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING SYSTEM IN THE WORLD WITH GUARANTEED FRONT PAGE PLACEMENT ON GOOGLE, YAHOO AND MSN.

2. We GUARANTEE you DOUBLE the amount of new qualified customers that are looking for your
product or service at the moment they need it most.

3. Website development.

4. Monthly visitor tracking and anylitics systems.

5. Free online Yellow Pages listing.

Q. What is the only reason a business owner repeatedly buys the same advertising package?

A. Because it works.

“Google.com’s only source of revenue is business owners just like yourself reading this email. And once again the only reason they CONTINUE TO PAY GOOGLE IS BECAUSE IT WORKS!”

*****Google has contracted with us and made us a complete partner and authorized reseller of Adwords.

Wouldn’t be nice to know what words/phrases get the most search engine traffic for your competitors?

One of the problems with maximizing your organic search results traffic is that it is difficult to know what words or phrases will increase your traffic. But having an insight into what gets the most search traffic for your competitors or similar businesses in different markets could be very helpful.

Fortunately that insight is available, … and it is free and simple! Here is how you do it.

Go to Alexa.com/siteinfo (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo). On that page use the “Site Lookup” function, enter the URL of the site you want info about, click “Go”. Then when the next screen loads you will see a series of tabbed options, click on “Keywords” to get a ranked list of “Search Terms Driving Traffic” for the site URL you entered.

Now just make note of the top traffic driving terms, compare to your own and then use those relevant terms throughout your site content as you describe your services and experience. That is all there is to it.

Twitter posts indexed and ranked by search term relevancy. This is pretty strong and will make your micro-blogging activity on Twitter even more valuable.

From the ” Google Operating System” blog -

“Google prepares to launch a service that indexes and ranks content from microblogging services like Twitter. Since it’s very easy to post updates and the posts are usually very short, micro-blogging services are great for live blogging, posting real-time information about an event. …

Much like Google Blog Search, Google’s microblogging search service will sort the results by relevancy and it also be integrated with Google’s web search engine: the keywords that are frequently used in recent posts will trigger a MicroBlogsearch universal search group.”

This new Google Twitter search service will really make up for the current weakness in Twitter’s search, assuming Google does its typical superior implementation. Hope they launch soon

• I love the summer before dawn bird song #
• Happy Birthday Dad, rest in peace #
• It seems to me like its become; Google for information and Bing for consumption. So is Bing a competitor to Amazon? #
• Really like howBluehost.com lets you up the memory size in the php.ini file Quick, easy solid fix for WordPress out of memory errors #
• Sad evening, news is “My Name Is Earl” is officially canceled. Guess I can skip going to digital TV – http://tinyurl.com/nyurhx #
• WordPress 2.8 avail well done new features are excellent Can’t wait to upgrade some blogs On sites I’ll wait some http://tinyurl.com/mk7smv #
• Check out totally new, totally WordPress website for the not-for-profit Tennessee Wedding & Events Specialists Assoc. http://www.twesa.com/ #
• @marcfuller got a grade of 97.2/100 on @grader. Check it out: http://twitter.grader.com/marcfuller #

What could be better than putting all the content of a non-profit professional wedding association, resource directory, members’ information together with advice, tips and info for people planning a wedding or event altogether in a WordPress based web/blogsite? Well for the ease of site owner’s maintenance and future additions or the search engine marketing potential … not much. Now ready for the public, please visit and look around, Tennessee Wedding and Events Specialists Association

With much more content yet to come, this new site is already getting top search results in its market area. Plus by using our approach the new site is actively linked into participation in Facebook, Twitter, RSS/Feedburner, Technorati, Google and more social media to come.

Not to overlook … I think it looks better too.

before

now

The new features are excellent. My favorite is that all widgets are now multi instance, and the widget  management interface is very nicely done.

