 An e-commerce site is an excellent way of generating revenue with minimum physical effort--but that doesn’t mean it can thrive on its own. Tools like Google Analytics are key for your e-commerce site's survival. Access to data and the ability to analyze it are the foundation on which successful online stores are built.
Study of web analytics reports from Google Analytics can help you get useful insights into important factors like campaigns that are actually working, pages that are getting lots of attention, and products that get little response from customers. However, in order to get all kinds of extensive metrics regarding your store, you will need to customize certain core areas of Google Analytics. Doing so will help you boost your sales, and it will also aid in increasing your site's overall value for customers. Get ready to make the most of your e-commerce site with these five crucial customizations in Google Analytics:
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 By Ryan Pinkham w J HILLIE edits by me
When it comes to getting started on Pinterest, people tend to fall into one of these three categories: I’ve heard of Pinterest, don’t know what it is, and would like to learn more… I understand what Pinterest is, but don’t know how to get started… I joined Pinterest because someone told me I should, but I haven’t really done anything with it… If you find yourself in any of these categories—this post was written for you. Do you know how to get around on Pinterest? It’s a good idea—before you start using Pinterest to market your business—to create a personal profile to help learn the ropes. Get familiar with the language (pin, repin, boards, etc.) and explore the different pages and features that Pinterest offers. After you’ve answered those very important questions, you’re ready to get started building your presence on Pinterest. Here are 10 things you need to do to get started… 1. Get your names straightened out As of right now, Pinterest does not offer “official” brand pages for businesses or organizations. For that reason, things can sometimes get a little tricky when choosing the right user name for your account. On Pinterest, there are two names you need to be aware of: your username and your account name. Your username is the name that will be used in the URL of your Pinterest page (www.pinterest.com/username), but will not be the name that is displayed on your profile. The name that will be displayed on your Pinterest page (and will be the name that people use to search for you on Pinterest) is your account name. So if you’re setting up a page for your business, Pinterest will still ask for your “First Name” and “Last Name.” What you will need to do is fill in those fields as if your business’ name was your name. (For example, Constant Contact would fill in the account name as First Name: Constant, Last Name: Contact.) Until Pinterest launches “official” brand pages, users will have to split their business name into the “First Name” and “Last Name” fields.  The following is from GOOGLE. So consider the source.
SEO is an acronym for "search engine optimization" or "search engine optimizer." Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site. Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including:
Keep in mind that the Google search results page includes organic search results and often paid advertisement (denoted as "Ads" or "Sponsored") as well. Advertising with Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results. Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results. Free resources such as Webmaster Tools, the official Webmaster Central blog, and our discussion forum can provide you with a great deal of information about how to optimize your site for organic search. Before beginning your search for an SEO, it's a great idea to become an educated consumer and get familiar with how search engines work. We recommend starting here: If you're thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site. Some useful questions to ask your Developer/Designer about SEO include:
For Reference: My J Hilburn page in J. Hilburn Northern Nevada ( written out as - "https://www.facebook.com/JHilburnNV"). Whatever you choose - This is the "address" you will use to copy and paste into your Facebook link on your new website home page! Original article by Anum Hussain w appropriate edits by me for JHILLIES. :) You can use your existing Facebook page or establish a new one and manage both from the same login. I recommend you keep your J Hilburn page separate from your personal page for any number of reasons, but mainly because you are making the business public. Below are instructions for setting up a business page in Facebook. Get Started The time has passed when Facebook was a "good idea" for businesses to try. It's now essential to your inbound marketing strategy. Thing is, Facebook keeps changing how to set up Facebook business pages -- both on the large scale with the rollout of Facebook Timeline, and on a smaller scale with new features that are rolling out all the time. Don't waste another day poking around aimlessly on Facebook, trying to figure out what the heck to do to get your Timeline up and running like a social networking pro. This post will break it down so literally anyone -- novices and experts alike -- can set up their brand's Facebook Timeline 100% correctly. Either follow this step-by-step video tutorial, or read the transcribed steps below, to get your business on Facebook today. 