1. Game Sharing

So you enjoy playing Facebook games. There’s no shame in that. Own it! However, under no circumstances should you post your stats on a daily or even weekly basis. Your friends really don’t care how great you are at Scrabble or how many zombies your plants may have zapped. Trust me on that. Otherwise, prepared to be known as the person with way too much time on his hands who is a little proud of that fact.

2. Posting Overly Inspirational Memes

Enough already with the inspirational quotes! Yes, when used sparingly and chosen carefully, wise words from a respected leader can inspire true inner change. Chances are, no single Facebook post is really that well-researched. Lay off the inspirational memes and quotes. Flooding your feed with them will just get people hitting “hide all posts” from you.

3. Being a Cryptic Drama Queen or King

You know what I mean. There are some people who thrive on posting a clearly unfinished thought in the apparent hopes of people asking for more. Never post things like: “Wow, that was the most amazing news ever!” or “I’ve never been this disappointed in someone.” When you leave out the most important part of the story you’re sharing, that is just asking for attention, and it’s sure to annoy people left and right. Also, it will probably just prompt a lot of questions you probably shouldn’t answer in a public forum.

4. Overdoing It With the Selfies

Taking self-portraits on a daily basis is bad enough, but updating your Facebook profile photo to a new selfie every day is going off the deep end of social media etiquette. Kick that self-portrait timer on your camera to the curb. Don’t look back. Nobody really needs 500 pictures on Facebook, so take it easy and update your photo sparingly. Your friends will thank you.

5. Liking Your Own Posts

You are welcome to love yourself, but if you are on Facebook try not to ‘like’ yourself!  Think about it. When you “socially network with yourself” by clicking “like” on your own posts, that’s akin to laughing loudly at your own jokes at a party. People are sure to take notice of it, and they’ll go away from the experience with the impression that you are conceited or, at best, a bit lacking in tact.  If you are posting it, we can all assume that you like what you’re saying.  There’s no need to drive that point home.  After all, you don’t want to be seen high fiving yourself in public…!

At Breakaway Solutions, my award-winning website development company, building a high-traffic website is the ultimate objective of the entrepreneurs and corporations that use our services. But how to get there?

You can always turn to experts like myself when you want more eyes landing on your home page. Some of our advice is practical, some of it philosophical. Yes, page layout plays a part, search engine optimization is a key consideration; and creating links, utilizing social media and optimizing your database are all crucial. But over and above those essential elements, it’s universally agreed that content is still king in creating return traffic to your website.

Some simple rules

Content is generally considered to be the text on your site and it has its own set of rules. You should ask yourself some questions before creating content: Who are your readers? What information can you provide that will give them value, a reason to return to your site and, optimally, incentive to share it with others. For example, this is my personal website, separate from the website for Breakaway Solutions, yet inherently intertwined with my business. My goal here is to impart advice from my experience to help others reach their entrepreneurial goals. By it’s also a personal site, so I try to convey some of my own inspirations for success in a way that’s both educational and motivational.

Above all, know your audience! Your content should be tailored to those you want to reach while being original, engaging and an incentive for further exploration of your site. Depending on your purpose, strive for timeless information with a long shelf life.

How much is enough?

How much content should there be? It’s true, copious and continually changing content stacked with the right keywords is important. For keywords, think of yourself as a typical Google or Bing user and incorporate search words they might use to find the sort of information you are providing. Length can also be a consideration. Some of my peers would discourage lengthy pages and might recommend posts of anywhere from 500 to 1,000 words.

Personally, I think length should be determined by the amount of space necessary to convey good, usable information, with some links to a few outside sources that you would also deem valuable, or which share a similar message. Links are also important for SEO purposes.

Other reputable sources

For example, if you want to know more about some of the tools and tacks of building a website, I might recommend other like-minded bloggers such as Tim Ferriss, whose content is always eclectic, insightful and, maybe most importantly, shared. He sets a good example and I feel confident that my audience would benefit from many of his topics, including How to Build a High-Traffic Blog Without Killing Yourself.

I mentioned Steve Pavlina in my previous post and his name bears repeating here. Steve writes some excellent content on personal development, so we have kindred interests. His thoughts on building a high-traffic website are definitely worth a read and, as he points out, sometimes differ from what some other experts might recommend. But he has some definite ideas about content. He sums up his philosophy in a way that I would agree with: Even if you forget all his tips, he says, “just focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself.

I could not have said it better myself.