This WordPress version is named in honor of Chet Baker.  To learn more there is an excellent overview video on the WordPress.org blog – http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-28/

My upgrading advice is as fairly normal in any software upgrade … If you have a rather simple blog using a few well recognized plugins you are likely “safe” to update now.  But if you have a complex WordPress based web/blogsite using a large number of sophisticated plugins I would wait at least 2-3 weeks before upgrading

It is mostly the site name that is changing.  The rest of it is taking what I have helped pioneer for wedding professionals websites and internet marketing  and sharing it with other small business professionals that also want to increase their internet marketing effectiveness and improve their income.  I have really grown tired of seeing sub-par, sub-performing expensive Flash (like Bludomain), Dreamweaver or Frontpage site templates bogging small business people down with lousy search page rankings.

It is is time for change.  It is time share the opportunity of low cost, self manageable websites and no-nonsense internet marketing tactics that will allow small business owners to compete effectively and expand their business.

I have had many requests this year to apply what I have developed for wedding professional to other business.  And to great results.  Knowing something the business helps to keep costs low and improve effectiveness.  We don’t change to learn on your dime.  Sso we will still be limited, just specializing in a few fields that we know.  Over the next few days I will share a couple of other, non-wedding business we have helped get better than ever internet marketing results.

We will offer more than ever, to wedding professionals and now few others.

• time to mow the lawn #
• #boycottpb – a vile & violent article. And AOL News should be ashamed for censoring and firing its reporter for sharing the story #
• i decree …this week Friday night starts early! beer? #
• time to take a brief walk in the moonlight and then bed #
• @Jfisherman Thank you! CameraDojo is GREAT! in reply to Jfisherman #
• Caine now walks the Universe – RIP David Carradine http://bit.ly/1oN9aD #
• wild game jerky and turkish coffee, it’s a manly man breakfast #
• @nathanrice has two of the most useful WP “utility” plugins – Redirect Parent to First Child Plugin and Custom Field Redirect Plugin THANKS! #
• Surprised by how good WP e-Commerce is, every product in the cart is structured like a blog post, even with an RSS.Still frustating in ways #
• still THE website for the prose and poems of today’s romance http://loveblender.com/ …since ~1997 my thanks to Kirk #
• still loving Spring … even the cool wet gray days like today #
• Just finished myStampBOX’s Twitter page Great stamps and storage Say Heylerhi to Bettina – http://twitter.com/myStampBOX #
• I wish General Motors would have learned from Michael Moore #
• Lyrical Lens Photography’s new WordPress web/blogsite just went live Check it out http://www.lyricallensphotography.com/ #
• Large membership organization WordPress web/blogsite goes live this week! #
• good morning week! it is so green here with all this rain #

At this point in time with so much of our business and income being derived from the internet, it is easy to forget that what made the internet popular was its inherent nature as a social network.

In 1993 when I put my first business webpage on the internet I was getting lots of flame email, every day. Many internet users were upset, strongly feeling that the internet should not ever become commercial. Well it has and now over the recent past with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others it is now returned a stronger social network than ever.

As far as I am concerned it is great to now be able to combine the social aspect with our websites using the features of web/blogsites. It gives us a chance to truly interact with current and potential clients in all places and at all times. Unbounded by our limitations of staff hours and schedule. It is a great multiplier of our business for low cost and it is always the interaction that completes the sale.

Here is a interesting circa 1992 news report from Canadian Broadcasting relating the emerging value and growth of the internet, then estimated at 15 million users. And the internet’s attraction as a social network. Towards the end of the news report there are quotes from the users of the time speaking passionately how important the social aspect is to them.

I add this post as an extension of the post below. The web is so large and complex and is changing our communication and information pathways so fundamentally that it shows how important it is for your web presence to integrate into the web in as many ways as possible.

Below are the two points that I think are most relevant, but please read the entire article – From New Scientist -

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee wants to put the web under the microscope to investigate how it changes our behaviour. Paul Marks asked him what he hopes to achieve …

What do you hope to achieve with the Web Science Research Initiative?

The web is now a massive system of connected people and technology and we have to study it as one. It connects people as they make and follow hyperlinks to a degree that results in complex properties no one expected. It has something like 10¹¹ web pages in it and there are a similar number of neurons in the brain.

How does understanding these emergent systems affect society?

