PMI Online Business

Simply put, webmaster tools are a set of tools designed to assist site owners with the management and promotion of their site. These tools help you develop a sitemap, list external links, see what keyword searches lead to the site and track other site statistics. Two of the most common webmaster tool providers are Google and Bing. Both of these services are free and quite easy to use. Due to increasing competition, they have broadened their product selection and improved their performance.

Google webmaster tools have a solid reputation among website owners. They make is easy to track your site’s performance and searchability. By offering Google search-related information, these tools provide many benefits to entrepreneurs. Most importantly, you can find out what keywords are relevant to your site, which assists you in optimizing it for greater traffic. Check out the Google webmaster center here.

Bing launched its webmaster tools a little late in the game, but they offer a fine selection of functions. Like Google, the Bing tools allow you to add a site map. New features also include geographic targeting and top search queries. Bing’s tools make it possible to monitor multiple sites and can be an excellent choice for many site owners. Check out the Bing webmaster center here.

Webmaster tools are essential to efficiently running your site. The tool kits offered by Google and Bing are both provide excellent options. Professional Marketing International recommends you take the time to research these tool providers before you decide which is best for your site.

Facebook is a social media giant with over 400 million active users around the world, providing entrepreneurs with an unparalleled marketing platform. One of the most remarkable Facebook statistics is that more than 200 million users log on to the site on any given day. And each user clicks about ten pieces of content each month, meaning Facebook is generating millions of ad clicks every week. With this in mind, the internet gurus at Professional Marketing International have compiled these suggestions for tapping into the Facebook phenomenon.

 Accessing the Facebook Community

One of the quickest ways to access the Facebook community is to create a group or fan page for your business. Whether you offer products or services, you can customize your own page and begin gathering fans. This is an excellent way to spread the word about promotions, announce major events and maintain a relationship with your network. Because Facebook doesn’t allow entrepreneurs to market to groups and fan pages they didn’t create, this is by far the most effective way to get a direct link to a loyal community of fans. Creating a group or fan page is easy and Facebook provides instructions every step of the way.

Facebook group and fan pages provide entrepreneurs with amazing marketing opportunities that aren’t just limited to fans in a regional area. Consider this – each day more than 20 million Facebook users become fans of various pages. All told, Facebook pages have created more than 5 billion fans. This is an incredible opportunity to grow your network and introduce new contacts to your business!

Targeting Your Ads

In addition to your group and fan pages, you should consider Facebook’s PPC ad options. Despite its immense collection of users, Facebook offers incredibly accurate targeting tools to help you maximize your marketing success. A keyword box is provided where you can enter the words you’d like to target. Facebook will also suggest related keywords for you to use. These keyword suggestions often provide ideas you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

 The most important part of ad targeting comes with the ten elements Facebook provides you with to help you target your marketing: location, age, birthday, sex, education, workplace, relationship, interested in, languages and connections. A successfully targeted ad uses a combination of these elements, which is called “layering,” and utilizes maybe five or six of the targeting elements to narrow your ad to an accurate profile of who your customer is. Facebook’s easy-to-use interface allows you to experiment with these components until you find the most effective combination. For example, you could target your ad to men in California, between the ages of 18-24, who speak German, have a college degree and are interested in surfing. This flexibility helps you maximize your success and get the most out of Facebook’s marketing platform.

 As you go through the targeting process, Facebook provides you with an estimate of how many users would be reached. As your category selection narrows, the number of users goes down. A good number to shoot for with your first campaign is 65,000. In subsequent campaigns you can always expand or tighten that number. Facebook also provides you with data on those who clicked your advertisement, including what other kinds of advertisement they also clicked on. This information is extremely helpful as you optimize your ad in the future.

Landing Pages

Facebook allows your ads to direct users to any legitimate landing page you choose. Many entrepreneurs use a squeeze page that enables them to collect the user’s name and email address from the get-go. Just make sure that any promise made in your ad is delivered on your landing page. Facebook will check this and cancel any ad that they deem misleading.

 Another strategy that PMI Education consultants suggest is to link to a Facebook group or fan page for your business. This can be beneficial because some users are leery of leaving the Facebook site when they click on an ad. The disadvantage to this is that your group or fan page will still be a Facebook page with a lot of other ads and distractions. The user may even be intrigued by a competitor’s ad that they see on your own page. In this regard, using a landing page outside of Facebook may make some users a little uneasy, but it gives you more control and removes these distractions.

Conclusion

Facebook is a powerful marketing tool with incredible staying power. The current lack of advertiser competition provides entrepreneurs with amazing opportunities. By applying these strategies, you can effectively reach your target audience and drive major traffic to your website.

Take a moment to think about the last five websites you visited. Did you immediately exit from the page or did you take the time to explore the site? What elements effectively enticed you to remain or make a hasty exit? What elements make you more likely to make a hasty exit from a site? Creating a compelling and relevant website is essential to keeping visitors on your site, and keeping visitors on your site is essential to success.

