I love Facebook. Really I do. So don't get me wrong, but using Facebook to build your business without the proper foundational internet tools, is preaching to the choir.

What? Facebook is essentially a gated community. Unless you are already "in", you are not going to see much in that neighborhood. The internet is "open", so how does someone find you there? You already know the answer.

Now that you’ve built a great site, you’ll want people to be able to easily find and visit your site.  One way to do that is to simply give them the address (www.nameofyourwebsitehere.com) so they can go there directly.

But, of course, that only works for those people to whom you have a close enough connection to provide the address. Everyone else will find your site on Search Engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. How can you optimize your site to ensure you appear as high as possible in the search engine rankings?

Start with the basics. Description, Titles and Keywords are critical. But keep in mind that keywords are not made out of magic (this is explained further in the Keywords help article linked above). Just because you add a keyword to your site does not mean search engines are going to find you through that keyword. If life were that easy, we’d all be rich and retired to our own private islands by now.

Get a Google Webmaster account. If Good Ink built your site, you have one!  Let's check in regularly to review your site stats. It's FREE and included in your subscription.

Use page names that are relevant to search words and phrases. The name you provide to a page is the name given to that page both in the site navigation and in the address of that page on your site. Why is this important? Because if a word is in your address it is seen as more relevant to your site by search engines. More relevant means more likely to to show up in search results.

Use keyword phrases in your links. If you link from one page of your site to another, use descriptive text for the link. For example this:

                         Read our How to Create Links article to learn how to do this on your own site.

Is better than this:

                         Learn how how to create a link by going here.

Use Titles to headline content in your site (when appropriate). Search Engines see Titles (which are tagged as H2 -- don't worry about this if you don't know what it means) as generally more important than regular text. You can add Titles to your site via Title element and via the Title section of any Paragraph element that includes a Title.

But don’t write all your text in a Title. That will make things worse for your site. You can’t trick the search engines like this, so don’t try.

Is your site relevant only to people in a certain area? Highlight that by Creating a Google Map that shows site visitors your location and by referring to the physical location of your business throughout the site where appropriate. Writing “Visit our San Francisco showroom” is better than writing “Come see our showroom.”

Use alt-text for your photos. This doesn’t work in our galleries or slideshows, but you can add alt-text to a regular picture by clicking on it and using the Advanced Option in the toolbar. This should be used to add a short description of the image. View our How to Upload a Picture instructions to see more detail on this option.

Get other sites to link back to your site. The more sites that link to your own site (as a general rule), the more Google trusts your site to be worthwhile. Think of other people linking back to your site as word-of-mouth that tells not just other people to check-out your site, but tells the search engines to do the same.

There is nothing more important to your ranking than other sites linking to you, but there is no get-rich-quick method to get links back to your site. Build interesting content and let people know it exists. Just as building a business takes work and time and effort, building traffic to a website takes work and time and effort.

Link to your own site from any other sites you may have (like a Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook profile). If you have an email newsletter, archive it via your email provider's site so that your own newsletter acts as another site linking to you. Belong to groups? Ask them to link to your site on their site.  People won't link if you don't ask them and tell them about your site! 

Maintain a Blog. A blog enables you to continually add content to your site. The search engines like to see new content on your site. So did I mention, write a BLOG!  Good Ink always builds you one.... USE IT! 

Set reasonable goals. If you're a photographer, you are not going to show up at the top of the search results for the word photographer. If you're a florist, you aren't going to show up at the top of the search results for flowers or mother's day. 

But if you're a photographer in San Francisco, you can potentially get to the top of the list for San Francisco Headshot Photographers. If you're a florist in London, you can work to get a good search ranking for Valentine's Day Flowers, London. Focus on that. Focus on getting your site to show up in a search for your own name. Try to get the attention of bloggers who may write about your business. Encourage visitors to review your business at places like Yelp.com and on Facebook ( ONLY available if you set-up a Facebook Biz Page; See How to set up your Facebook for Business here.)

Get Reviews.Yelp, Google+ and other sites that rank your business are really important. Especially now that Google is looking to verify you as a legitimate business and source of for information. Recent studies have shown that when people land on a page and see the star by your business name, they are twice as likely to click through.

And if you want more tips, read the posts on the Good Ink Blog. This helpful article is meant to be a good place to start, but there's so much more to learn! 

Unless you have a site that can answer this question and drive business to you, this is no joke but a legitimate question.

Is your business on Google? 
Do clients find you on web searches? 
Wonder if you need a website? 
Want a website, but not the hassle? 
No worries. We understand and can help.

I consult to a lot of nonprofits and small businesses. I kept hearing how people hated their websites but either lacked the resources or funds to change them after investing thousands to get a site. So these sites sat online never altered because no-one knew how to edit them. It's like a front door that no-one ever answers. Who wants that?

Problem solved. Good Ink now offers websites that anyone can maintain, update and keep current - and it's all included in one price. No hidden fees. Everything is included right down to the Google analytic links and a mobile version. Start from nothing and have a fully functional site in one week! 

Whether you already own a domain name, or just need to revamp a website, Good Ink can help. From online stores, text alerts, POS system connectivity and galleries. We pride ourselves in taking the "geek" out of the design and making this critical marketing process as easy as possible. 