Those can be just some of the mundane perks of having an online business; you can start work in the morning wearing pajamas if you feel like it. But there are more substantial rewards: the freedom to set your own work schedule, the self-satisfaction of starting a successful venture, the power to choose your own projects and not have to answer to a boss; and if you do it right, you can own a very lucrative company.

As a partner in Breakaway Solutions, a full-service web development company I launched in 2001, I consult with many entrepreneurs who want to grow their online business. I also operate several ecommerce sites myself, and my background has provided me the background to guide others in everything from marketing approaches to email collection.

Building a Successful Website

I believe there has never been a more opportune time to be an entrepreneur due to advancing technologies, especially for young people who are computer savvy. Building a website these days is relatively easy, but it’s what you do after it’s up and running that takes additional know-how. Don’t be fooled by the adage from that Kevin Costner baseball movie: “If you build it they will come.”

That’s where marketing comes in; and if you can drive people to your site in enough numbers, your chances of monetizing the site to your benefit can increase exponentially.

And marketing a website is intrinsically linked (pun intended) to technology. There is somewhat of a science to running a successful website that includes such things as enabling permalinks, using keywords that improve SEO, optimizing ads in your layout and making contact information prominent. Of course, having highly readable and interesting content is also part of the equation.

One of my peers, Steve Pavlina, has done a good job explaining optimal content with his post How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog) and other articles on his site, StevePavlina.com. I like Steve’s approach because, like me, he intertwines business and personal development.

Knowing Your Technology

Understanding your readers and creating engaging content for them is crucial, but that doesn’t excuse the site operator from understanding permalinks, RSS feeds, pinging and other technologies. If you’re a beginner, you might turn to books such as “Building a Web Site for Dummies” or one of the many books available about WordPress, such as the recently published “WordPress Revealed: How to Build a Website, Get Visitors and Make Money (Even for Beginners.”

You should have some rudimentary understanding of the technology required to run a successful website, but if you “just don’t get it,” that shouldn’t be a reason for abandoning your dream. There are also services available that will do the work for you. One of the best is called Site Build It! – a one-stop-shop for creating and building an online business. For an annual fee, Site Build It! will give you all the tools you need to build a site with the potential to generate income. The fee covers the cost of hosting the site, registering a domain name, integrated tools that provide ease for adding content, including a built-in blog, as well as offering RSS feeds. So if you are not a technophile, you can turn those things over to people who are.

Site Build It! is just one company that offers such services and it may be worthwhile checking out several to find which one is best for you.

Of course, no service is going to relieve you of your duties completely. Establishing a money-making website still takes plenty of time and energy; you have to work hard at it just as you would at any other type of business. But isn’t it nice to know there’s help out there if you need it?

So, if you don’t like to commit to New Year’s resolutions, consider this just a new tip sheet for achieving your marketing goals in 2013:

1. Optimize your website for smartphones and tablets.
Computers are no longer your main concern when it comes to website compatibility.  Smartphone and tablet sales are eclipsing computer sales, and these mobile devices are what people are using to search the web. Too many websites fail the mobile device compatibility test, but by this time next year everyone will have adapted their websites to mobile technology.  Make sure you jump on the bandwagon sooner than later. Remember, it’s not enough just to have a website that doesn’t compartmentalize and break apart on mobile devices; you want users to be able to log on easily and navigate your site intuitively from their cell phone or iPad. That means customizing your website specifically for those devices.

Even more specifically, when a person is web searching on an iPhone or iPad, they will be more apt to use their fingers to scroll pages than rely on hyperlinks to move from page to page. Also, no page should ever require the reader to scroll from left to right. Buttons and form fields should be large, easy to read and fill the screen. Keep in mind that on average, 25 percent of your potential customers are visiting your site from a mobile device, and that figure is growing exponentially.

2. Create at least two pages of new content every week.
Every time you add fresh information to your website, your search engine rankings get a boost. Google is persnickety when it comes to determining a site’s SEO ranking, and the frequency in which you inject fresh, unique, relevant content to your site will be critical in determining your place in search engine results.

In 2013, make it routine to add two items of fresh content to your website every week.  Make it a blog post, add new resources to your Resources section (if you don’t have a Resources section, add one).  Interview an expert and add a Q&A forum, or even add a new page to your site. Make yourself a solemn promise to add new content at least twice weekly, and reap the benefits of your increased search engine rankings.

