I have done quite a bit of research and writing on the topic of how to improve your Google Maps, now known as Google Places, placement. For many businesses that sell locally, like lawyers and pest control service companies, placing well on Google Places can mean big business and terrific free exposure.
I am asked repeatedly if we offer services in this area, and have been performing services for a few select clients over the past year. However, we are now ready to roll out a program that may help to garner you the placement you want for your local selling business. Please be aware we don’t guarantee placement, but from our experience and understanding of what seems to work in Google Maps, many of our clients have had their listing become visible (when it was not previously) and some have nice improvement in their position.
We invite you to click in to read our full pricing and information on this new service. Set up is $240 and monthly updates are $40. Included in our set up is the purchase of 20 images to rotate in your Google Places account. Although this service may not be a good match for every business, if you sell locally, it is one you will want to review carefully.
I’m sure you’ve seen them – Facebook Fan Page Welcome Pages; specially created pages with images and links to your website the first time you hit someone else’s Facebook Fan page. Well, here’s how to create one for your own Facebook Fan Page.
First off, this is for your Fan Page and not your personal profile. The welcome page you create will only be visible to people who are not your fans yet. When they fan you, or now “like” you as Facebook has changed the descriptor from “fan me” to “like”, they will be directed to your wall and won’t see your welcome page again on entry.
Welcome pages can be great to give an overview of your business, link to important information about you, showcase products or services, or even direct customers to your online store.
Here are the steps to follow to set up your own Welcome Page.
1. Make sure you are logged into your Facebook account and are on your Fan Page administration page. This page will start with Settings, Wall Settings, Mobile, and then Applications just to name a few. Under “More Applications” click the “Static FBML” Link. Follow the link and click on the new Facebook page that appears to add this to your page.
2. Click back into the manage your page section again and look for a new item in your page management control panel that is called FBML. Click edit. A new screen opens that is titled FBML. Change this to a one word or two word header such as Shop Now or Welcome. This name will appear on your Facebook tab, so it has to be short.
3. In the page content enter your information. You can either create a line break between paragraphs by using simple html code such as <p> before each paragraph and ending with </p> after each paragraph or pushing enter to create the needed white space.
4. For web users who know their way around a bit of html you can link in images using html code and a complete URL from an image hosted on your own website’s server, and even link to pages or products using html code as well. If this part is over your head, you should get your webmaster involved. This page does not take complex html code only very simple elements such as images or links. That being said you can liven up the experience using html and image elements on this page.
5. lick “save changes”. You are not done yet, but almost. Navigate back now to your edit fan page control panel and then “Wall Settings” go to view settings. Under “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else” select your new Welcome or Shop Now page from the drop down. Voila, now when a new possible friend/fan comes to your Facebook Fan page for the first time, they will see your Welcome page.
If this sounds too complicated for you, you may want to consider paying us to set this up for you. You can visit our Facebook Fan page for pricing and Fan page management levels.
Just recently one of our clients was interviewed by a high profile online magazine. Their quote was good in the piece but another person in their industry spewed out “wrong” information, according to my client. The client wanted us to write an article pointing fingers at the offending competitor to put him in his place, so to speak.
I always caution clients about speaking poorly online of competitors and for that matter naming names as there is absolutely nothing good that can come from the exchange. In fact, doing so may actually be harmful to you or set you up to become a target yourself.
It is not unthinkable that an angry competitor that you have targeted, will work to smear your reputation online with dirty tactics to get back at you. Re-mediating issues such as this are nearly impossible and can end up being damaging to your own online reputation.
My advice is vent and rant to your friends, but keep rants and finger pointing off line. Don’t give a competitor a reason to make you a personal target.
Most legitimate businesses would simply not escalate finger pointing into a vendetta, but there are some unbalanced people out their who happen to own businesses who may take very personal offense at comments directed at them or their behavior and work specifically to damage your online reputation in retribution. So, be careful when it comes to pointing out something that a competitor does that you consider “wrong”. You don’t want to become a target!
Not only did I read about this on the Web, but one of my new clients has been sued by Getty Images for over $17,000. Here the full listing on Google.com if you are interested in reading more people’s comments on this topic. Many are calling it a scam, but use of licensed images for unlicensed purposes puts you in a very tough spot.
The person who I know who got sued, used a pre-designed template from another resource. Unknown to them, the template they selected used an Getty Image. Clearly the template designer had not purchased a license to resell the image and that is why Getty Images sued this person.
What ended up happening was the client on advice from his attorney, shut down his website, closed his business under that name, abandoned his domain, and had to open a new business. Wow, that is pretty harsh action to be forced to take. What if this happened to you and you really didn’t want to close up shop?
I guess the big takeaway on this is, if you use a template design, you now need to confirm that the template you buy has bought the license to any images in the design and has transferred the license to you. It is not good enough that a license has been bought by the original designer for their use, but that you must be covered as well. In most cases this means the original designer must purchase an extended license particularly for resale and boy those type of licenses are expensive.
