Facebook plus Google equals Business

May 18, 2011 by John Dilbeck · 6 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Business Networking, Facebook, Marketing, Sitesell and Site Build It 

Where are the two best places to promote your business if you want to be found by new customers?

Think a moment. Where do you search for things you want?

That’s right. Facebook and Google.

Sitesell will help your business get found on these two sites.

Sitesell has tens of thousands of customers around the world who use their tools and strategies to build websites that get found. They’ve been doing this for over 10 years — and that’s how long I’ve been one of their very satisfied customers.

I personally recommend Sitesell. I’m a satisfied long-term customer and a happy affiliate.

Their new service is targeted to people who own traditional offline brick and mortar businesses and want to be found in their local area.

I think it could be useful to some online-only businesses, if you want to target a local area, instead of globally.

If you own a business and want to promote your products and services locally…

Sitesell has introduced a new service to help you market your business on Google and Facebook.

Facebook has become the most popular way to promote your business by engaging with your customers and prospects using a Facebook page for your business. There are a few things you need to know in order to use Facebook effectively for this type of marketing, and there is a bit of a learning curve.

Sitesell offers two levels of service. One helps you get started. Or, if you prefer, someone at Sitesell who already knows how to do all this will work with you to target your market and offer and then do the tech work for you.

I think it’s priced very reasonably. If I were doing this type of service, I’d charge more than they do.

The more I know about building an online business, and promoting offline businesses online, the more I value what I’ve learned from the talented folks at Sitesell.

It’s also why I use their tools to promote the businesses that are owned by my clients. For example, Murphy Gold is powered by SBI, one of the services offered by Sitesell.

You already know how important it is for your business to be found on Google when someone is searching for the products and services you offer. Right?

Now that Facebook has exploded onto the scene, it’s time to promote your business where people are flocking.

Look over the offer. If you have questions, call the number listed on that page. They will answer your questions for free. Really.

No obligation. Really.

They WILL NOT stick you on a mailing list and bombard you with offer after offer, never-ending upsells, and breathless hype about new product launches, as we see so many other companies doing.

These folks are the real deal. They specialize in helping people build online businesses and now they’re extending that service to helping you promote your business on two of the most popular sites in the world: Facebook and Google.

Right now, before you forget or get distracted by all the other things you have to do, go and check out their offer.

Is this something that will help you promote your business better?

You’re a responsible business owner. Due diligence is important, and I always recommend researching a company before doing business with them. You can learn more about Sitesell on their Facebook page.

See why thousands of people “Like” Sitesell on Facebook and read what they are saying about the company and the services they provide.

If you have specific questions about Sitesell and their services, their Facebook page is a good place to ask. (It also lets you experience how a company can engage with prospects on a Facebook page.)

If you are an affiliate marketer and want to earn commissions while helping local business owners…

You can earn a commission by becoming a Sitesell affiliate and promoting their services and products to people you know in your local area who want to use Google and Facebook better.

Most small business owners do not have the technical skill and knowledge that’s needed in order to get the most out of Facebook. Some do very well on their own, and others do not.

It’s that second group that you can help the most by letting them know how Sitesell can help them.

I use Sitesell’s tools every day to promote my business and those of my clients, and I’ve been considering helping them do a better job with their Google and Facebook presence. Now, I don’t have to do it. I can just explain how it will help them and then refer them to Sitesell Services.

It’s a win-win-win situation.

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How will Google Personalized Search affect affiliate marketing?

December 8, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 17 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Attracting Visitors 

How much do you know about Google’s personalized search feature?

For some time now, if you were signed in to Google (through any of the accounts you may have there), your search results were subject to being personalized.

I first realized how important this was when I was doing some search engine optimization and promotion for a client. I told my daughter that we were already getting page one placement for that client and she said she didn’t see it.

That’s when I remembered that I was logged in to Google. When I logged out, and did the search again, the results were different. My client was not on page one and these new results were consistent with what my daughter saw when she did the same search.

So, after that, when I was testing search results, I had to remember to log out of Google.

Last Friday, however, Google rolled out personalized search results for everyone and you’ve been opted-in by them automatically, whether you are aware of it or not.

Here’s their announcement…

Personalized Search for everyone

Now, personally, I think this has potential for real differences in how people see search results and I think it’s going to get more different over time.