3. While you’re at it, create new content for distribution too.
Website content is only a part of your strategy to improve SEO.  You also want to get links to your website, and the best way to accomplish this is through the creation of excellent content worthy of sharing – articles, press releases, and videos for instance.  Have a professional craft a press-ready press release at least once a month for maximum benefit, and distribute it through online wire services to bloggers, industry sites, publications and partners. By doing so, you’re improving your company’s branding, boosting credibility and goodwill, and increasing traffic to your website via those all-important in-bound web links that define results-driven SEO. The more competitive your business, the more important new content is to your success.

4. Make your social networking pages (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest)  more interesting.
Do not follow in the footsteps of most businesses that fail miserably when it comes to engaging  with their social media audiences. If you are not putting effort into your Facebook and Twitter pages, you are wasting a valuable resource and you’re falling further and further behind the competition each day. Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm determines which content will appear in users’ streams. It also penalizes posts with low numbers of “Likes,” comments, and shares.
Take an honest look at your Facebook page and ask yourself if you think it’s interesting enough to capture yourself as a reader, or a fan, or a follower. The more competitive your business, the more important your social networking pages are to your online marketing success. Make it interesting. Make people want to be on your page, and make sure they will want to come back for more.

5.  Don’t abuse or misuse anchor texts.                                                                                       A word of warning about SEO – Google is on to all of us. They have taken to ranking real brands over the average website, and Google doesn’t really care about your anchor texts. Why? Because Google has figured out that only approximately 2 percent of anchor texts are natural. You need to think about how a real person would post. When it comes to products or services, they are going to link to it via  a raw URL, brand name, or a simple command such as “click here.”

We put a lot of emphasis on keywords, but the truth is that most bloggers don’t take the time to consider what keywords they should use to link to a website in order to boost SEO rankings. If you contribute content to another website, don’t agonize over anchor texts. It’s more important for the content to read natural, and if it doesn’t don’t bother posting it. Google is fond of in-text citation and relevance of the content you are publishing.  For instance, if you’re writing a blog article on tax law and you’re using various appropriate industry terms, Google will read that and award you a high ranking.

6. Don’t stop learning.                                                                                                                       If you enter into 2013 with no other piece of advice, you will be OK. Being an active learner all the time is the most underrated, overlooked and foolishly ignored activity any business owner or manager can latch on to. And I don’t just mean what’s already obvious – do more than read the articles on SEO, for instance. Become involved in the SEO community. Become a regular reader of  the SEOmoz Blog, follow influential SEO guides on Twitter and Google+. Communities like Inbound.org are great places to go for the latest research and inspiration. Read at least a few articles pertaining to online marketing every week, if you aren’t already. The online marketing industry is evolving at lightning speed, meaning once you fall too far behind there may be no catching back up. Make learning all you can about the latest in online marketing one of your priorities in 2013.

All the traditional advertising and marketing you have invested in will no longer engage your customers in the way that social marketing does.  Just having a website today, won’t cut it.  Today’s customers expect new information constantly and they want to connect with the people they are buying from.  If you have any doubt about this, check out these points:

• Many tier 1 corporations have given up their primary websites and deal strictly on Facebook
• Without a Twitter presence, you don’t exist for many young consumers
• Consumers use their smartphones for all aspects of their lives, if your content isn’t mobile friendly, they will move on to your competitor who is
• If your content is not relevant and up to date you are missing opportunities to connect with current and potential clients
• Blogging and videos are used by your clients as sources of information

It’s all about the Content

Times have changed and your content cannot be all about you.  Your customers get thousands of marketing messages every day, they are looking for something that will help them in their lives or at least entertain them.  If you want to engage and compel your customers to be interested in you, you must give them something.  You need to be seen as the expert and the “go-to” in your niche.  For instance if you are selling garden supplies, don’t just blog about mundane gardening tips … tell them how to grow the biggest prize-winning roses … or how to have the best lawn in their neighborhood.  Even better, post a video showing “how-to” grow roses or get the best lawn.

Your content must be current

Now that you have an idea of what it takes, just producing the content will not be enough.  You must think like a publisher to attract sales and have current content whether it is on your blog, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube videos.  This is a huge challenge for some business owners as they do not have the time or resources to put on this task.  If this is your situation, you could benefit from outsourcing or engaging your employees to contribute, schedule and manage your online marketing content.

Most small businesses deal with a social marketing expert (either full time or on a consultant basis) to determine where, when and what they should concentrate their social marketing efforts on in order to reach their clients.  You need to be wherever your clients are, whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc. etc.

Regardless of how you get it accomplished, you must start thinking about your marketing differently.  Think of your clients as subscribers to your publishing efforts.  If you deliver valuable, current and compelling content to your readers (customers), you will become the “go-to” and your business will naturally grow.