Once your site is designed and built to your specifications, Good Ink provides a custom 24/7 Client Portal that gives you access to editing your website at any time with simple tools to change pictures, add text or add pages.  After all - It's your website! Tell us what you want it to do for your business, and we'll figure out how to build a site that works for you.

If you had a site built by Good Ink then a Blog is in your future. Didn't get one at set-up? Call me. We'll get you up and running right away.

But you're reading this, so we'll assume you are ready to roll with that BLOG  

So what do you need to know? 

Congratulations. You've opened your editor and written a BLOG (if you need some guidance on writing a BLOG post refer to "Better Blogging Tips and Tricks"). 

Once you publish those words of wisdom... what next? Why write at all if you aren't taking advantage of free social media?

Once you hit that Publish Button, your BLOG posts just sit idle, awaiting an audience.  Chances are if you have a new website, you don't have an audience yet. Here is exactly how to build an audience and get folks sharing your posts:

1. After you hit PUBLISH, your post is Live on the web. You need to open your site ( not the editor) and go to your Blog page. There you should see your post in all its glory. Hello post! You could stop here and just hit the Twitter and Facebook Links... but that is NOT enough. (hit Twitter anyway!)
2. Go to your live site in another tab. Now "click" on the headline of your post. Look to your navigation bar. You should see the address of your post written something like this: http://www."YOUR SITE".com/1/post/2014/05/post-title.html".  Copy that address ( now a link)!
3. Now - open Facebook. Open "update status". Paste that link right there.
4. Watch as FB loads your direct link to THAT post.  Do you see it there?  Now delete the link in the status bar. Your post should still be visible.
5. Write something pithy above your post.  "Great Fathers Day ideas", etc. 
6. Are you on a Places Page or a Business Page? Make sure to start the sharing by "liking" your post as yourself. i.e. Julene Hunter likes a Post on J HilburnNV page. 
7. Now repeat in Pintrest, Google+, or wherever you share... maybe even a group page?

IF YOU'RE NOT USING GOOGLE ANALYTICS TO ITS FULL POTENTIAL TO MANAGE YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS, YOU MIGHT BE MISSING OUT ON A WHOLE WORLD OF DATA POTENTIAL.

BY KINJAL ADESHARA

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:

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:

• Review of your site content or structure
• Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
• Content development
• Management of online business development campaigns
• Keyword research
• SEO training
• Expertise in specific markets and geographies.

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:

• Google Webmaster Guidelines
• Google 101: How Google crawls, indexes and serves the web.

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:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories? Good Ink - YES
• Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines? Good Ink - YES
• Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business? Good Ink - YES
• What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success? Good Ink - by reviewing and comparing Google Analytics from the start.
• What's your experience in my industry? Good Ink - Ask us.
• What's your experience in my country/city? Good Ink - Ask us.
• What's your experience developing international sites? Good Ink - Experience in both bilingual sites and we meet all recommendations published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and in the UK - ICO.

• What are your most important SEO techniques? HTML Tags, and building "clickable" content
• How long have you been in business? Good Ink - since 2006
• How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them? Good Ink - We use an open access editor for the life of your site hosted with us. You see and can make any changes we recommend, or can hire us to make them for you. There is no hidden activity on your site.

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:

1. Google is LOCAL: Google will always feed local listings in the search results. So it is unlikely somoen n Florida will find your business in Nevada, unless you have something in your listing that is either VERY unique, or about Florida. So...You will need to use an actual address for this service! This address will be public... so something to consider beforehand. Don't want to list your house? Get a Street address at your local Mailbox Store as your business address. 
2. Google is SEARCH Savvy: When you describe your business - be smart. Are people looking for J. Hilburn ( or a brand you carry), or for tuxedo's, menswear or tailoring? List services that people are searching for as they apply to what you do. 
3. Google takes TIME: Set-up takes 4-6 weeks until you are confirmed. Then Google will send you a postcard at your registered address with a super-secret code. If I am building your website, I will need that code to enhance the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for your site. If you have a site, add it to your heading section on your pages. 
4. Get started NOW: https://www.google.com/business/

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/.

• Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:
  
  "Dear google.com,
  I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
  
  
• No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
  
  
• Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do.Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or "throwaway" domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to "help" you. If an SEO has FTP access to your server, they should be willing to explain all the changes they are making to your site.
  
  
• You should never have to link to an SEO.Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.
  
  
• Choose wisely.While you consider whether to go with an SEO, you may want to do some research on the industry. Google is one way to do that, of course. You might also seek out a few of the cautionary tales that have appeared in the press, including this article on one particularly aggressive SEO:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002002970_nwbizbriefs12.html. While Google doesn't comment on specific companies, we've encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful.
  
  
• Be sure to understand where the money goes.While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they "control" other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn't work with Google because our advertising is clearly labeled and separated from our search results, but be sure to ask any SEO you're considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.
  
  
• What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter? What are some other things to look out for?There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO. It's far from a comprehensive list, so if you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO:
• • owns shadow domains
  • puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
  • offers to sell keywords in the address bar
  • doesn't distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
  • guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
  • operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
  • gets traffic from "fake" search engines, spyware, or scumware
  • has had domains removed from Google's index or is not itself listed in Google