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave your site directly from the first page they visit. A low bounce rate is desirable, indicating that visitors are moving past that page and exploring your website in greater detail. A higher bounce rate means that too many of your visitors are quickly “bouncing away” after arriving on a landing page. These visitors aren’t viewing the other pages on your site, making it impossible for them to take the desired course of action.

You can analyze your site’s bounce rate using a robust stat tool, such as Google Analytics. This data helps you understand what is working and what isn’t. You can minimize your bounce rate by making your landing page more compelling and relevant. Your landing page should offer clear navigation points, because visitors will exit your site if it isn’t easily accessible. Another way to prompt visitor interaction is to offer visitors a free gift, such as an ebook. Contests can also be an excellent way to get visitors excited about your site. You could do a weekly trivia contest or a sweepstakes.

Professional Marketing International also recommends that you consider using multiple landing pages. This allows you to present visitors with a landing page containing the keywords and content unique to each individual ad you run. If you use this strategy, just make sure that you back up any promises made in the ad and present accurate information in the content. Whatever strategies you use, keep your visitors in mind. What will keep them on your site? What will encourage them to interact with the content? Answering these questions will help you get the most from your website.

In today’s world, blogs have become a powerful way for entrepreneurs to share information and develop an online following. The special software used to create a blog is called a platform and there are two different kinds – hosted and non-hosted. In this article, PMI Education will help you decide which option is best for you.

A hosted platform houses your blog on their server. Blogger.com is an example of this type of platform. Hosted platforms offer several benefits to users. They are generally user-friendly and free, making them a particularly good choice for beginners. After a quick registration process, you are given a URL (web address) with the name of your blog. A hosted platform URL also includes the name of the platform. For example, scubadiverpro.blogger.com. Platforms such as Blogger.com already have good page ranks with search engines, giving your blog the opportunity to rank quickly.

One disadvantage to hosted platforms is they can be generic. With their general lack of customization control and limited design options, hosted blogs often look very much like the other blogs on the platform. A big contributor to this sameness is the generic URL. The requirement of including the platform’s name makes it hard to create a distinct name. And like it or not, your blog URL will be forever tied to any hosted platform you sign up with. If you decide to change to a different platform, you’ll have to create a new URL, because you obviously can’t take a name like scubadiverpro.blogger.com with you to a non-hosted platform like WordPress.org. Creating a new name means you will have to start over again in the search engines and you may also lose some of your readers.

Many experienced bloggers opt for the freedom and dynamic control of a non-hosted platform. If you have web design skills these platforms can be especially beneficial. By creating and purchasing your own domain name, such as scubadiverpro.com, you have full control. If you were to move to a different hosting service, you could take the name with you. Also, original domain names are more professional-looking. For those wanting to monetize their blog, this is a great way to give it a distinct and recognizable brand.

With a non-hosted platform, you must find hosting elsewhere. Because most ordinary bloggers don’t have access to their own server, they use a third-party server. Non-hosted platforms like WordPress.org and Textpattern.com provide affiliate companies that will host your blog for a price, such as BlueHost.com. Setting up a non-hosted platform can be complex, so beginners should be wary. Options such as BlueHost.com, however, make it simple. Also, you will have to pay annual fees for hosting and your domain name. If your purpose is just to share some news and photos, a hosted platform is a great option because they’re free and user-friendly. But for those who have bigger plans for their blog, such as operating an affiliate business, a non-hosted platform provides the versatility to adapt to changing needs.

In recent years, unsolicited emails have become a huge headache for consumers online. Also known as spam, these emails often contain offensive material or are used by scammers to obtain personal information for criminal activity. Like all legitimate internet educators, PMI Education applauded when in 2003, Congress took action by instituting the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM). In conjunction with this Act, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) implemented rules to stem the tide of unsolicited content.

Here are some of the key requirements of the FTC’s rules*:

• Identification – Unsolicited commercial e-mail sent to non-wireless accounts must be clearly identified as a solicitation or advertisement for products or services.
• Offering a Way to Reject Future Messages – Commercial e-mail senders must provide easily-accessible, legitimate ways for recipients to reject future messages from that sender.
• Return Address – All commercial e-mail, and e-mail considered transactional and relationship messages (about existing transactions), must contain legitimate return e-mail addresses, as well as the sender’s postal address.
• Subject Lines – Commercial e-mail senders must use subject lines that are accurate. Using misleading or bogus subject lines to trick readers into opening messages is prohibited.

These laws help make life easier for everyone. For one thing, you won’t have to spend as much time sifting through junk emails. Also, when you do receive unwanted messages, you should be able to easily opt out of them. Legitimate email marketers will find that their emails will be more effective as they comply with the FTC rules. Prominent opt-out information may lead to more people remove themselves from email lists, but that is better than dealing with complaints from frustrated customers down the road. CAN-SPAM has provided a strong set of rules to help electronic communication be safer, cleaner and more efficient.

*http://www.fcc.gov/