How good or bad it is would depend upon how you’re using the search engines – Google, specifically.

As a marketer, I’m not much in favor of it and won’t be until I see how it affects traffic flow in the future. I’ve worked hard for many years to rank well for some search terms and this has the potential to destroy all that effort. I don’t know that it will, but it might, so I’m going to try to watch and see what happens.

As a user, it may have its benefits, but, again, only time will tell. I am not happy that Google opted me into this with no say on my part, however. I want a way to turn it on and off, and at this time, I don’t know if that’s possible. I’m still learning about it.

Danny Sullivan wrote an excellent post on the topic…

Google’s Personalized Results: The “New Normal” That Deserves Extraordinary Attention

Danny knows a lot more about all this than I do and I’ll be watching to see what else he has to say on this topic.

So, what do you think?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Adsense Ads – A New Look

November 23, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 7 Comments
Filed under: Advertising 

A few months ago, I removed all the Google Adsense ads from this blog and some of my other sites.

Today, I decided to take a new look at how Adsense might perform on this blog.

There were a couple of reasons I removed them.

1. I could earn more from affiliate sales.

2. I didn’t like all the Get Rich Quick junk being shown in the Adsense ads on my sites.

When I put the Adsense Ads back on my blogs, today, I took a couple of steps to overcome the two items listed above.

1. I logged into Google Adsense and clicked the Adsense Setup tab. Then, I clicked on Competitive Ad Filter and entered the domains of the sites that I saw advertising my best-earning affiliate programs.

I’m sure this will be an ongoing process, but it’s not hard to do and takes little time.

2. Then, also in the Adsense Setup tab, I clicked on the Ad Review Center.

This was a new feature to me. I don’t know how long it has been available, but it was just what I was looking for.

They list a number of category filters and I selected seven of them (out of the maximum 8 that we can choose). One of the categories I filtered out of my ads was “Get Rich Quick.”

Since one of the things I keep writing about is to watch out for all these GRQ things that are all over the Internet, I didn’t want to be a hypocrite and have bunches of their ads on my pages.

So far, so good. I’ll keep watch over the types of ads that show and see what other tweaks will be necessary to show only, or at least mostly, the ads I want on my sites.

I got to thinking about this a few days ago, because – even though my affiliate marketing earnings have gone down this year – Adsense has continued to produce income on a daily basis. Not as much as I would like, granted, but I can’t earn if I don’t show the ads, can I?

I used to get a nice check from Google every month. This year, I’ve been averaging a check once every other month. I’d like to get it back to where I receive a nice check from Google every month, again.

I’ll be monitoring the performance of Adsense over the coming month or two and I’ll be tweaking ad types and placements to see if I can earn more on a regular basis.

It will be interesting to see how this works.

What about you?

How are you doing with your Adsense ads?

What have you been doing to improve the performance and therefore your income from them?

Act on your dream!

JD

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I will not participate in Google’s interest-based advertising

March 13, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 36 Comments
Filed under: Advertising, Opinions 

I received an email from Google about a change in their Adsense advertising program.

Here is a brief excerpt from it:

We’re writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site’s privacy policies. You’ll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user’s previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. “sports enthusiast”). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the “sports enthusiast” interest category….

I am totally opposed to this.

In the past, I have really liked Google Adsense, and one of the main reasons is that they analyze the pages with ads and try to serve the most relevant ads that match that content.

I don’t think they put cookies on visitors to those pages, but I’m not certain of this. In fact, I really didn’t think about this until they emailed me about this new interest-based advertising.

Now, however, they will be tracking visitor browsing and I don’t want to be a part of it.

In the past, Google had a mantra of “Do no evil.”

I think they’ve just crossed to the dark side.

I went to my Google Adsense account and opted out of this. I do not want to show any of their ads based on user interest categories.

I don’t care if it means I’ll earn less money from them.

There have been times when I’ve depended upon the money I make from their ads on my sites and I’ve always been happy to deposit their checks.

As long as I have a way to opt out of this new method of advertising they’re going to use, I’ll continue showing Adsense ads on my sites.

If they ever make it mandatory, I’ll close my Adsense account and remove their ads off all my websites, no matter how much money I’ll lose.

I am totally opposed to this and will not participate in their interest-based advertising.

Bad Google!

Act on your dream!

JD

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