Because if you get it right, you can create a new social phenomenon that changes how people operate. Take designing an online market for second-hand goods: if you get the website’s balance of social and technical wrong, or mess up its trust and reputation model, it won’t work. But if you get it right, you create a market for used goods internationally that can affect the price of products around the world because it provides the price of the second-hand alternative. It is a web phenomenon that changed the way society works …

So if any one tells you they fully understand the web … well now you know, they don’t. I think that even goes for selected fields like SEO, search marketing and social media marketing. We don”t know it all, and the parts we do know change often. That understood, it is certain that we should take every meaningful effort to have our website presence able to function and participate while marketing our goods/services.  For every field, the era of static, old style “brochure” informational marketing websites has passed.

One of the keys to marketing success is to go where the customers are, and they are on social networks more than ever.

So how to reach them with spending all your time on the social networks? Let your website do it! Fortunately astute small business people can reach potential clients through social networks very very time efficient using less time with right website. Properly integrated WordPress based websites can cross post blog articles to Facebook walls, and it to their MySpace profile, tweet your new content to Twitter, allow visitors to Digg your blog posts, bookmark articles to public sharing sites like Delicious, StumbleUpon and a host of other similar social services like LinkedIn, Reddit, Sphinn, YahooBuzz, Technorati, etc or just email it to a friend. All easily done by your site’s visitors using the features of a well designed implemented WordPress web/blogsite.

One of my Real Estate clients related to me that they recently gained a brand new client, becasse an existing client who had just just made an offer (which was accepted) on a listing of hers tweeted the news and a link to the listing on Twitter. A friend of the new buyer saw the news and decided to start looking for a similar home using this same agent.

Want more? Proctor and Gamble relates that their social media efforts are 4 time more effective than traditional marketing.

But, lets get back to how many potential clients/customers can be met by your website in the social media channels of the internet.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The number of minutes Americans spent on social networking sites nearly doubled in the past year with Facebook and Twitter enjoying explosive growth, according to a new study.

Nielsen Online found that the number of minutes Americans spent on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, Tagged, Twitter and LinkedIn grew 83 percent from April 2008 to April of this year.

It said the total minutes spent on Facebook increased nearly 700 percent year-over-year, from 1.7 billion in April 2008 to 13.9 billion in April 2009.

Facebook was the top social networking site when ranked by total minutes for the month followed by MySpace, which saw its total minutes decline from 7.3 billion in April 2008 to 5.0 billion in April 2009. Blogger, Tagged and Twitter were next.

The number of minutes spent on micro-blogging service Twitter skyrocketed from 7.9 million in April 2008 to 300 million in April 2009, Nielsen said.”

Read the full article here.

The real lesson is to insist that your website fully exploit the opportunity to present your goods and services in an interactive manner into the social medial environment. That is where the customers are and you can meet them through your website for a very low cost. Just like in actual social settings, the internet’s social settings offer real opportunities for conversions and increased income. Let your website can do it for you.

So we get a new website and we want visitors and traffic. What do many of us end up doing … we market and promote our website! We often buy Adwords, send out direct email and even have price reduction specials. In other words, after we have spent money and time creating a new website, we often find ourselves indentured to spend more money and time marketing our website . When we could have just let our website (if it had the correct structure) and Google do all that work … for FREE

This is a direct email I got just yesterday -

” To promote our new website, _________ Photography is offering a NO SITTING FEE portrait session this summer. Take advantage of the nice weather and let us photograph your family, kids, babies, pet, or glamour portraits. “

So I go an visit their website. They do beautiful photography, but unfortunately it is a Flash website with a typical “splash” landing page with little info and linking to the Flash site and a Blogspot blog using search crippling action script. The website-grader search marketing potential tool gives it a score of just 12. So with its current structure it will be trapped in the cycle needing constant expense of time and money to do what an integrated hybrid WordPress web/blog site will automatically do just as a matter of the correct structure and your relevant content.

Google exists to present your website to potential clients. And at no cost! You only need to give Google a chance by making the right website choices. The path to marketing success (high returns, low cost) is much easier with the right choice … an SEO optimized WordPress based integrated web/blog site. Let Google and the other search engines help you.