1) Choose a Classification Navigate to the following URL in a new tab to create your business page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php Once there, choose from one of the following six classifications: Local business or place (PICK THIS ONE SO YOU CAN GET REVIEWED!) Artist, band, or public figure Company, organization, or institution Entertainment Brand or product Cause of community This classification will help you rank for more relevant searches and provide relevant information fields on your page. After selecting, fill out your business name (or if you selected one of the other options, your brand or company name). The business option also asks for further location information. Keep in mind that your category and name cannot be changed once your page is created. So type wisely, otherwise you’ll have to delete the entire page and start anew. 2) Complete Basic Information Upload Photo Facebook will now prompt you to upload the main photo for your page. This photo will appear as your icon every time you comment on a post or appear in news feeds. Ideally, it should be your company logo. The actual dimensions of your profile picture is 180 X 180. This will shrink on your page to appear as 125 X 125. About Section Next, you need to write your 'About' information. This small blurb will serve as the main 2-3 sentence description for your company. It will be on your main page, so make it descriptive but succinct. Be sure to include a link to your company website as well. Also ensure that this information differentiates your brand, making your page even more appealing to potential followers. 3) Use Your Admin Panel Your admin panel is the main hub for managing your business page. It's filled with various features and options to optimize your page and your monitoring of that page.  Edit Page The 'Edit Page' option in the upper right provides various options. The first option, 'Update Info,' allows you to update the basic information you provided earlier in the tutorial. This will also allow you to enter a description, which is an extended version of the 'About' information you entered earlier. Users only see the description by literally clicking 'About' on your business page, so you should feel comfortable sharing lengthier and more detailed information in your description. You can also manage the roles of your page administrators. This allows you to invite various employees from your business to be administrators on your Facebook page in order to respond to comments or messages specific to their function, without giving them complete power over your page. The other options under 'Edit Page' allow you to manage your notifications and add page permissions. Build Audience Often, marketers get so excited they started a Facebook page that they invite users right away. But challenge yourself to think about a more strategic method for inviting users. First, you want your page filled with content. Then invite your brand advocates to start engaging with that content. Once your page has some interactions, invite more fans and contacts, and they'll be more interested to like the page when they see the buzzing hub it is. From that point, it's at your discretion if you'd like to use Facebook's advertising tools to further promote the page. 4) Fill the Page With Content Cover Photo With the introduction of Timeline came the introduction of your best visual real estate on your business page: the cover photo. The exact dimensions of this cover photo are 851 X 315. Be sure to select a creative horizontal image that will appeal to users who land on your page. Custom Tabs Facebook also allows you to have an endless amount of tabs on your page. As you can see in the image above, you can only customize four of them -- meaning only four can appear on the page before the user has to click the arrow to see the rest. Think critically about what you want to appear in these four slots, whether it's events, photos, groups, etc. Keep in mind that if you use third party applications, you should configure the tabs to be indexed on Facebook and not on the third party server. Posts NOTE: If you have a website publish news on your BLOG First, then publish to Facebook! (Read why here) When posting on your page, be sure to use a variety of content. What images would your audience like to see? What stats would they like to read? What links would they like to click? You can also click the little star to the upper right of any post to highlight it horizontally across your entire page. Not only will this make it look like you have a cover photo on your actual timeline of posts, but it will highlight the page as a milestone in your company history. Use this feature for product announcements, business anniversaries, and other major events pertinent to your brand. Monitor While having a gorgeous Facebook page is awesome, you want to ensure you're monitoring how fans are interacting with it. To the upper right of your Admin panel, you'll see all the private messages users are sending to your page. Meanwhile, the upper left and center of the panel shows all the posts users are liking and commenting on. Be sure to respond to comments and messages as needed to ensure your fans know you not only care about them, but to avoid the detrimental impact of ignoring these folks. In fact, according to Gartner, failure to respond via social channels can lead to up to a 15% increase in churn rate for existing customers. 5) Measure Your Efforts At this point, you've built and shared a Facebook business page that accurately represents your business. Now you need to measure your efforts to ensure you're making valuable marketing decisions on Facebook. Click on the 'View Insights' option to the bottom-center of your Admin panel. You'll be able to monitor reach, engagement, and the like in order to help you grow and adapt your Facebook marketing efforts around what's working and what's not. And voila! You have a Facebook business page. Now go post interesting content and amass a loyal base of fans!  Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus /ˈɡuːɡəl plʌs/) is a social networking and identity service that is owned and operated by Google Inc.
WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE ON GOOGLE +? If you are unable to be on Google Maps/Places/Business because you DO NOT want to establish your home address as a public registered business (and many wouldn't), then this is for you! Like Facebook, you establish a Page. After your page is set-up you can share it on your site. Link to your website Linking your Google+ Page and your website is useful because It provides Google with information that we can use to help determine the relevancy of your site to a user query on Google Search. Your site will become eligible for Google+ Direct Connect. Note: If you have a local Google+ Page, you should use the local verification process to add your business information to Google Maps and display the verification badge on your Google+ Page. You may also choose to link your website to the page using the process outlined below. Backgrounder: Google has described Google+ as a "social layer" that enhances many of its online properties, and that it is not simply a social networking website, but also an authorship tool that associates web-content directly with its owner/author. It is the second-largest social networking site in the world after Facebook. 540 million monthly active users are part of the Identity service side, by interacting socially with Google+'s enhanced properties, like Gmail, +1 button, and YouTube comments. In October 2013, Google counted 540 million active users who used at least one Google+ service, of which 300 million users are active in "the stream". In a 2013 survey, 30% of surveyed smartphone users used the Google Plus app at least once a month. 92% of US smartphone users had visited a Google web site or app in August 2013, according to another survey. UPDATE 2016: Until Google kills Google+ it is still a valuable place to register your existence as a company. Unlike Facebook, this listing is open to search, and therefore better for SEO.  Get your business on Google for Business. Google for Business gives you access to free tools that help your business get online, be found on Google Search and Maps and get closer to your customers. It’s the easiest way to manage your business across Google and it’s free.
Get started for free Let people find you! 97% of consumers search for local businesses online. Be there when they’re looking for you with a business listing - this is the easiest way to show up on Google Search and Maps. What you need to know:
 Yay. You have your own website and you've personalized the front pages.
GOOD NEWS IS... I already configured your SEO. Want to fine tune it? Call me and I will unlock your Settings tab. NOTE: I used to keep this unlocked but some folks played with the Mobile and Editor Settings and blew up their site.... so if you want to access this section...let's do it together! ONCE UNLOCKED: Go to YourSite.com/login. Login. Go into "Settings." The 3rd option is SEO. Click on it. Up pops this window. Site Description: I want you to enter your name and a SHORT blurb describing your services. Make sure to include your area. Meta Keywords: Every word must be separated by a comma. Just put some general terms here. Pants, trousers, cutom, men's clothing, etc. Footer Code: Leave this alone! I will put up more data here about the footer code later. Basically I will register you for Google Analytics and we can share that info ( you'll have it emailed to you.) Header Code: If you are registering for Google Places (recommended see article on this BLOG) you will enter some "HTML code" here when it is sent to you. Go to "Google Places" on this Blog to begin that process. Otherwise, leave this alone. Hide: Do NOT hide if you want to be found. 301 Redirects: Leave it be. PLEASE under no circumstances should you change the Mobile or other settings on the left side of the page. It can end your page as you know it!  Source : Google
Note: Good Ink Does NONE of this! While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site's presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index. Here are some things to consider: One common scam is the creation of "shadow" domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client's behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor's domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO. Another illicit practice is to place "doorway" pages loaded with keywords on the client's site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO's other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content. If you feel that you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit: http://www.ftc.gov/ and click on "File a Complaint Online," call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to: Federal Trade Commission CRC-240 Washington, D.C. 20580 If your complaint is against a company in a country other than the United States, please file it athttp://www.econsumer.gov/.
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